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Lunch and an Avocado Grove Tour at Fairfield Farms

2012-05-16T15:18:00.001-07:00

After our tour of West Pak Avocado, we headed out South-East of Temecula to the Pauma Valley for an avocado-centric lunch and a grove tour at Fairfield Farms.

Fairfield Farms is owned by Bill and Carol Steed, who hosted us in the backyard of their home on the property.

Lunch began with some hand-held snacks, the first of which was a toast of avocado bread topped with hummus, a jam (made from what, I can't recall) and a slice of avocado on top for good measure. Very tasty.

Next up was a panko crusted fried shrimp skewer drizzled with a lemon avocado-oil vinaigrette:

Taking a bite revealed some avocado tucked inside along with the shrimp:

The final appetizer was a smoked avocado gazpacho, which was the only dish of the lunch that we didn't really enjoy. An interesting idea, though.

Lunch proper included some very nice salad preparations. This one, with watermelon and avocado and a balsamic dressing made for a surprisingly good combination:

A simple, but very well seasoned salad of greens, avocados, orange segments and pumpkin seeds:

and finally a quinoa avocado salad:

I'm often not a big fan of quinoa, but I really enjoyed it here.

The main part of lunch was rounded out with a piece of steelhead topped with an avocado and corn salsa:

Dessert was an avocado frozen yoghurt topped with granola and fruit. It was rich and creamy, with just the right amount of avocado flavor.

Overall, it was a lovely lunch. The food was catered by Sorrel Restaurant / Bistro in Temecula. If you are in the area, you should check them out.

After lunch, we piled onto a tractor-pulled wagon and headed up into the avocado groves.

We wound our way through the groves, ducking avocado branches as they passed overhead, and arrived at one of the sections currently being picked.

The pickers use a simple, but effective tool - a long pole with a basket on the end. A rope along the pole controls cutting blades in the mouth of the basket.

Once a few avocados are in the basket, the picker pulls them down, snips off excess bits of stem, pops them in his bag and then goes up for some more.

In addition to avocados, Fairfield Farms also grows blueberries and several kinds of citrus.

But today, the focus was squarely on the avocado.

Homegrown Popcorn

2012-05-08T09:23:00.001-07:00

We're just about out of popcorn, and being out of popcorn is not acceptable. Fortunately, Sherry just planted this year's crop.

What? You don't grow your own popcorn? You should - it is easy to do, and tastes great. We grew it for the first time last year, and now it is firmly planted on the list of items we no longer need to buy.

Growing popcorn is a lot like growing regular corn - only easier, since you only need a tiny patch. Well, I guess that depends on how often you eat popcorn... For us, though, a 3 by 4 foot square area was plenty.

We chose Dakota Black Popcorn, from Seeds of Change as our starter seed. It germinated well and grew quickly into six foot stalks with two small ears each.

In mid-summer came the hard part - waiting for the corn cobs to completely dry out. You need to leave it on the the stalk until the husks, cobs and kernels are nice and dry before harvesting the ears.

The reddish black kernels are small, somewhat pointy, shiny and beautiful:

Once off the plant, we set the ears aside for another couple of weeks to fully dry the cob. Then all that remained was to pop the kernels off the cob, discarding any damaged ones.

This task is a bit tedious, but was easily accomplished over several evenings while watching TV or a movie, using a large paper bag to catch the seeds.

For this year's planting we used select seeds from last year's batch. Gourmet popcorn on the cheap!

Here is what it looks like popped:

The dark bits you see aren't burned - the dark kernels just make it look that way. We find that this popcorn has a more interesting texture and flavor that your typical store-bought variety.

If you don't have a garden, or just aren't interested in growing your own, we still recommend trying this kind of popcorn. Before we started growing our own, we used Boulder Popcorn - you can buy from them online.

A Tour of West Pak Avocado in Temecula

2012-05-03T10:11:00.001-07:00

As if sensing our love of avocados, the nice folks at the California Avocado Commission invited us, along with a group of other SoCal food bloggers, to the Temecula area for an interesting, fun and tasty avocado-filled day-trip.

The first part of the day was held at the West Pak avacado packing facility in Temecula.

Talk about a building full of avacados - from the moment we stepped inside, we were completely surrounded by them!

The avocados arrive at the facility from the growers in large bins:

After being dumped out of the bins, they go through a hand-grading process to classify them as "Ones" or "Twos", based largely on their outward appearance.

The control room has monitors that can view all parts of the facility. Some of these feeds are available online to growers so that they can remotely watch their crop being processed.

After grading, a machine sorts the avocados by weight:

We saw two packaging methods - there is a bagging line where avocados are fed onto a conveyor (shown in the photo at the top of this post) leading to a packaging machine. Here are a bunch of avocados being fed onto the conveyor:

and here is a short video of the avocados bouncing along their path to the bagging machine:

The other packaging method is boxing:

Despite all the machines moving the avocados from here to there, it was interesting to see just how much of the entire process was done by hand. The workers hand-sorted initially, hand-packed the bagged fruit into boxes, and with lightning speed, hand-packed individual fruit into trays in boxes.

The lower-grade avocados are sold under the "Dos Amigos" brand - destined primarily for the food service industry where outward appearance is not important:

And here are their more shiny, attractive siblings, destined for a grocery store near you:

We are fascinated by operations like this - seeing the step-by-step process in which a farm crop is transformed into a consumer-facing product.

Thanks to West Pak for having us as guests for the morning, and thanks to all of the West Pak employees who tolerated a bunch of annoying, camera-toting food bloggers in their midst!

Lunch at Mercado Hidalgo - Tacos Fitos and Carnitas El Jerezano

2012-04-22T14:54:00.001-07:00

Having worked up an appetite exploring Tijuana's Mercado Hidalgo, we headed outside to the North corner, where there were a number of places selling tacos de birria de res - tacos made with stewed beef.

We stopped at Tacos Fitos, which I had read about on the Masa Assasin blog.

We tried both the birria de res taco and the taco campechano (shown on the left, below), which was made with a combination of birria and tripe.

Here is a closer shot of the birria taco:

Both tacos were fantastic. Super flavorful.

After wandering around the market some more, we stopped at one of restaurants in the interior - Carnitas El Jerezano:

The carnitas was just ok, but the place was comfortable, the staff was friendly and the freshly made corn tortillas were great

Tacos Fitos and Carnitas El Jerezano were but two of many dining options in and around Mercado Hidalgo. Rest assured that if you come to visit the market, you will not go hungry.

A Day Trip to Tijuana's Mercado Hidalgo

2012-04-17T10:54:00.000-07:00

A couple of Sundays ago, we had some friends visiting and we decided to take them down to Tijuana for the day. Within minutes of walking across the border, we had grabbed a cab and arrived at Mercado Hidalgo, Tijuana's central market.

Here is a map of the market's location - as you can see, it is not far from the border crossing:

View Mercado Hidalgo in a larger map

Taking up a whole city block, the market vendors are arranged around the edge, with the center being a large parking lot.

There was plenty of fruit on offer:

as well as sweets:

and of course, lots of chiles:

and mole pastes:

There was even a little cooking store:

and a few vendors selling Mexican cheese varieties:

Quite a few places had this purple corn for sale. I'd never seen it before, and don't know what it is typically used in:

There was a glass case that contained the largest amount of chicharrón I'd ever seen in one place:

Next to it was this interesting mass that was labelled "Chicharrón Prensado":

This was the first time I've encountered "pressed" chicharrón and I'm definitely curious to learn more about it.

We didn't do much real shopping on this trip - only buying some piloncillo (sugar cone) and tamarind - but the vendors and other shoppers were friendly and relaxed. It made for a very nice day trip.

Some Dishes with Fishes - Round Five

2012-03-30T10:44:00.001-07:00

Posting these fish-dish roundups is becoming a habit with us. Hopefully there will be many more editions to come!

This round opens with a Seafood Fritto Misto - an Italian-inspired dish of lightly-coated and fried fish (in this case squid and black gill). Squid tentacles always look cool, and they tasted great, but the star of the show was the black gill. While the chunks of fish weren't much to look at, they were moist and full of flavor.

Cornflake-crusted White Sea Bass with Salsa Verde

This was our first time trying this take on a Rick Bayless recipe, and it was great - even though an initially too-hot pan caused the outside flakes to over-caramelize. The way the cornflakes went golden-orange was beautiful and also added structure and complexity of flavor to the fish. Combined with the salsa verde, it was very good indeed.

Middle Eastern Pargo Snapper with Bulgur and Garden Veg

We have a burgeoning love affair going on with Claudia Roden's New Book of Middle Eastern Food. It has spawned a number of great meals for us so far, including the fish marinade and flavor profile (lemon, garlic, cumin, paprika, marjoram, mint) for this dish.

Indonesian Fragrant Fish (Grouper) Stew

This dish, from James Oseland's Cradle of Flavor, is a rhizome-fest - using ginger, galangal and turmeric. We've used turmeric a lot as a dried spice, but this was our first use of fresh turmeric, and it made a big impact on us. Lovely flavor and color.

Smoked Scallop Savory Custard

This was a bit of a crazy idea, but it turned out really well. We've been loving the bay scallops we get from Catalina Offshore - particularly smoked. They went beautifully with the delicateness of the soft savory custard.

Prawn Pathia - Indian Takeaway Recipes

2012-03-06T12:10:00.001-08:00

Our Chicken Pathia recipe is one of the most popular recipes on our blog, and we often get requests for additional recipes using our Curry Base Sauce.

This Prawn Pathia is almost the same recipe as our chicken version, but uses fish stock instead of chicken stock, omits the red coloring and, of course, uses shrimp instead of chicken. While the overall flavor profile remains, the shrimp take the dish in a quite different direction.

Some notes on the recipe, as questions have come up on our other curry recipe posts:

We use the term "Indian chilli powder" as that is what is on the label of the powder we typically use. If you can't find that, use a hot, red powdered chile (cayenne works well). Be sure not to use a spice blend - you just want straight powdered chile.
For the stock, you should use just the amount concentrated stock cube or granules that would be needed to make a cup of liquid - do not add the corresponding amount of water. The goal is to get the flavor of the stock without diluting the curry base.

Prawn Pathia

Serves four.

Ingredients:

4 tablespoons oil
1 medium onion, chopped small
1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon minced fresh ginger
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt (to taste)
1-2 teaspoons Indian chilli powder (or other hot, red powdered chile)
1 large bunch fresh cilantro, coarsely chopped (coriander)
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
2 tablespoons sugar
Approx. 1/3 recipe Ubiquitous Curry Base Sauce
1 pound large shrimp, peeled and deveined
Fish stock cube or granules (enough for 1 cup)

Heat the oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add cumin, ground coriander, garlic, ginger, and onion. Cook while stirring until onions are wilted.

Add "Base Sauce", fish stock, cinnamon, vinegar, and sugar. Stir to mix. Add salt to taste, and chilli powder to get the spice level you want.

Simmer for about 10 minutes to allow flavors to mix.

Add a large handful of the cilantro to the pot and mix it in. Simmer for another 10-15 minutes.

About 5 minutes before serving, add the shrimp and another small handful of cilantro. Simmer until the shrimp is opaque and just cooked through.

Serve with Pulao Rice and flat-bread.

Hawaii "Odds and Ends": I-naba Soba, Giovanni's Shrimp Truck, Me's BBQ and More

2012-02-22T10:59:00.000-08:00

Ok - last Hawaii post, I promise!

Here are some odds and ends of food we had on our trip that didn't make it into a post of their own. Above is the cold soba lunch at I-naba Soba in Honolulu. We had never had soba served this way before, and we really enjoyed it. Rather than being served as a soup, you dip the noodles into the sauce. The soba was fantastic, as was the tempura.

Although we had Oahu's north shore locked in as a shrimp destination, our first shrimp of the trip was at Savage Shrimp in Koloa on Kauai. We had the place's namesake "Savage Shrimp" dish. Served in a spicy broth with bread on the side for dipping, it was hearty and flavorful.

Later, on Oahu, we made it out the north shore. We had a hard time deciding which of the shrimp spots to hit up. In the end, we settled on Giovanni's Shrimp Truck - mostly because we were on the bus and it was near a stop.

We shared a batch of Giovanni's Garlic Scampi:

Simple fare, but good. There was a ton of garlic in the sauce - which we really liked, but if you aren't a garlic fan, this wouldn't be for you.

One night, we were wandering out from our vacation rental at the south end of Waikiki and Sherry spotted Me's BBQ. A tiny little Korean joint tucked away on a side-street, the feel of the place immediately appealed to me. They have a small indoor area with a counter where you order, and a few tables outside.

We ended up eating there twice, and our favorite item was the Fish Jun - delicate, thin pieces of fish coated in an egg batter (sorry for the bad, low-light photo):

We like the Jun so much that we made our own version as one of the dishes in our Feast of the Seven Fishes last Christmas Eve. We also really liked their Kalbi and Kimchi.

There was an Izakaya place, Tokkuri-Tei, not far from where we were staying, so we went there for dinner. It had a pleasant atmosphere and friendly knowledgeable waitresses. The dishes we had were hit and miss, but more hit than miss. This beef tongue skewer was one of the better ones:

I had decided that I needed a teriyaki burger. Teddy's Bigger Burgers was just a block away from where we were staying and seemed to be pretty well liked. Not by us, though, as it turned out. The burger didn't look bad:

Unfortunately, it was dry and uninteresting. One of my least favorite burgers I've had in quite some time. And pretty expensive, to boot. Not recommended.

We also cooked with some local ingredients while we were visiting the islands. I saw Redondo's Portuguese Sausage in the grocery store and couldn't resist picking some up:

It was very tasty for breakfast - sliced up and fried with eggs.

And, of course, we couldn't leave out the Hawaiian staple:

Spam and eggs made a lovely breakfast one morning on the tiny balcony of our vacation rental in Honolulu.

I-naba Soba
1610 S King St.
Honolulu, Hawaii
808-953-2070

Savage Shrimp
Kukui'ula Village Suite K-158
2829 Ala Kalaikaumaka
Koloa, Kauai

Giovanni's Shrimp Truck
56-505 Kamehameha Hwy
Kahuku, Hawaii
808-293-1839

Me's BBQ
151 Uluniu Ave.
Honolulu, Hawaii
808-926-9717

Tokkuri-Tei
449 Kapahulu Ave.
Honolulu, Hawaii
808-732-6480

Teddy's Bigger Burgers
134 Kapahulu Ave.
Honolulu, Hawaii
808-926-3444

Food Photo Round-Up

2012-02-02T11:09:00.001-08:00

When we make a good dish, but I don't really have enough for a blog post, I often post a picture on twitter instead. For those of you who don't follow along with those tweets, I figured I'd do a round-up of some of the pictures here on the blog.

The picture above is a homemade Sicilian sausage (one of our favorites - we need to do a post on making them sometime) with Hasselbeck (or is it Hasselback?) potatoes and a black kale salad.

Mapo Doufu

Fuchsia Dunlop's version of "Pock-Marked Mother Chen's Bean Curd", from her book "Land of Plenty" is on our regular rotation.

Chawanmushi

This was our first attempt at making Chawanmushi, and it turned out really well. I love savory custards.

Shoyu Ramen

Not quite homemade ramen - I call it "home-assembled". We buy packaged ramen noodles and add the trimmings - fish cake, pork slices, greens, nori and, of course, a soft-cooked egg.

Lamb Shanks Braised in Red Wine

Is there is anything more comforting than a braised lamb shank? We do a red wine braise based loosely on a short rib recipe from Daniel Boulud's "Cafe Boulud Cookbook".

Romanesco

The first time I saw a picture of Romanesco I was amazed - it is such a cool looking vegetable. Sherry has had great success growing them this winter, and we've been eating a lot of it.

Spaghetti alla Carbonara

Perfectly cooked spaghetti coated with egg is a thing a beauty. We make ours with homemade pancetta, which I prefer to the traditional guanciale.

Green Chile Cheeseburger

We've posted a number of times about green chile cheeseburgers in New Mexico, but we also make them at home, using hatch green chiles that we buy by the crate when they are in season. Yes, that is American cheese on the burger. I make no apologies.

Gougères

Light, puffy and cheesy - Gougères may be the perfect snack. They are made with the same choux pastry technique used for cream puffs, but go a savory direction instead of sweet.

Pan-Seared Duck Breast with Green Beans and Potatoes

Rosy pink meat and succulent skin - what more is there to say?

Homemade Bacon

It has been over three years now since we started making our own homemade bacon, and we're still going strong. Store-bought bacon is a thing of the past for us. We're almost out of the last batch we made - time to make some more!

Malasadas at Leonard's Bakery in Honolulu

2012-01-27T09:26:00.001-08:00

After poke at Ono Seafood, we were ready for some dessert, so we headed up to Leonard's Bakery for some malasadas. Malasadas are a style of yeast doughnut brought to Hawaii by Portuguese immigrants.

Leonard's Bakery is all about the malasadas. They are made hot and fresh to order, come with a variety of sugar toppings, and can be filled with an assortment of fillings.

The bakery does sell items other than malasadas, however. We tried one of their sausage wraps - a Portuguese sausage encased in Pão Doce (Portuguese sweet bread):

It was tasty, but nothing particularly special.

The malasadas, on the other hand, were very good. Our favorite was the original, plain sugar version:

Hot, fluffy soft dough topped with sugar. Simple, but perfect.

We also tried a malasada "puff" stuffed with custard:

I love anything filled with custard, but in this case it was a bit too overwhelmingly sweet.

To round out our malasada sampling, we tried the cinnamon sugar flavor, which we weren't too fond of, and this version with "Li Hing Mui" (salty dried plum) sugar, which we liked:

But the real winner was the "original" malasada with plain sugar. Sometimes simple is the best.

We had a few left over the next day, and the were pale shadows of their former selves - you really need to eat them hot out of the frier. If you go to Leonard's (and you should!), be sure to only order as many malasadas as you can immediately consume.

Leonard's Bakery
933 Kapahulu Ave.
Honolulu, Hawaii
808-737-5591

Ono Seafood - Poke in Honolulu

2012-01-19T10:52:00.000-08:00

We'd had a few pokes already on Kauai, but we still wanted more when we got to Honolulu. Research indicated the Ono Seafood was a good bet, and it was in easy walking distance from where we were staying.

Ono Seafood is a little shop tucked away on Kapahulu Avenue with the entrance faceing sideways rather than out onto the street. We had walked right past a number of times previously and never noticed it.

The place was being run by two ladies - one taking orders, and one filling them:

We got a two-poke bowl with Hawaiian Ahi and Shoyu Taco:

The Hawaiian Ahi was easily the best poke we had during our trip. Beautiful, rosy-red color. Soft, but not mushy texture. Great flavors. We also liked the generous quantity of Limu.

The Taco poke was less good. It was better than the Taco poke we got from Koloa Fish Market, but was still pretty chewy.

We also browsed through their cold cases full of goodies and got some smoked marlin, which provided a very tasty snack as we waited in the airport for our flight home a few days later.

Ono Seafood
747 Kapahulu Ave. Apt 4
Honolulu, Hawaii
808-732-4806

Char Hung Sut - Manapua and More in Honolulu

2012-01-12T11:34:00.001-08:00

One of the things we knew we wanted to try while in Honolulu was Manapua - the local take on a Char Siu Bao - so we hopped on a bus to Chinatown to visit Char Hung Sut.

It doesn't look like much from the outside:

but once we got inside, the tiny shop was a bustle of activity. We crowded into the line of people waiting to order, and watched the assembly line at work.

They definitely do a good business here, as evidenced by the large stacks of boxes waiting to be filled:

The line moved quickly, and soon we were at the front and a bit bewildered about what to order - even after finding the little menu tucked away on a side wall:

Fortunately, the lady taking our order was nice and patient with us and we were soon off with our little box of treasures.

Now for the unboxing!

The big guy on the left is the headliner - the manapua. As mentioned before, it is a style of Char Siu Bao - a steamed bun with a pork filling.

Super good. The bun bread had perfect texture, and the pork filling was a satisfying mix of savory flavor with a hint of sweet.

Next up, the Half Moon:

The flavor of the filling was similar to the manapua, but with a different texture - more chopped pieces rather than shreds. Also very good.

The "Pork Hash", seen below, is a purse-shaped bun with a much denser filling than the previous two.

Next we had another pork-filled bun - Ma Tai Soo. This one was baked rather than steamed like the others, resulting in a more flaky dough. I enjoyed it, but both the filling and the dough were a bit sweet for me.

Now onto dessert. First up, Rice Cake:

It had a fun, squiggly texture and was sweet, but not too sweet.

Our final item was the Black Sugar Mochi:

I was pretty texturally challenged with this one - it just isn't my thing. Still, it was fun to have tried it.

After going through our box of goodies, we were still a bit hungry so we stopped back into Char Hung Sut to get a couple more manapua - much to the amusement of the woman taking our order for the second time. She thought we were crazy for having only gotten one to share the first time around, and she was right!

Char Hung Sut
64 N Pauahi St.
Honolulu, Hawaii
808-538-3335

Feast of the Seven Fishes 2011

2012-01-02T14:48:00.001-08:00

Each Christmas Eve, we go a bit mad and cook up a multi-course "Feast of the Seven Fishes" - just for the two of us. It is fun, and gives us the inspiration to try out some new recipes.

This year our dishes ranged throughout the globe - from Italy and Spain to Vietnam, Korea and the Middle East.

Bay Scallop and Tomato Gratin

Our feast started out with a bay scallop and tomato gratin - a simple recipe from Daniel Boulud's Café Boulud Cookbook. The tomato and the breadcrumb topping added great flavor, but still let the sweet scallops shine through.

Egg, Shrimp and Scallion Pancakes

This dish, from Andrea Nguyen's Into the Vietnamese Kitchen, has become a favorite of ours. Shrimp and egg go so well together. Dipped into some salty fish sauce, these pancakes are pure heaven.

Sculpin Jun

We paired the shrimp pancakes with a similar dish, but from another country. Jun (or Jeon) are Korean egg pancakes. We had our first Fish Jun last month at a little Korean joint in Honolulu, and we immediately fell in love. The way the texture of the fish and the texture of the egg compliment each other is fantastic. We served the Jun with a vinegary garlic-soy dipping sauce.

Gary's Smoked Alaskan Red Salmon Dip

Sherry's sister lives in Alaska, and she and her fiance sent us the makings of this dish (the key ingredient being smoked sockeye salmon they caught themselves). The salmon gets mixed with jalepeños and cream cheese (we used homemade cream cheese, of course!).

To eat it, you put some on a fork, dip it in Worcestershire sauce and put it on a Ritz cracker. It is a pretty crazy combination of flavors, but it works.

Quilcene and Malpeque Oysters

Roughly midway through our feast, we paused for a palate cleanser of oysters - Quilcene and Malpeque - from The Fishery. In past years, we've done a variety of mignonettes, but this year we had them simply plain.

We slurped as we shucked, but I managed to snap a quick picture before they were all gone. Both varieties of oysters were good, but I preferred the Quilcene - they were sweeter and less briny.

Swordfish with Romanesco and Romesco

For me, swordfish has historically been uninspiring - I picture boring, dry steaks coming off the grill. The swordfish we get from Catalina Offshore Products is a different story altogether - consistently beautiful pieces of fish that cook up nicely moist and full of flavor.

For this dish, we paired it with Romanesco cauliflower from our garden, and a Romesco sauce. It was our first time making Romesco. A blend of almonds and roasted red pepper, it is interesting stuff - very rich and intense. A little bit goes a long way.

Fish Stew with Onions and Saffron

This dish is from Claudia Roden's The New Book of Middle Eastern Food, a cookbook that is getting increasingly used in our kitchen lately. The fish is Mahi Mahi from Catalina Offshore. The caramelized onions and saffron gave the broth a lovely burnished color.

And that was our Feast of the Seven Fishes for 2011. Our numbers came out right on the nose this year - seven dishes, seven fishes.

Leftover Stuffing Frittata

2011-12-27T09:54:00.001-08:00

After our Christmas Eve seven-fish feast (more on that to come) and a big Christmas Dinner (Turkey - since we had fish for Thanksgiving), we wanted something simple last night.

We had some Turkey liver left over, which we chopped up and fried in some butter. Then we added some leftover stuffing from our Christmas turkey. Add some beaten eggs and parsley on top and voila - stuffing frittata.

Quick, easy and very tasty.

Fish Express in Lihue, Kauai and a Hawaiian Thanksgiving

2011-12-21T09:21:00.001-08:00

During our excursion to the Kapaa Farmers' Market, we stopped in at Fish Express in Lihue. The goal was to pick up some poke, as well as to get some fish to cook up for Thanksgiving dinner.

We ended up getting their Inamona Poke and their Spicy Ahi Poke.

Inamona Poke (sometimes called "Hawaiian" Poke) is named after the kukui (candlenut) paste that is used in it.The purple stringy bits are Limu, which is the Hawaiian word for seaweed or algae.

The seasoning was fairly subdued, but the texture of the fish was nice and we enjoyed the contrasting, fresh crunch of the Limu.

The Spicy Ahi Poke wasn't very spicy, but it did have good flavor to it

I liked both of these pokes more than the one we got at Koloa Fish Market - primarily from a texture perspective.

We also picked up some smoked marlin:

It was tasty, but had a bit too much of the sweet teriyaki flavor for me.

Lastly, we picked up a beautiful piece of Opah (Moonfish) as the centerpiece for our Thanksgiving dinner:

Given our bounty of local fresh fruit, we made several fruit salsas to go with the fish, and a definitively non-local cranberry sauce for a holiday addition.

Continuing the Thanksgiving feel, we also made up a batch of our traditional bread stuffing (ok, technically 'dressing' since it wasn't stuffed in anything, but it had the right flavors of sage and thyme).

The fish tasted so good all by itself that the fruit wasn't really needed.

Rich and completely savory, the Opah was a great stand-in for Thanksgiving turkey.

Fish Express
3343 Kuhio Hwy
Lihue, Hawaii
808-245-9918

Kapaa Farmers' Market in Kapaa, Kauai

2011-12-14T08:38:00.000-08:00

We always like to check out farmers' markets when we travel. It makes for a fun outing, gives you insight into the local produce and as a bonus you come away with good stuff to eat.

Saucisson MAC told us that his favorite market on Kauai is the Wednesday afternoon market in Kapaa. We trust Saucisson MAC, so Kapaa it was. We were not disappointed.

It was a beautiful, sunny afternoon and the market was bustling. The produce was plentiful and a completely different selection than we get in San Diego.

Not surprisingly, fruit was king. Pineapples, bananas (the Hawaiian apple bananas are so good), papayas, mangos...

We were happy to find that, like our own local market, it was all produce vendors and not overrun with prepared food stands (the closest thing were hacked open coconuts with a straw).

We left with a respectable haul:

Most of the above should be pretty recognizable, except maybe for the little guys up front.

While wandering through the market, I saw a stand selling "longans". I had no idea what a longan was. When I inquired, they gave me a couple to taste, and I immediately purchased a bag.

Longans are a lot like a lychee:

When you apply pressure and twist, the outside skin pops open, revealing the fruit - a white globe with a seed in the middle. They taste heavenly.

Feast of the Seven Fishes

2011-12-12T11:37:00.001-08:00

We've always had a tradition of seafood on Christmas Eve. It started with Sherry's family tradition of oyster stew. That evolved into more of a chowder which then became a multi-fish stew. When we learned of the Italian tradition of La Vigilia (the Feast of the Seven Fishes), we decided that it was right up our alley.

Since 2007, we've been doing an annual Christmas Eve "Seven" fish feast. We don't worry about the exact number of dishes or fishes, and we don't limit ourselves to Italian dishes. We just use the holiday as an inspiration to create a multi-course meal centered around fish and shellfish.

Here are the Seven Fish Feasts we've done in previous years, in reverse chronological order:

Feast of the Seven Fishes 2011

Bay Scallop and Tomato Gratin. Egg, Shrimp and Scallion Pancakes. Sculpin Jun. Smoked Salmon Dip. Oysters. Swordfish with Romanesco and Romesco. Fish Stew with Onions and Saffron.

Feast of the Seven Fishes, Locavore Edition

Halibut Clementine Ceviche. Rock Cod and Potato Ravioli with Marjoram Tomato Sauce. Smoked Fish Duo. Pacific Oysters. Shrimp al Mojo de Ajo. Sculpin with Roasted Golden Beets and Beet Greens.

Feast of the Seven Fishes 2009

Oysters with Chile de Arbol and Cilantro. Niçoise Tuna Skewers. Seared Scallops with Spicy Lentils. Seafood Paella.

Seven Fishes Southeast Asian Style
Oysters with Vietnamese Ginger-Chili Mignonette. Cured Salmon Four Ways. Thai Steamed Mussels. Vietnamese Salad with Smoked Trout and Bitter Greens. Ginger Fish. Squid in Caramel Sauce. Napa Cabbage Soup with Shrimp Dumplings.

Our first seven-fish feast

Oysters with a Thai mignonette. Spicy fish and lentil croquettes. Sardines on toast. Yucatecan squid salad. Fish and shellfish stew.

Koloa Fish Market in Koloa, Kauai

2011-12-09T11:30:00.001-08:00

Our first lunch on Kauai was at Koloa Fish Market. Located near the end of the little downtown strip in Koloa, this tiny shop serves up plate lunches and poke. They have no seating - just a wee bit of space in front of their counter where you can order your food to go.

Their two standard plate lunches are Lau Lau and Kalua Pork. We got one of each.

Lau Lau is pork wrapped in taro leaf, and then wrapped again in ti leaf. The pork was lightly seasoned, with most of the flavoring coming from the taro leaf. Subtle, but tasty.

The Kalua Pork was less photogenic, but super flavorful with a nice balance of salt and sweet.

Both plate lunches came with rice, Lomi Salmon, Ahi Poke and some sort of transparent noodles.

The poke was our first in Hawaii. It was good, but ended up being the weakest we had on our trip. Still, it made for a nice little side for the plate lunch.

Lomi Salmon (which you can see underneath the cup of poke) is kind of like a salmon salsa. I find it slightly strange that it is a Hawaiian standard, since salmon isn't a local fish and tomatoes (good ones, at least) are pretty hard to come by. It was good, though.

One of our friends got the Poke Bento - poke on top of rice with a creamy wasabi sauce. We didn't try it, but he enjoyed it.

We also got some of their Tako (Japanese for octopus) Poke:

The flavor was nice, but I found it overly tough and chewy. The other Tako Poke we tried later in our trip (at Ono Seafood in Honolulu) suffered from the same problem - maybe this is just how it is supposed to be?

Koloa Fish Market is a great place to grab lunch if you are in the area. Solid portions of good food at reasonable prices (particularly for Kauai).

Koloa Fish Market
5482 Koloa Rd
Koloa, Hawaii
808-742-6199

Lazy Days on Kauai

2011-12-07T14:54:00.001-08:00

We just got back from two wonderful weeks of relaxing, swimming, eating, and yes, a wee bit of drinking in Hawaii.

The first week was spent with friends, renting a house a block from the water in Poipu, Kauai. They picked us up from the airport, already provisioned with the key ingredients (pictured above) needed for our stay. A short while later, we each happily enjoying a "Lazy Man's Mai Tai" on our patio overlooking the ocean.

This blend of rum and the ubiquitous local mixture of passionfruit, orange and guava admittedly doesn't have much in common with a real Mai Tai other than rum and fruit. It is tasty, though and really easy to make. I suppose you could make it more Mai Tai-ish with a pour-over of dark rum. We didn't. We were being lazy.

Also making an appearance was Maui Brewing Company's Big Swell IPA:

While the beer from the other Hawaiian breweries is pretty mediocre, Maui Brewing actually puts out some pretty decent stuff.

Their IPA made a nice beverage for sunset.

In addition to our diet of lazy libations, we did also manage to do a bit of eating during our stay on Kauai. More on that soon.

Homemade Coppa / Capicola

2011-11-21T18:06:00.001-08:00

It goes by a number of names - Coppa, Capicola, Capocollo... Whatever you call it, it might just be my favorite cured meat. We first had this tasty cured pork treat from Boccalone Salumeria in San Francisco, and have been big fans ever since.

Given our love of Coppa, I am overjoyed that we have now been able to successfully make it ourselves. Seeing the entire process whereby a humble piece of pork shoulder is transformed into a beautiful piece of cured meat was a very satisfying experience.

As I mentioned above, coppa is made from pork shoulder. More specifically - and where the name comes from - it uses the coppa muscle of the shoulder.

Here is the shoulder that we started with:

The coppa muscle is on the left, on the side of the shoulder away from the bone. Here you can see it after it has been removed from the rest of the shoulder:

The first step is a dry brining process - much like you would do for pancetta or homemade bacon. The dry brine is a simple mixture of kosher salt, cracked white peppercorns and curing salt #2:

which gets rubbed onto the coppa:

Then it gets wrapped in plastic wrap and refrigerated for about two weeks, or until the meat feels a bit more firm (this one took 16 days). The dry-brine is then rinsed off:

After drying at room temperature a couple hours, the surface is evenly coated with a mild blend of ground chile: Piment d'Espelette, sweet Hungarian paprika and a little cayenne.

Then the meat is ready to hang. We encased ours #10 elastic netting from Butcher&Packer. This helps keep its shape and makes hanging easier.

Nicely trussed up, it went into our curing chamber / beer fridge set at 52-55 degrees fahrenheit.

The biggest challenge was keeping the humidity where it needed to be.

We used a Sunpentown Mini-Humidifier (the white plastic doo-dad in the upper right), which was helpful, but not problem-free. It would probably work well in a large space, but even at the lowest setting it put the humidity at 90%. It would also run out of water very quickly at which point the humidity dropped to less than 50%.

We solved the problem by plugging the unit into an appliance timer and setting it to turn off and on every 15 minutes.This way we were able to start at about 80% humidity for the first couple weeks, then slowly drop it down to 65-70% over the remainder of the curing period.

After 7 weeks, the coppa had dropped from a starting weight of 2 pounds, 13 ounces to a final weight of just over two pounds - a loss of just under 30%.

It wasn't quite ready yet, though. We put it back in the fridge for another two weeks (patience is a necessary virtue in meat curing!) to let the moisture content even out.

Then, finally, it was time! From the outside it was hard to tell how we had done, but once we cut into it we knew we had something special on our hands:

Ruby red meat. Clean, white fat. And it tastes as good as it looks. Incredible aroma and depth of flavor.

Thinly sliced using our EdgeCraft Food Slicer, it makes a great snack on crackers or a slice of bread.

We'll pull together our notes and write up a detailed recipe soon.

San Felipe Shrimp Festival

2011-11-10T10:24:00.001-08:00

This past weekend, the folks at the Baja California Secretary of Tourism were nice enough to whisk us down to San Felipe for the annual Shrimp Festival. Accompanying us on this adventure were fellow bloggers from 52 Perfect Days, Cuvee Corner and My Burning Kitchen.

San Felipe is a small fishing town about two hours drive south of the US/Mexico border. To get there, we crossed over from San Diego into Tijuana and drove east past Tecate, over the Rumorosa mountain pass into Mexicali, and down to San Felipe. If we were doing the drive ourselves, we would probably go out on Interstate 8 to El Centro and cross at the Calexico/Mexicali border. The distance is about the same either way, but I8 has the distinct advantage of having Alpine Beer Company on the way...

Speaking of beer, we were relaxing with one and enjoying the warm, sunny afternoon within minutes of our arrival:

The festival was set up along the Malecón - San Felipe's coastal boardwalk - with a stage in the center, and vendors stretching out both sides.

The first evening, we were invited to a six course dinner at the Hacienda Coral Restaurant, the highlights of which were a clam ceviche tlacoyo and a stingray cake in a black bean sauce. Unfortunately the lighting was too low to get good pictures of the food.

The next day we headed a few miles south of town to the "Valley of the Giants" - so named for its giant cacti.

And giant they were:

The huge Cardón cacti are relatives of the Saguaro. In 1992, one was airlifted to Seville, Spain to represent Mexico at the World's Fair.

We also stopped in at the marina:

Most of the larger shrimp boats were out fishing, but some smaller day boats were unloading their nets, and there was no shortage of fresh shrimp for sale.

Both lunches we had in San Felipe consisted of communal seafood "Parrilladas" - an assortment of grilled fish and shellfish. This one, at Mariscos La Vaquita, was particularly nice - shrimp, clams, several kinds of fish (one stuffed with squid), and their version of tacos gobernadores.

Overall, it was a great weekend. Getting across the border made it seem like much more of a getaway than you would normally get from just a few days.

We will definitely be back to San Felipe.

Some Dishes with Fishes - Round Four

2011-11-02T11:06:00.001-07:00

We've been overdue for a "Dishes with Fishes" post for a while now, so here is a look at some of the fish and seafood we've been eating. Previous posts can be found here, here and here.

Pad Kra Praw with Mexican White Shrimp

Pad Kra Praw? Pad Kra Pao? Pad Krapow? However you spell it, this staple of American Thai restaurants is a big favorite of mine. I love the mingled intense flavors of chile, fish sauce and basil. We usually make it with chicken, but it this shrimp version was great. It is also really good with sea scallops...

Grilled Mako Shark with Black Kale and Black Beans

One day, with a bounty of Mako Shark from Catalina Offshore, we did it up two ways. This first one was grilled very simply.

Teriyaki Mako Shark with Shaved Brussels Sprouts

For the second dish, we used a teriyaki-style marinade, and served it with shaved brussels sprouts from our garden.

Pan-seared Cabrilla Grouper with "Pil-Pil" Potatoes and Green Beans

"Pil-Pil" potatoes have become a favorite of ours. We call them that because we first made them after we saw them as a side in a video about making salt cod in the Portuguese "Pil-Pil" style. They went very nicely with this Cabrilla Grouper.

Whole Cardinal Snapper with Chard and Black Beans

We have been really happy with the whole Cardinal Snappers we've been getting from Catalina Offshore and have been experimenting with different ways to cook and serve them.

Whole Roasted Cardinal Snapper Stuffed with Rosemary and Thyme

This version was super moist and flavorful, and the beautiful color of the skin still really came through after cooking.

Tacos Gobernadores with Mexican White Shrimp and Sea Scallops

Tacos Gobernadores, which I think of as shrimp tacos with peppers, onions and cheese, are a staple at local mariscos trucks. This was our take - with some sea scallop thrown in for good measure.

Smoked Bay Scallops and Assorted Fish

Smoked bay scallops are an awesome treat that we first started making this year. They definitely have an "I'll just eat one more" quality to them. Good stuff. This time we also smoked an assortment of fish - we often have pieces left over, and smoking is a great way to use them up.

All Grain Brewing on the Stovetop, and a "Half Nelson" IPA Recipe

2011-10-21T09:49:00.000-07:00

We've been wanting to try all grain brewing for quite some time now. Moving to partial mash brewing made a huge difference in the quality of our beers, and we were curious about how much more we could gain from going all grain.

But, every time we thought about taking the plunge, we always balked at the logistics. A 5-gallon brew pot wouldn't fit on our stove top, so we'd need to get a burner for the patio. Then the hassle of getting the three-tiered set up of hot sparge water above the grain bed to be drained into a huge brew pot. And finally, trying to cool the big 5-gallon pot of wort, then lugging it into the house to transfer to the carboy for fermentation... It just seemed like too much.

Then one day a simple solution occurred to us - we could just do a half batch! Essentially, doing a standard partial mash but omitting the extract and keeping the final batch size at 2.5 gallons gets you an all grain beer.

The obvious drawback is that you only get 2.5 gallons of beer, while doing almost the same amount of work as for a 5 gallon partial mash. But still, it is all-grain brewing on the stovetop with no more equipment than you need for partial mash.

We happened to have some Nelson Sauvin hops on hand, so we decided to brew a beer featuring them. The result was a very nice, light (both in color and body - it is lighter than it looks in the photo) and clean tasting beer. Was it better than what we get with partial mash? Hard to say, since we've never worked with the Nelson hops before. We will have to give the technique a try with one of our more standard IPA recipes.

Given the half batch, and the use of the Nelson, we couldn't possibly have named the beer anything other than "Half Nelson" IPA.

Half Nelson IPA

Total batch size = 2.5 gallons; All Grain Mash in 3 gallon beverage cooler; 2.5 to 3 gallon 60 minute stove-top boil; dry hopped for aroma; target abv of 6%.

Ingredients:

6 lb 2-Row Pale Malt
1/4 lb Wheat Malt
1/4 lb Carapils/Dextrin Malt
2 oz Nelson Hops (8.0% AA)
1/2 oz Centennial Hops (8.8% AA)
3/4 oz Simcoe Hops (12.3% AA)
1 tablet Whirlfloc
White Labs WLP051 California Ale V Yeast

Hop Schedule:

1/4 oz Centennial - 60 minutes boil
1/4 oz Centennial - 45 minutes boil
1/2 oz Nelson - 45 minutes boil
1/4 oz Nelson - 30 minutes boil
1/4 oz Simcoe - 30 minutes boil
1/4 oz Simcoe - 15 minutes boil
1/4 oz Nelson - 2 minutes boil
1 oz Nelson- Dry Hop in Secondary Fermenter
1/4 oz Simcoe - Dry Hop in Secondary Fermenter

Heat 8 quarts water to 167 degrees for a target mash temperature of about 152 degrees. Place the crushed grain (2-Row Pale, Wheat and Carapils) into a large mesh bag. Pour the hot water into the beverage cooler, then lower the grain bag into the water very slowly, pushing and prodding with a large spoon to ensure all the grain is wet (this can take several minutes). Put the lid on the cooler and allow to rest 60 minutes.

While the grains are mashing, heat another 5-6 quarts of water to 180-185 degrees for sparging (rinsing the grains). Near the end of the 60 minutes, heat 2 quarts of water to a boil in your brew pot.

After the first mash is complete, remove the cooler lid and open the spigot to draw off about 2 quarts of wort into a large pitcher. The first few draws will likely be cloudy with grain particles; pour it gently back into the cooler over the grain bag to help filter it. Draw off the remaining wort by the pitcher-full and carefully pour that wort into the boiling water in your brew pot; continue until only a trickle of wort leaves the spigot. Pour about 5 quarts of your hot sparge water over the grain bag in the cooler. Gently lift the bag up and down to thoroughly re-wet the grains (but don't slosh). Cover and let sit about 5 minutes. Use the spigot and a pitcher to draw off all of the second wort and add it to your brew pot.

You should have about 3 gallons of wort. Bring the wort to a boil and add hops according to the schedule. With 15 minutes remaining in the boil, stir in 1 tablet Whirlfloc. At time zero, remove the pot from the heat, cover and let sit 10-15 minutes.

Move brew pot to an ice bath and cool quickly to less than 80 degrees. Transfer wort to a primary fermenter (straining off the hops if desired). Add water to reach the 2.5 gallon mark if necessary. Swirl vigorously then pitch the yeast.

Ferment in primary for 1 week, then transfer to secondary. After seven days, dry hop with 1 oz Nelson and 1/4 oz Simcoe. Bottle or keg after fermentation is complete (2 to 3 weeks in secondary).

Sonoran Hot Dogs at Papa Locos in Tucson

2011-10-07T10:04:00.000-07:00

If you need a quick bite to to eat in Tucson, a Sonoran hot dog is a pretty good way to go. Coming west into south Tucson on I10, we took a quick detour north to check out Papa Locos.

Papa Locos lives in a little side addition next to a Valero gas station's convenience store. There are a variety of items on their menu, but the Sonoran hot dog was our focus.

Sonoran hot dogs (named after the Mexican State where they originated) are Tucson's version of the bacon-wrapped hot dog. To me, the primary factors that differentiate the Sonoran dog from its cousins are the addition of pinto beans and jalapeño sauce and the distinctive bun (which has the texture of a standard hot dog bun, but is shaped more like a bolillo).

Probably the most well-known place for Sonoran dogs in Tucson is El Guero Canelo, but I found Papa Locos' version to be superior in pretty much every way. The meat, beans and chile sauce each have their own intense flavor, and the combination is fantastic.

Papa Locos' Sonoran dogs go for $2.99 a pop. One each wasn't quite enough for lunch, so Sherry and I split a caramelo (a kind of mini-quesadilla) to pad out the meal.

Highly recommended.

Papa Locos
8201 South Rita Road
Tucson, Arizona
(520) 663-3333 ‎

Green Chile Cheeseburgers at Monroe's and Blake's Lotaburger

2011-10-03T10:22:00.000-07:00

Road tripping through New Mexico means that Green Chile Cheeseburgers are very much on the agenda. This trip, we had two.

First up was Monroe's, in Albuquerque. I chose Monroe's because it was well-reviewed and within walking distance of our hotel (Casa de Suenos, which I highly recommend). When we arrived, the place was pretty dead. Undeterred, we entered into the harsh, florescently-lit room and sat down.

You can see the green chile cheeseburger above, served with sweet potato fries (I ordered regular fries). Overall, it disappointed. Not enough green chile for the flavor to really come through, and the burger itself was the thin, frozen puck style you would buy at Costco. It was decently prepared, though, and I had no trouble eating it. Unfortunately, the same couldn't be said about their carne adovada, which we also tried - way too salty, and lacking in flavor.

Overall, it was a pretty bad dining experience. Monroe's seems like a place that has seen better days, and it would be hard to recommend based on our visit.

The next day, we had a much better meal at Blake's Lotaburger in Deming:

We wrote about the green chile cheeseburger at Blake's a few years ago, and this visit was nearly identical. Here is the Lotaburger with double meat, add cheese and green chile:

The amount of green chile was perfect, with tons of chile flavor and a good amount of heat.

There is nothing complicated about this burger - just a better-than-average fast food burger, well prepared, and with the key addition of chopped up Hatch green chile. If someplace in San Diego puts a burger like this on their menu, I will happily give them my money on a regular basis.

Monroe's
1520 Lomas Blvd. NW
Albuquerque, New Mexico
(505) 242-1111

Blake's Lotaburger
600 North Gold Street
Deming, New Mexico
(575) 544-7302