Kat on Thyme

Not Just a Dab

They’re small. You’ll need more than a dab. You might want a couple of dabs, and I’d recommend them pan fried. Sand Dabs that is. After deciding that a pound of salmon should cost LESS than an entire tank full of gas, I asked the fish guy at Whole Foods for another recommendation. He asked if I had tried the sand dabs. I remember eating sand dabs as a kid on the California Coast, but I hadn’t ever cooked them. And at $3.99 a pound, I considered filling my car with them. Sold.

So, as I do whenever I experiment with new seafood, I checked into both the environmental and health concerns about the little dabs. They seem to be abundant off of the West Coast and they are caught by a method called Danish Seine netting which is supposed to be very targeted, preventing by-catch, and habitat damage. Good news there. And as for the health concerns of mercury or toxins, I simply didn’t find any information. I’m going with “no news is good news” on this one, since the little guys are so darned tasty.

So what the heck is a sand dab? Sand dabs are flatfish -- the relatives of flounders, sole, plaice, and turbot. And they are extremely talented. First, they are chameleons. Like a brown dog sleeping in the dirt, they blend into their surroundings. But unlike a brown dog sleeping in the snow, they can change their color to suit their habitat. The other interesting little tidbit about sand dabs is that they are born with one eye on each side of their heads, “bilaterally symmetrical.” (I had to think about that one.) But soon after birth, one eye migrates over to hang out with the other one. So they spend most of their adult lives resting on their sides with their eyes up, blending into the background. I wonder if they turn over to sleep? I actually found some cool sand dab action video. You can check it out if you’re interested. Sand Dabs in Action

As far as eating goes, sand dabs are very mild and sweet. And spring is supposed to be the best season for them. Also, sand dabs that live in actual sand are supposed to be better eating than those that live in mud. “Mud Dabs” just doesn’t have the same appeal.

Since this is such a delicately flavored fish, simple preparation suits it best. A simple pan fry is the way to go.

Panko Crusted Sand Dabs

½ cup flour, seasoned with salt and pepper (taste it!)
1 egg beaten
2 Tablespoons milk or buttermilk
1 pound pan-dressed Sand Dabs
1 cup panko (Japanese bread crumbs)
2 Tablespoons olive oil
2 Tablespoons butter
Lemon wedges

Beat the milk and egg together in a pie plate. Line up three pie plates (or shallow baking pans) with the flour mixture in the first one, the milk mixture in the second and the panko in the third. Dredge each fish in the flour, then dip them into the egg-milk mixture then roll in the panko until thoroughly coated. Place on a parchment covered sheet.

Heat the oil and butter in a skillet over medium-high heat. Cook over a lively but not smoking hot fire for three to four minutes on a side until nicely golden brown on both sides. Serve immediately, accompanied with lemon wedges.

You can quickly de-bone the fish at the table. Insert two forks beneath the upper filet and lift the entire filet away, leaving the bottom filet and the bones in place. Then, remove the skeleton, from the tail end, which should come away in one piece. You’ll have the other filet left on the plate.

This is great with lemon or as I served them, with a simple onion pickle made from thinly sliced red onion left to macerate in white wine vinegar, salt, and sugar until soft and sweet, about an hour.

1 pound feeds 2 to 3 people.

Friday Night Skate

Not since about 7th grade have my Friday nights included skating. After checking out the Roller Derby at Magnuson Park last fall, I’ve been trying to talk my ultimate Frisbee team into a skate night. No luck on that front, so yesterday I decided to shift my efforts and try skate, the noun. If I can’t go skate I may as well eat skate.

Skate, long popular in Europe as bistro fare, is a relative of rays and sharks. The wings are the only edible part of the fish, and the fillet of one skate wing makes a generous serving. The meat is firm textured with fan-like flakes, and the taste is slightly sweet, perhaps a little like scallops. The downside of a skate wing is that it has a piece of cartilage that runs down the wing towards the wing tip. Once you fillet the meat off of that cartilage, the fillet is boneless and easy to cook. There is just a lot of waste, per pound. The upside is that even at Whole Foods, the wings cost between 4 and 5 dollars a pound, and they will do the filleting for you. I asked if the fish guy could show me that procedure of filleting, which I assumed would be complicated. It wasn’t complicated at all- in fact it looked quite easy. And the underside of the wing has small fillets which can also be removed, although they are not beautiful like the ones on top. I asked for the cartilage pieces (I had paid for them, after all) and with those, I made a simple stock that I used to cook the toasted Israeli cous cous that we had with our fish. (I toast it in olive oil and then cook it like risotto, adding a ladleful of stock as the cous cous absorbs it.) One tidbit that I read about skate wings is that they can have an ammonia like odor and flavor, much like shark, if not soaked in acidulated water for several hours before cooking. I’m guessing that the fish guy at Whole Foods had already done that for me, since the skate smelled fresh and briny, like ocean water.

So every time I experiment with a new ocean product, I have to think about the health of the fish, both for me, and for the fisheries that harvest it. I did a little research on skate, and the good news is that skate is one of the safer fish one can eat, in terms of mercury levels. They graze the bottom of the ocean floor eating worms, shrimp, clams, and a few small fish. So little chance of contamination there, since they are eating relatively safe prey. The problem with skate has more to do with the welfare of the fish themselves. They are slow growing, and don’t produce many off-spring. Because they are new fish to the American palate, regulation was slow to be enacted. And often, because they eat shrimp, they fall victim to the shrimper’s nets. There are many kinds of skate, however, and not all species face the danger of being over fished. Indeed, I’d like to chat with the fish guy about what kind of skate they are buying and from which ocean it comes.

The recipe I used for the skate came from Jamie Oliver’s book The Naked Chef. It’s a good one. (Both the book and the recipe.)

Skate Wings with Prosciutto, Radicchio, Capers, and Lemon

Four skate wings of at least 12 ounces each, before filleting
Salt and pepper
Flour
¼ cup olive oil
5 tablespoons butter
2-3 ounces of prosciutto (Whole Foods sells the ends when they get too small to slice and it’s much more economical to buy it that way) finely sliced or cut into tiny cubes
1 head of radicchio, finely sliced
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 Tablespoons of capers, soaked in water and drained
Juice of two lemons

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Season the skate wings with salt and pepper. Lightly dust with flour. Preheat a large skillet over medium high heat and add the oil and 4 tablespoons of the butter. Turn the heat down if the butter solids start to color too much. Place the skate into the pan and cook until nicely browned on each side, about 2 minutes per side. (If the skate doesn’t fit into one pan, you’ll need to do two half batches, wiping the pan in between.) Place the skate on a baking sheet covered with parchment and bake for about 6 minutes or until the flesh begins to flake. While the fish cooks, in that same pan, add the prosciutto and fry until it’s crispy. (Add a touch more olive oil if the pan is too dry.) Add the garlic, radicchio, and capers. Reduce the heat and add the last tablespoon of butter. The radicchio should wilt. Add the lemon juice and pour over the skate wings. Lovely! (Jamie and I both think so.)

Serves 4.

Thursday Night at the Olive Bar

Truly, the more I learn about food, the more I recognize how much more there is to know. I think that’s the attraction. So I was on one of my regular runs down the olive bar at Whole Foods (they should just get me a bar stool) looking for savory additions to the tuna and white bean salad I was  making for lunch. The selection changes often so there’s always something new to try. One of my favorite olive bar treats is the grilled cipollini that are marinated in balsamic vinegar. They have a wonderfully crunchy texture for being grilled and they’re sweet and tart and full of deliciousness. I use them often in panini and tossed into pasta salads.
But getting back to the part about learning something new, when I went to type out the recipe, I checked the spelling for cipollini in the Food Lover’s Companion (great reference and fascinating to peruse) I came across its definition as well. It goes like this:

cipollini [chihp-oh-LEE-nee]
These bittersweet bulbs of the grape hyacinth taste and look like small onions, which is why they're also called wild onions . Fresh cipollini are hard to find in the United States but do make an appearance in some Italian markets during the fall. Jars of cipollini preserved in oil are also sometimes available. For peak flavor, fresh cipollini  should be slowly simmered or braised. They can be served as an appetizer or vegetable.

Who knew! I see grape hyacinth growing in ditches all over Seattle! It’s likely the beautiful purple flowers are done blooming for the season, but if the cipollini are a fall crop, I’m going to start carrying a trowel in the trunk of my car come about mid-August.

But in the mean time, I’ll have to get my cipollini the less adventurous way, at the grocery store.

Olive Bar Tuna and White Bean Salad

  1 can white beans, rinsed
2 cans tuna, in water, drained
1 Tablespoon pickled red peppers, minced (the spicy ones are good!)
3 grilled and marinated cipollini, chopped
2 Tablespoons oil cured olives, chopped
2 Tablespoons capers, drained
3 French cornichons, chopped
1 sprig fresh mint, minced
2 tablespoons fresh chives, thinly sliced into rounds
2 tablespoons parsley, minced
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
Zest and juice of one lemon
¼ cup olive oil (more if it seems dry)
Salt and pepper to taste

Combine all of the previous ingredients and taste. Adjust the seasonings to suit your taste. Add more olive oil, lemon, salt and pepper, or fresh herbs to balance the seasonings. Serve with toasted bread or crackers, or as a sandwich filling.

Kat on Community

Sunshine in Seattle. Finally! It’s a glorious day and I’m feeling both the elation and the exhaustion of yesterday’s activities. It was a busy Easter Sunday.

Easter has always felt like a day of renewal, an optimistic day to think about the blessings of another spring. At Thanksgiving, we look back with gratitude at all of the things that make our lives abundant- family, friends, health, and prosperity. But on Easter this year, I just wanted to take time to really enjoy the people that make my world such a good one, and to look forward to the coming summer with hope and anticipation.

The phone rang in the morning while I was knee deep in little projects. I’ve got a lot going and it seems that there’s always so much that needs doing. It was my friend Amy and she was calling to see if I’d like to come have brunch with her and her husband, Matt. For a split second, I thought, “Well, I’m pretty busy, and don’t really feel like I have time,” but then I realized how silly that impulse was. Of course I have time and of course, I’d be honored to come. I’m embarrassed that I even thought twice.

And the day just spun out from there into a whirl of friends and family and festivity. After brunch, some friends from ultimate gathered for a game of hot box (ultimate with small boxes for goals instead of end zones). My brother-in-law and nephews came out to watch. And still in my Frisbee clothes, I made food for the Seder dinner at my sister’s, and for the Thai dinner that another friend was hosting. Three of us ate tapioca pudding from the bowl while I scrambled to get everything finished. With my sister’s family I celebrated the Seder, the ceremonial meal that commemorates the Israelites’ freedom from Egyptian slavery. Her father-in-law read the Haggadah and we tasted the foods symbolic of the bitter bondage of slavery, and the sweetness of hope. And then with tapioca in tow, Gretchen and I went to Lin’s house for a gathering of the ultimate team. One of our teammates, Angie, has been living in Thailand so everyone prepared a Thai dish to share. By the time we arrived, they were ready for round two of dessert, and I dished up the Coconut and Orange Scented Tapioca.

And to finish up an already lovely day, Nick called from Kuwait to wish me a happy Easter. And indeed, the only improvement that could have been made on yesterday would have been to have him there sharing in the fun.

Family, friends, and good food- a recipe for community and for happiness. And in this new springtime I feel amazingly blessed with an abundance of all three.

There are plenty of post-Thanksgiving recipes for leftover turkey, but I haven’t seen much in the way of recipes for leftover matzoh meal. Here’s a simple fish recipe that’ll take care of a cup or so.

Matzoh and Herb Crusted White Fish

4-6 boneless and skinless fillets of thin white fish (I used catfish)
Salt and pepper
About 1 cup matzoh meal
About ¼ cup fresh herbs, finely chopped (I used tarragon and thyme), plus more for garnish
Olive oil spray
Lemons and oranges for garnish, sliced in half moons or in wedges

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Generously salt and pepper both sides of the fish. Mix the matzoh and the herbs in a flat baking pan (an 8x8 Pyrex dish worked great). Place the pretty side of the fish into the matzoh meal and press down to coat the fish. Then place the fish, crumb side up, on a baking sheet covered with parchment. Do this with all of the fish. If you have lots of parchment exposed around the fish, trim it with scissors. Spray the tops of the fish with the olive oil spray and pop the sheet into the oven. Depending on the thickness of the fish it can take anywhere from 8 to 12 minutes to cook. When the fish is starting to firm on the edges but is still a touch soft in the middle, turn on the broiler in your oven and move the fish to the top rack to brown the crumbs. WATCH IT CAREFULLY ! When the crumbs start to turn golden, remove the fish from the oven. Transfer it to a platter and garnish with the fresh herbs and citrus. 

Makes enough for 4.