Google being evil

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Sun Salad

A pretty salad I threw together; mostly from the garden.
Background "sunflower": Zucchini flowers opened and spread in a circle.
On top: tomato/pepper/onion salad, fava beans in oil/garlic, salmon filet and potatoes.
Garnish: Nasturtium blossom.

Making Liquers

Limoncello
Others

Gotta love that multicolored pasta

Here's some pasta I picked up in Florence last time I was over. One of these days, when I buy a pasta machine again, I'll have a go at making some prettily-colored pasta.
This was cooked fairly plainly, mixed with a chicken/marinated artichoke sauce, and liberally dressed with Parmigiano Reggiano.
More recently, I made some tagliatelle for a pasta primavera - After making some asparagus soup (basic white sauce, boiled asparagus + its boiling water, plus some bouillon), hand-blendering it, and running it through a sieve with a spoon, I was left with a handful of green pulp.

This I mixed with flour and eggs (about 200g flour, 2 egg yolks) and rolled into a thin (very thin) sheet. After rolling it to the center from both ends (like a scroll), I cut it into thin strips, ran the knife blade under the middle, lifted the blade up, and which point both sides unscrolled, leaving me with a pile of tagliatelle hanging from the knife. (So much easier than unrolling in the regular way). A quick dust with flour, leaving it for an hour to dry a bit, then boiled for a minute, served with fresh garden peas, more of the asparagus and some soup to make a sauce, etc.

Five Ways to Fry Catfish

OK, I hate catfish. But I have cooked some pretty good meals in my life, and eaten even more. These can be simple, like a plate of Dublin Bay Prawns (above) with some lemon, or more extravagent meals containing exotic items. But for the sake of posterity, and forming some kind of recipe book, I'll be writing up the most memorable here.

The Prawns above were bought out of the back of a van at a Farmers Market, precooked, unfortunately, but I dropped them briefly in boiling salted water, took them out, sprinked with seasalt and a little lemon juice, and Voila!

John Dory

This is a John Dory; while EXTREMELY ugly, these fish make very good eating. However, they are very sharp spined, so take very good care when handling the fish. As regards cooking, I recommend something simply, like poaching. This means that you can fillet the fish AFTER its cooked, avoiding most of the dangerous handling.

The fish is also known as a "Saint Peter" fish, as the spot on its side is supposed to come from St. Peter touching it with his gnarly black thumbs. The Romans also had a god-thing going with it, presumably, because the Latin name is "Zeus".

Naturalism

Time magazine lately is wondering if cooking has gone too far in presenting food naturally; it decries
"Consider Mina's preposterous fish. There's no doubt that poaching a fish in seawater produces an effect different from that of salted tap water, or broth, or whatever. But they had to fly that water a thousand miles in a jet plane to get it to Vegas! What can be more unnatural than that?"
But the simple truth is that poaching a fish in seawater is as good as it gets. And if patrons pay for it, they are as entitled to enjoy fresh seawater, as the bourgoisie are entitle to enjoy grapes from Chile, over 10k miles away, or Strawberries out of season from anywhere else.

What the article totally misses, is that what these chefs are stressing, is not the"naturalness" of the foods, but that quality of ingredients wins out over preparation every time. You can saute your peas in gold leaf after marinating in snail sauce for a week, and they wont taste as good as my garden peas picked fresh and cooked quickly after picking with a leaf of mint, also from my garden.

Halibut

Note how this Halibut blends nicely into its natural background on terra firma, on the way to the frying pan.

Tortilla de pimientos

Fry a couple of small chopped potatoes with some chopped bell pepper, then mix this into 4-5 beaten eggs (+salt) and put back in the pan. When the eggs begin to set, turn the tortilla over using a plate, and cook the other side. Slice. Mmmmm. You can serve this one hot or cold.
I once brought it to a pot luck, and my host informed me that what I had brought was not a tortilla at all, but a frittata. Silly her.

PIZZA PIZZA

OK, not exactly Irish food, but in my defense, the Irish eat more than their fair share of it. Still, here it is, the good stuff; seen in its native habitat, Rome. Doesnt that look yummy!

Potato Pancakes

The Elbe restuarant in Palo Alto seems to have closed, being converted into a Sports Bar. I used to spend some time there enjoying wonderful food, and I'm going to miss that. On the plus side, it appears that Rudy's Bar will be serving some of the same food. If it werent for them, I suppose I'd have to rely on the Hofbrauhaus or similar.
Mostly these days though, I'm cooking for myself:

Potato Pancakes:
Grate 4 potatoes and one onion; squeeze most of the moisture out, then add some flour to thicken it to a paste and fry: Note: add a small amt. of lemon juice to stop it browning.