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I would no more go out to eat on Valentine’s Day than I would go out celebrating on New Year’s Eve. It’s amateur night – too many packed restaurants with uninspired food and iffy service. Plus, since we’d both been … Continue reading
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Tired of holiday leftovers yet? I sure am, and this dish was a quick and spicy cure for the post-holiday blues. 1 pound raw shrimp (36-40 count) peeled and deveined 1 medium onion, chopped 2 ribs celery, chopped 1 bell … Continue reading
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Being about as far from either coast as you can get, fresh oysters are a real treat around here. This year we got some fresh-shucked, farm-raised MONSTERS, so I had to make our usual oyster stew and a new (for … Continue reading
My dear wife and I used to get this dish at a little palapa-covered restaurant that sat right on the Caribbean. We’d order the Ceviche de Camaron, a couple of margaritas, and just sit there staring at the incredibly blue water and sighing. Since we’re looking at up to a foot of snow and single-digit highs this coming weekend, it seemed like a fine time to make this dish.
This is an Acapulco-style version, so it has some Spanish and American influences. The shrimp is pre-cooked, not cured in lime juice, and there are some odd ingredients like ketchup, olives, and horseradish that aren’t found in traditional ceviche, but it has a great taste and is always a big hit as an appetizer.
1 pound cooked large (26-30) shrimp, shelled and deveined
Juice of 2 limes (about 1/2 cup)
1 medium white onion, chopped
1/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro, chopped
1/2 cup ketchup
2 tablespoons pickled jalapeños, chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon fresh horseradish
1 to 2 tablespoons Mexican hot sauce (Búfalo Clasica if you can find it))
16 – 24 pimento-stuffed green olives, chopped
1 teaspoon kosher salt
For garnish:
Lime slices
1 avocado, peeled, pitted and cubed
Chop shrimp into 1/2 inch chunks. In a large, non-reactive bowl, combine the shrimp, salt, and lime juice. Let sit for about 5 minutes. Add the onion, cilantro, ketchup, jalapeños, oil, Worcestershire, horseradish, hot sauce, and olives. Mix well and let sit in the fridge for about an hour so the flavors can develop.
Check seasoning and top with avocado cubes. Serve with lime wedges, tortilla chips or (strangely traditional) saltine crackers.
The Verdict: 
Spicy, tangy, and sweet with a good fresh shellfish flavor. This was so good I could almost feel the sand between my toes!
Whenever I ask what I can bring for holiday parties, everybody asks for smoked salmon. Usually I’ll blend it with cream cheese and serve it as a dip, but this time I just chunked it up into bite-sized pieces and served it with a store-bought cheese spread and crackers.
1 salmon fillet (1-1/2 to 2 pounds), preferably wild-caught
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup kosher salt
1 tablespoon Chesapeake Bay seasoning
Combine all of the dry ingredients in bowl, mixing well. This is the cure.
Put the fillet flat in a zip-top bag. Cover both sides of the fillet with the cure mixture. Seal the bag and place in fridge for at least 12 hours, but no more than 24 hours. Turn the fillet over every 3-4 hours.
Remove the fish from cure, rinse well in cold water and pat dry. Place the fish skin-side down on a rack. Move to the fridge to dry until surface is dry but slightly sticky to the touch – 1 to 3 hours.
Set up your grill for a 3 hour indirect cook at 225°F. Add your smoking wood (I used apple for this batch) and smoke until the fillet starts to flake – about 2 hours.
The Verdict:
Sweet and salty and smoky – everything a holiday appetizer should be. I really like the complex flavors that the Chesapeake Bay seasoning adds. Next time I might even give it a light dusting of extra seasoning before smoking it.
This recipe is a pure product of the internet. It started off as an email from my dear wife asking if scallops sounded good for dinner. Sure thing. I figured I’d just grill them up on skewers, but I wanted a new recipe for a side dish.
Googled grilled scallops – 291,000 results. On about the third page of search results I hit a scallops with roasted red pepper sauce recipe. Looks good, but not quite it. Wait a minute, didn’t one of the food bloggers I read do a red pepper sauce that had cheese in it?
Google Reader to the rescue – Nibble Me This: Roasted Red Pepper & Feta Sauce for Pasta. Now that’s the ticket. Do I have all the ingredients it calls for? No, but I’m sure Chris won’t mind if I improvise a little 
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Red Pepper Pasta
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, chopped
3 medium red bell peppers, cut in half, cored and seeded
1 cup chicken broth
1/2 cup fresh goat cheese
8 ounces spaghetti noodles (gluten-free in this case)
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon smoked Spanish paprika
Set your grill up for a direct cook over high (500°F) heat.
Put the peppers on the grill skin side down and roast until most of the skin has blackened (about 5 minutes). Flip and roast the other side until the flesh start to soften (about 3 minutes). Remove the peppers to a large zip-top bag and seal. Let them steam in the bag and cool while you get the rest of the ingredients cooking. Leave the grill up and running because you’ll do the scallops on it after the sauce is ready.
Start the water boiling for the pasta. Heat the oil in a 3 or 4 quart saucepan over medium heat. Add the garlic and onions and cook until they start to soften (about 3 minutes). Remove from the heat and set aside.
Remove the peppers from the bag and peel off the charred skin. Give the peppers a rough chop and add to the onions and garlic. Add the stock, salt, pepper, and paprika and bring the stock to a boil. Cover and reduce the heat. Simmer for 5 minutes.
Remove from heat and, using an immersion blender or food processor, blend everything until it’s pureed. Return puree to the stove and bring to a simmer. Add the cheese and stir to combine. It should form a thick sauce, but feel free to add more stock to thin it or let it simmer for a bit to thicken.
When the sauce is to the right consistency, put a lid on it and turn the heat to low just to keep it warm.
Your pasta water should be boiling by now. Add the spaghetti and prepare according to the directions on the package.
While the pasta is cooking, prepare the scallops.
Scallop Skewers
1 1/2 pounds sea scallops
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon smoked Spanish paprika
6-8 bamboo skewers, soaked in water for at least 30 minutes
Rinse off the scallops and pat dry. In a medium bowl, combine the scallops, oil, salt, and paprika. Mix well to coat.
Thread the scallops on the skewers, making sure to leave some space between them.
When the pasta is ready, put the scallops on grill. Cook on high heat for about 2 minutes. flip and cook for another 2 minutes, or just until they turn opaque. Scallops get tough if you over cook them, so pull them off a little early and let them finish cooking on the plate.
I served the scallops with the pasta covered in the red pepper sauce and a side of brussels sprouts.
The Verdict: 
The scallops were pretty much perfect – just a little browned on the outside and still very tender. The minimal seasoning really enhanced the flavor.
The red sauce was another story. It was good – sweet and smoky and robust, but it lacked zing. The goat cheese gave it a nice rich taste, but Chris’s recipe called for feta and I think that would have been a better pick.
BTW – brussels sprouts covered in red pepper sauce are almost edible!
This is another rub courtesy of Fred’s Music & BBQ Supply. Fred helpfully included some recipes and suggestions to use as a starting point. His salmon recipe looks like a real winner.
1 salmon fillet (Alaskan wild in this case)
1-2 teaspoons of Signore Bernardo’s Salmon Seasoning
Olive oil
Use a food-grade plank that’s been soaked in water for at least an hour. Set your grill up for a direct cook over medium-high heat (about 400°F).
Oil both sides of the salmon and season with Signore Bernardo’s Salmon Seasoning.
Put the plank on the grill by itself for about 5 minutes, just until you can smell the smoke coming off the plank. Put the salmon on the plank, close the lid, and let it cook for 10-15 minutes, or until the fish hits 130°F internal and the flesh just starts to flake.
The plank almost wasn't wide enough for this lovely fillet.
Serve hot off the grill. If you’re being fancy schmancy, cover a serving platter with a bed of damp lettuce leaves and set the plank (with the fillet still on it) on the platter. The lettuce makes sure the plank is extinguished and serving off the plank makes for a nice presentation.
The Verdict:
When Fred sent this rub to me he said that it was “something special” and I have to agree with him. I’m a big salmon fan, and I really don’t like to overwhelm its natural flavor too much. Fred’s salmon seasoning does a great job of accenting without covering anything up. The garlic and black pepper in the rub are nicely balanced with sugar and citrus. You taste the salmon, but you also taste all of these other flavors at the same time. Outstanding rub!