Mike and I decided to endeavor on grilling fish in my apartment. One of my favorite kitchen tools is a stove top grill (I bought mine on sale for $50 from Williams Sonoma a few years ago but it does not appear they have it any more). It fits across two burners and makes mean pancakes on the flat side and great chicken on the ridged side. Fish was a new undertaking, however.
Now I have a large kitchen by NYC standards, however, it is poorly ventilated and the smoke alarm is in a tiny hallway right outside the room. The tragedy of this event involved me standing below the smoke alarm for upwards of 20 minutes waving a magazine. This paled in comparison, however, to the even greater tragedy of making my entire apartment smell of fish for the next four days.
I will sidenote here for a second to talk about the request that went out to all of my friends on Facebook for advice on how to get the smell of fish out of ones apartment when opening all the windows, lighting candles, febreezing, spraying air freshener, and putting out baking soda didn’t work. I got some very interesting responses. Lavender oil, scrubbing everything down with lemons, oil reeds, and roasting coffee beans in a skillet came up. The most creative response, however, came from Mike’s Aunt Helene who gave us his Aunt Meggie’s trick: Boil water in a pot and then cover it and put cinnamon on the lid. Wouldn’t you know it? It worked! The smell was hardly detectable after about 30 minutes of boiling. Good to know!
As for the food itself, it turned out pretty well. I have come to the conclusion though that I need to accept that I just don’t like salmon. Smoked is fine, but when it’s cooked I’m just not a fan. Mike made salmon for himself and a tuna steak for me. He also prepared an awesome, off the cuff soy, garlic, and ginger sauce for us to dip the fish in. We paired it with some boxed butternut squash risotto and threw tomatoes and zuccini on the grill pan when the fish was done. We then enjoyed our labors on the balcony, which was lovely.
I love Markets. Farmer’s Markets are my favorite and I’ve always loved Chelsea Market. I like walking into a place having no idea what I’ll cook and selecting my dinner based on what looks the best that day. The only problem I have with NYC markets is that they’re crowded and it can sometimes be very annoying to have to push through everyone. Nothing in Union Square Market was calling out to me, especially not enough to go through the crowd any more, so Mike and I made our way to Chelsea Market for the fish at The Lobster Place.
I felt overwhelmed at the fish counter, however, I wound up selecting the Turbot. Why? I have no idea. It just called out to me (and perhaps had the word “buttery” on the description) and was something I had never tried. The sign also mentioned that it resembled halibut, so when struggling to find a yummy sounding turbot recipe, we looked into how to cook halibut and found an easy butter/shallot sauce that sounded good (so much for eating healthy with fish)! We added the homemade pasta bought from the Italian market and made our favorite brussel sprouts recipe once again. The scallops also looked great, and are always a favorite, so we cooked some of those up for an app (just a touch of egg, then flour, then pan seared). It was a hearty and rich meal that we thoroughly enjoyed. We also picked up some of my favorite Fat Witch brownies for dessert. YUM!
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Shallot Butter Sauce
· Pound Butter — softened
· 2 Shallots — chopped
· 1 Cup White Wine
· 1/2 Cup White Wine Vinegar
· 1 Tablespoon Lemon Juice (we went without)
· Salt And Pepper — to taste
Directions
Saute shallots with the wine & vinegar. Reduce the liquid for 10 minutes until the pan is dry, and only shallots remain. Whisk in butter. After butter is totally melted, add remaining ingredients, bring to boil. Remove from heat, keep warm.
For our anniversary, I gave Mike a gift certificate to The Institute of Culinary Education (AKA ICE) since we have been enjoying cooking together so much. He was nice enough to take me with him to learn how to make “Great New York Restaurants’ Signature Dishes.”
From ICE’s website: “Thanks to Chef-Instructor Loren Banco, enjoying your favorite dishes from some of New York’s best restaurants is only a class away. You will learn the following signature dishes and desserts: from Balthazar, Salad Balthazar; from Babbo, Mint Love Letters; from Craft, Hanger Steak with Bordelaise Sauce; from Le Bernardin, Roast Monkfish on Savoy Cabbage and Bacon-Butter Sauce; and from Gotham Bar and Grill, Warm Chocolate Cake.”
Mike and I had a great time making the recipes, and we specifically focused on making the filling for the raviolis (“Mint Love Letters”) and the fish. Everything was delicious and I learned quite a bit.
The teacher was a bit… militant, however. He stressed everyone out by yelling at them for odd things (like keeping a single piece of fish in a pan for the moment in between transferring in a new one). I wanted him to teach us more about techniques that I can use every day and less about “well this ingredient is impossible to find for regular people so you can try to substitute xyz but it won’t be the same.”
We also met some fun people there and overall it was really fun.
Unfortunately my camera battery was dying (and I seem to have misplaced the charger, which is the reason I haven’t been posting as I have no pictures), however, I managed to get a shot of the steak (the sauce was incredible) and the fish (bar blanc sauce is amazing) right before the camera fully died.
