Each week, I provide two recipes at this site. I call this week’s “Go Fish.”
FRIED CALAMARI STEAKS, CATFISH FILLETS OR BONELESS TROUT: Serves four people who, if you're lucky, won't realize this is the identical way you made fried chicken for them last month.
If you've been reading this website all the way through in one sitting, yet can still recognize loved ones and certain sounds, perhaps you've observed that I have a serious preference for using boneless cuts of almost everything in my cooking. With meat, pork, lamb and chicken breasts, this makes the preparation go more smoothly, and leftovers can be easily sliced or chopped for sandwiches, soups or stews. With fish, this keeps me from choking to death.
Ingredients
2 eggs or 1/4 cup of milk
1 cup all-purpose flour
4 calamari steaks, or 4 catfish fillets, or 2 lbs. of boneless trout
crushed unseasoned bread or dry-cereal crumbs
salt (seasoned or regular)
pepper
garlic powder
parsley (fresh or dried)
1/2 cup (or less) of olive oil
1. Crack the eggs or pour the milk into a cereal or soup bowl. Stir the eggs with a fork until they're thin and liquidy.
2. Season the flour with salt, pepper and garlic powder. Roll the calamari steaks, catfish fillets or boneless trout in the flour and shake off the excess flour. Set aside for a moment.
3. Shake the crushed breadcrumbs into a plastic food storage bag. Shake some salt, pepper, garlic powder and parsley into the bag.
4. Dip the calamari steaks, catfish fillets or boneless trout into the bowl of egg or milk, gently shake them until they don't drip, then place in the plastic bag with the now-seasoned bread crumbs. Seal or tie the bag for a moment.
5. Pour the olive oil into a frying pan. Warm the pan over medium heat for about a minute, during which you shake that bagful of calamari steaks, catfish fillets or boneless trout vigorously.
6. Carefully remove the fish from the bag and slide it into the pan. Sprinkle on some more breadcrumbs while you fry it. When you can see that the edges of the fish are browning, gingerly turn them over with the help of a spatula or great big tongs. Sprinkle some breadcrumbs on top again.
7. Keep repeating this process until both sides are brown and crispy and the inside is tender, flaky and white — which, when I have to ask my nine-and-a-half-year old daughter for help in removing the bones from my fish, are the very words she uses to describe me.
BROILED OR BARBECUED SWORDFISH STEAKS, FRESH TUNA OR SHARK: Serves four grown-ups who had no idea that fish came in steak format, that tuna could be prepared without using a can opener and that each biteful of shark needn't be preceded by snippets of the "Jaws" film score (dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun) — unless this is meant to be one of those fabulous "theme" dinners, of course, in which case you'll also want to have someone dress up, but not sound as nasal, as Richard Dreyfuss.
I realize that these fish are not available all across this great land of ours, particularly the parts surrounded by this great land of ours — where bringing in a swordfish steak by refrigerated truck in the dead of winter could cost the average diner oh, four thousand dollars a pound. But if you have the chance to buy any of these fresh-frozen — meaning they were frozen while they were still quite fresh, i.e., immediately — they really do provide a wonderful taste of the sea.
Ingredients
1 1/2 lbs. swordfish, tuna or shark
1/2 cup olive oil or commercial oil-and-vinegar dressing
1/2 cup soy sauce
garlic powder or puree
unseasoned salt
pepper
chili powder
1. Pierce and marinate the fish in olive oil or even bottled oil-and-vinegar dressing, in a sealed container in the refrigerator, for two or three hours before broiling or barbecuing them.
2. Take the fish out of the container about 1/2 hour before you intend to start making dinner.
3. Season both sides of the fish with the soy sauce, garlic, salt, pepper and chili powder.
4. When the broiler is hot or the barbecue charcoals white, place the fish on the broiler pan or grill and carefully add more of the soy sauce and oil to the top side. Turn the fish every 3 minutes, regardless of the thickness. If you've sliced these fairly thin, each side may only require 3 minutes of cooking time; if they're thick, continually turning and re-marinating the fish will keep them moist inside and crusty outside.
Side Dishes: White rice with soy sauce and real bacon bits, baked potatoes with sour cream, chives and cheap caviar, tortilla chips with green salsa; a green salad with vinaigrette.
Cool Presentation Award: Stir the remaining soy sauce and olive oil in a bowl and offer this as the meal's "au jus." If one of your guests says, "Technically, 'au jus' should consist of the juices that run out of the meat or fish during cooking time," tell him, "Au, jus get the hell outta here."
A Glossary of Useful, Common and Completely Obvious Cooking Terms with which You Can Dazzle Your Enemies and Irritate Your Friends
This Week: Italian to Leek
Italian - The name given to the world's only perfect cuisine.
Junk Food - The name given to the world's least troublesome cuisine. Actually, junk food holds a certain fascination for many of us because of its chameleon-like quality: if you buy fried chicken, burgers, fries or pizza and take it back to your house in a cardboard or plastic box, it's junk food; whereas, if you make the same stuff in your own kitchen, it's home cookin'.
Kale - Wrongly believed to be the name of that annoying little boy down the block who wears his hair in a modified buzz-cut-with-squirrel-tail, and was voted Most Likely To Do Hard Time by his third-grade class, kale is, in fact, a sturdy cabbage that is the essential ingredient in cole slaw.
Knockwurst - When you start trafficking in the wursts, be advised that most of them are just expensive hot dogs. One notable exception is liverwurst, which, if you add a drop of port to it, can fool your phonier guests into believing it's a heretofore untried, and frighteningly complex, pâté. Just don't leave out the package with the drawing of the farmer on it.
Lady Fingers - The most popular gal in the court of Henry VIII. Also: spongy little cakes to which most restaurants add entirely too much (or on second thought, perhaps not enough) booze.
Lard - The royal title of Lady Fingers' Scottish husband. Also: bacon fat, one of the more redundant terms you'll find in the wonderful world of cooking.
Leek - The national symbol of Wales (and all this time you thought it was Bonnie Prince Charles) and a look-alike for the onion (and all this time you thought that was Bonnie Prince Charles). While this vegetable (and all this time you thought — nah, skip it) can be used in a number of dishes, including potato soup, it poses difficulties for the fledgling cookbook writer: how appetizing can it be to begin a recipe with the instruction, "First, take a leek; next..."?
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