Quick Fish

Here's a big-flavored sauce for a mild piece of white fish. You can use catfish, tilapia, cod, or any other fillets of white flaky fish. The recipe is for a single serving because most fish doesn't reheat particularly well. You can precook extra potatoes and carrots, assemble them with the sauce and fish when you are ready to eat and it will be done in under 10 minutes. Not bad!

Don't try to cook more than 4 servings at once because the fish will cook unevenly - some parts underdone, some parts overcooked.

Fish with Mustard-Caper Sauce
(serves 1, cost varies depending on fish used, $2.80 at $4.99/lb fish)

1 small potato, washed and cut into chunks
1 carrot, scrubbed and cut into chunks
1 ½ teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 ½ teaspoon chopped capers
1 Tablespoon olive oil
6 ounce fillet mild white fish such as cod, tilapia, catfish
salt and pepper

Cover the potato and carrots with water in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Cook for 15-20 minutes until they are tender but not falling apart. Drain and put into a microwaveable dish. Season lightly with salt and pepper. The capers and mustard are salty so you don't need much salt. In a small bowl, combine the mustard, capers, and olive oil. The mustard and oil will separate; that's OK. Drizzle half of this mixture over carrots and potatoes. Lay the fish fillet on top and spread on remaining mustard-caper mixture. Cover tightly with plastic wrap, leaving one corner open a little bit to allow steam to escape. Microwave on high for 2-3 minutes. The exact time will depend on the thickness of the fillet. You'll know it's done when the thickest part flakes easily. Let sit for 2 minutes to finish cooking.

Cooking Times for Multiple Servings - unlike conventional ovens, you need to adjust the cooking time as you add more food. Remember that the time will depend on the thickness of the fillet. Thin fillets cook much faster than thick ones.

2 servings: 4-7 minutes
3 servings: 6-8 minutes
4 servings: 7-10 minutes

Mark Bittman on salt and processed food

Mr. Bittman just published a blog article on a recent report by the Institutes of Medicine about salt that is causing a bit of a stir. He connects high sodium consumption to processed foods (or junk foods or fast foods), which is not exactly a revelation. But, it is important to understand where most people get most of the sodium in their diet. It's not from salt naturally occurring in foods or salt that home cooks add to food when they cook. It's processed food and restaurant food. If you cook for yourself using unprocessed foods [you can read my discussion of what is a processed food here], you will eat less sodium because so very much is added to processed foods.

Salt is the dominant flavor in many processed foods (sweet being the other biggie) because they are using ingredients that are bland to begin with. For instance, start with a bland starch (corn, wheat), add some artificial flavorings, a bunch of salt, run it through an industrial process and, presto! You have most crispy/crunchy snack foods. If you cook with real ingredients, the salt isn't THE flavor. It's a flavor enhancer, bringing out the natural flavors of nutritious foods.

Mark Bittman sums it up:

"Here’s the thing: Salt intake — like weight, and body mass index — is a convenient baseline for public policy people to talk about. If you focus on eating less salt — and, indeed, less sugar — you will inevitably eat less processed food, fast food, junk food (it’s all the same thing.) If you eat less processed food (etc.) you eat more real food. If you eat more real food, not only are you healthier, but you probably don’t have to pay attention to how much salt you’re eating. Wowie zowie."

Wowie zowie! Cut back on processed foods and you probably don't need to even think about this whole salt controversy.

For School of Eating Good's thoughts on salt and how we use it in our recipes, check out this article from last November. And, you'll get a home-version of microwave popcorn too, just for visiting. :-)

Dry Rub Magic

More on grilling, this Memorial Day weekend. If you haven't spiced up your grilling with a bit of dry rub yet, I have a tip for you. Unlike marinades, dry rubs can be put on your meat close to grilling time, so using them requires no advance planning. You can rub them on in advance, if you like, but it's not absolutely necessary to impart flavor. The dry rub brings plenty of flavor in no time at all.

There are an infinite number of dry rubs, depending on where you draw your influence from. This is a traditional American BBQ style rub, a little sweet, and one that you can use on poultry or any kind of red meat, even salmon. I used it most recently on Cornish game hens, which are great on the grill. They are a bit more expensive than chicken, but they are also a bit more impressive than plain chicken. Everyone can get their own half a hen and they cook in 30 minutes if you split them in half before cooking. Another advantage of splitting them in half is you can cover the inside of the bird with the rub too.

In keeping with the quick theme, rub on the dry rub when you start your grill. By the time the coals are ready or your grill is hot, you can put the hens on. If you have more time, put the dry rub on a few hours ahead and refrigerate until you're ready to cook them. Either way, they will be delicious.

This recipe makes more rub than you will need for a single meal. Put it in a glass jar and store in a cool, dark place. You'll have it in the pantry whenever you need a quick BBQ fix. Use it up with a few months of mixing it up. For 4 Cornish game hen halves, you'll need about 6 Tablespoons.

Basic BBQ Dry Rub
(makes 1 cup)

¼ cup coarse salt, such as kosher salt
¼ cup packed brown sugar
¼ cup sweet paprika
3 Tablespoons ground black pepper
1 Tablespoon garlic powder
1 Tablespoon dried minced onion or onion powder
½ teaspoon cayenne pepper

Mix together in a bowl and store in a tightly covered jar in a cool, dry place.

Use on chicken, Cornish game hens, ribs, pork chops or roasts, salmon, or steak.

Adapted from a recipe by Steven Raichlen.

Gentlepeople, start your barbecues!

Memorial Day marks the start of grilling season, though in Colorado we definitely go for the extended season, starting whenever we don't need mittens to hold our grilling tools and going well into the fall. I have grilled my Thanksgiving turkey, for instance.

But, as this weekend is the unofficial start of summer, this is when, collectively, we start cooking everything outside.

I offer a very simple grilled zucchini salad. The method is from Jamie Oliver. He doesn't think you should ever oil up the vegetables before putting them on the grill. I've done it both ways, and I do think that the zucchini takes on more of the smokey flavor if you don't oil it. And, that's a good thing, particularly for zucchini, which is pretty blah on its own.

Grilled Warm Zucchini Salad
(serves 4)

4 medium zucchini, stem end removed
1 medium red pepper, cored, seeded and cut into quarters
3 Tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 Tablespoon red wine vinegar
salt and black pepper
1 Tablespoon chopped fresh herbs, such as basil, thyme, or oregano

Slice the zucchini about ½" thick the long way. Much thicker and it takes too long to cook. Much thinner and it dries out. Grill zucchini and red pepper over high heat with no oil until you get nice grill marks on both sides of the zucchini and the pepper is softened. Cut into bite-sized pieces. Dress with oil and vinegar and season with salt and black pepper. Add in chopped herbs and toss. Can be served warm or cold.

Baked Meaty Pasta

Don't you love recipes where you dump the pasta in with everything else, and it magically cooks just right? I do! I used ground bison, you could use any ground meat: beef, lamb, turkey, chicken, even vegetarian "meat." This is extremely simple and extremely satisfying, with a layer of gooey cheese on top. Gets even better on reheating.

This recipe uses homemade creamed spinach, which is easy to make. You make a Bechamel sauce (a milk sauce thickened with butter and flour, one of the classic French sauces) and mix in chopped spinach. You could use a package of frozen creamed spinach, but it's so easy to make your own, why not make it from scratch? Tastes a lot fresher too.

Baked Meaty Pasta
(serves 6-8, costs $9.50, though the cost will vary depending on meat used)

non-stick cooking spray
1 pound ground meat
about 1 teaspoon salt
about ½ teaspoon black pepper
1 28 ounce can diced tomatoes, undrained
½ teaspoon garlic powder
2 Tablespoons dried minced onion
½ teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried basil
2 cups water
8 ounces dry penne, regular or whole-wheat
1 Tablespoon butter
1 Tablespoon flour
1 cup milk (skim, low-fat or whole)
10 ounces frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry (see Note)
4 ounces grated mozzarella cheese, about 1 cup

Preheat oven to 375°F. Spray a 3 quart baking casserole dish with non-stick baking spray and set aside.

Spray non-stick cooking spray on a large skillet and heat over medium-high heat. Add the ground meat and brown. Break up the big chunks into small pieces. Season with salt and pepper. Add in the tomatoes, garlic powder, dried onion, oregano, basil, ½ teaspoon salt, ¼ teaspoon black pepper and water. Stir to combine and simmer for 5 minutes. Taste and add more salt if necessary. Spoon enough sauce into the baking dish to cover the bottom. Add the penne. Spoon the rest of the sauce over the penne.

In the same skillet that you cooked the sauce in (no need to clean it out), melt the butter. Add the flour and stir to combine. Add the milk, stirring to smooth out the lumps. Cook until the milk thickens. Add the spinach, stirring to combine. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Pour spinach over sauce. Cover with foil and bake for 30-40 minutes until the casserole is hot and bubbly. Sprinkle on the cheese and return to the oven, uncovered, for 5 minutes. Remove from oven and let sit for 5 minutes.

Note: Instead of frozen spinach, you can use a 10 ounce package of fresh baby spinach, coarsely chopped, or 2 cups cooked broccoli. You can even use a combination, which is what I used.

Meatless Monday: Sweet and Sour Tofu

The most common restaurant form of sweet and sour anything is a rather gloppy dish, often with an alarmingly red-colored sauce, thanks to red food coloring. This is not that dish. This is a light but tasty interpretation that is only a little bit sweet and a just a little bit sour. Usually, the "meat" is battered and deep-fried. No meat here, just tofu, and no deep-fat frying either. Frying may result in a delicious crispiness, but I find it rather a pain to execute. First, you need to heat up a fair bit of oil, even for shallow frying. That means you get to eat a fair amount of oil too. But, worst of all, is dealing with the oil afterward, hot oil being something like napalm. Frying is a fine technique once in a while as a treat. It's not what I consider a quick everyday sort of thing, however.

In this recipe, I do brown the tofu in a little bit of oil. This is to change the texture - it becomes chewy and I like that. If you don't want to bother (tofu, with its high water content spits a great deal when you brown it), just skip the browning step and use raw tofu. The texture will be softer but the flavor will be very similar. And, it will cut a bit of time off of a dish that comes together quickly, even if you brown the tofu.

Sweet and Sour Tofu
(serves 4, costs $5.10)

14-16 oz. firm or extra-firm tofu, cut into ½" cubes and blotted with paper towels
1 Tablespoon vegetable oil
½ of a medium onion, cut into ½" chunks
½ to 1 whole medium red pepper, cored, seeded and cut into ½" chunks
1 cup fresh or canned pineapple, cut into ½ chunks or use canned bits

Sauce
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tablespoons tomato paste
1 Tablespoon white or cider vinegar
2 Tablespoons sake, rice wine, or dry sherry
1 Tablespoon soy sauce
1 Tablespoon sugar
⅔ cup vegetable or chicken stock

1 Tablespoon cornstarch dissolved in 1 Tablespoon cold water
¼ - ½ teaspoon salt
sliced scallions or chopped cilantro, for garnish if desired

Combine all the sauce ingredients(the garlic to the stock) in a medium bowl and set aside.

If browning tofu, get a large skillet or wok very hot and add the oil. [You want to fit all the tofu in the pan in one layer without crowding them together so they will brown nicely. If your wok isn't big enough to do this all at once, brown the tofu in 2 batches.] Add the tofu and brown on one side, give it a stir, and brown on another side. It takes too long to brown all six sides, but 2 sides is enough to change the texture. After the tofu is browned on 2 sides, remove to a bowl.

Get the skillet very hot again and add the onion. Cook until it just starts to brown a little and the onion is softened. Remove to the bowl with the tofu. Reduce the heat to medium and add the red pepper, then the sauce. Bring to a boil. Add in the cornstarch-water mixture, bring back to a boil, and cook until the sauce thickens. Add in the tofu, onions, pineapple, and salt. Stir and cook for a few minutes to get everything hot. Garnish with scallions and/or cilantro, if desired. Serve over hot rice.