Curry Crusted Swordfish With Vegetables and Sriracha Cream

This is the first actual meal that I cooked from scratch in my new kitchen! There’s not much to it – if you can slice, you can cook this dinner. This dish goes together in no time, and the combination of hot jalapeno, bold spices, and cool cucumber is surprisingly refreshing!


Curry Crusted Swordfish with Vegetables and Sriracha Cream

For the spice crust
Pinch kosher salt
1 t. / 5 g coriander
1 t. / 5 g cumin
1 t. / 5 g mustard seed
½ t. / 2.5 g kala jeera*
½ t. / 2.5 g turmeric powder
½ t. / 2.5 g coarsely ground black pepper

16 oz / 455 g swordfish, tuna, or other firm-fleshed fish steaks
2 roma tomatoes, chopped
1 large cucumber, quartered lengthwise and thinly sliced
2-3 jalapeno chiles, chopped

For the sriracha cream
4 T. / 60 g sour cream
1 T. / 15 g sriracha
2 t. / 5 mL mild vinegar (white wine vinegar is a good choice)
2 c. / 450 g cooked rice

 

 

toasting the spices

First, toast the salt, coriander, cumin, mustard seed, and kala jeera in a frying pan until they become fragrant, approximately 3-4 minutes. Place them in a mortar and pestle along with the turmeric and black pepper. Grind coarsely. Rub the spice mixture into the swordfish, set aside.

Preheat your broiler. Line a baking dish with foil, then add the tomato, cucumber, and jalapeno in a single layer. Place the spice-crusted swordfish on top of the veggie layer, and broil for 12-15 minutes, or until the fish is cooked through.

While the fish and vegetables are cooking, make the sriracha cream by whisking together the sour cream, sriracha, and vinegar. If the mixture seems too thick, add a few drops of water to the sauce until it is thin enough to drizzle.

Take the fish and vegetables from the oven; let rest for 3-5 minutes. In the meantime, divide the rice among four individual plates. After the fish has rested, divide the fish and vegetables into four equal portions, serve atop the cooked rice. To finish, drizzle with the sriracha cream.

* Also known as black cumin – if you cannot find kala jeera, you can order it online from Penzey’s.

Nutritional info: serves four. 317 calories, 9 g fat, 29 g carbohydrates, 25 g protein.

Chicken with Crunchy Veggies and Thai Flavors

This is yet another one of my recipes that wasn’t necessarily inspired, but came together when I said, “I’m hungry!” Thinking of what I could cook, I realized that I rarely cook chicken. I eat a lot of seafood, pork, beef, and vegetarian dishes, but I don’t do chicken too often. Why not? No conscious reason. I like chicken, but since starting this blog, I’ve leaned towards recipes with stronger flavors and uncommon ingredients.

When I do cook chicken, I buy organic, free-range, air-chilled chicken. Organic and free-range chicken is better for your body, the environment, and the chickens themselves. If you’ve never heard of air-chilled chicken, seek it out¾while normal chickens are dunked in an ice water bath to lower their temperature after slaughter and processing, air-chilled chickens are sent through several courses of cold air. This significantly lowers the risk of bacterial contamination (one infected chicken in an ice water bath can contaminate an entire lot), but it is also more economical - chickens given ice baths absorb water, and the consumer ends up paying for water. When chickens are air-chilled, you're not paying for anything but chicken. Air-chilled poultry costs a little more than conventional chicken, but I think it’s worth it to pay a slightly higher price for clean, unadulterated chicken.

Chicken pairs with pretty much everything, as does rice. But plain chicken and plain rice isn’t very exciting; I wanted to spice it up a bit. When you add in bold flavors, a little meat goes a long way, so if you’re looking to cut down on meat consumption, crunchy vegetables and Thai-inspired flavorings provide flavor and textural contrasts to the rather neutral chicken and jasmine rice. Even better, this recipe couldn’t be easier!



Chicken with Crunchy Veggies and Thai Flavors

1 T. coconut oil
8 oz. Boneless skinless chicken breasts, chopped into bite-sized pieces
1 lb. Green beans, cut into 1” lengths
1-2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 t. grated fresh ginger
2 T. low sodium soy sauce
2 T. fish sauce
2 T. Boston Olive Oil Company’s lemongrass & mint white balsamic vinegar
1 cucumber, seeded and chopped
1 large tomato, seeded and chopped
2 Serrano chiles, minced
2 fresno chiles or red jalapenos, minced
3 green onions, sliced into rings
Handful chiffonade-cut basil
1 T. toasted sesame oil

Coked rice, to serve
Extra basil, to garnish
A few very thin slices Serrano chile, to garnish


In a large metal pan or wok, heat the coconut oil over high heat until it becomes fluid. Add the chicken pieces and brown for 3-4 minutes, stirring constantly.

Reduce heat to medium. Add the green beans, garlic, ginger, soy sauce, fish sauce, and lemongrass & mint vinegar. Cook for 5-7 minutes, continuing to stir constantly. Next, add the cucumber, tomato, Serrano chile, and fresno chile. Continue to stir constantly, and cook for an additional 5 minutes, or until the green beans are no longer raw tasting but still retain their crunch.

Finally, add the green onions, basil, and sesame oil. Stir until blended, then spoon over cooked rice. Garnish with basil sprigs and thin slices of serrano chile. 

Mother-Daughter Mealtime

This weekend, I’m off to Portsmouth, NH to visit my mom for the holiday weekend.  I generally don't like to brag, but I hit the Mom Lotto.  A “foodie” long before the term was coined, my mother is the reason I’m able to write this blog.  She is a far better cook than I will ever be, she bought organic and local produce two decades before it became trendy, and she taught me some of my most important lessons in the kitchen – lemons are a girl’s best friend, don’t buy cheap meat, always wash your produce, be very careful with raw chicken, and if something can’t get past your nose, it shouldn’t get past your mouth.


On top of these practical lessons, I learned something far more valuable from my mom – how to enjoy food.  This wasn’t taught through lessons and instructions, but through practice.  If I wanted to try something, she allowed me to try it.  If I didn’t like something, she didn’t make me eat it.  And never – not even once – did she express that certain foods were “bad” or that eating them should make me feel guilty.  In her house, white chocolate raspberry mousse didn’t lead to self-loathing, it led to seconds.  We always ate dinner together, even if it was on the run before one of my ballet lessons or after one of her grad school classes.  Many of my best memories are centered around food, and to this day, I always smile when my mom taste-tests one of her creations and proclaims, “DAMN, I’m good!”  Yes, Ma, you certainly are.

I’m not sure what we’ll cook together this weekend.  Usually, unless I have a craving and request something in advance (her cold cucumber soup is one of my favorites – recipe below), we shop together, and if we see a certain vegetable or a cut of meat that looks especially good, we’ll center the meal around that item.  When we’re in the kitchen together, it’s not always smooth sailing – she hides bacon from me and makes fun of the way I chop (“Honey, are they going to taste different if they’re not all the exact same size?”).  I eat half the ingredients before they even make it into the pot, and I get agitated when the vegetable slices aren’t all the exact same size (“It’s just better that way, don’t you think it would be better if you cut those two more evenly?...[pause]...Dude, why are you giving me that look?”).  Differences aside, I never eat better than I do when I cook with my mom.

The one thing that I know for sure is on this weekend’s menu is pancakes.  I can’t cook a pancake to save my life, so for the sake of this blog, I’m making my mom supervise me and guide me through the process.  Feel free to laugh – I’d laugh at me, too, because someone who makes raviolis from scratch should be able to flip a flippin’ pancake.  Other possibilities? Fried Green Tomatoes, Grilled Radicchio, Walnut Chicken? We will probably visit the Portsmouth Farmers’ Market, Applecrest Farm, the Meat House, Seaport Fish, Stonewall Kitchen, and/or Golden Harvest; whatever these markets have in stock will determine what we cook and eat.

If I get some downtime this weekend, I’ll post pics and recipes, but until then, follow Bacon, Butter & Booze on Facebook and Twitter for sneak previews!



Cold Cucumber Soup
1/4c. minced onion
2T. butter
1 baking potato, peeped and diced.
1 organic English cucumber, peeled, seeded and diced
2T. chopped parsley
2c. chicken broth
1/4t. dry mustard
Pinch cayenne
1c. evaporated milk
Salt to taste

Saute the onion lightly in butter.  Add remaining ingredients except milk and salt.  Cover and simmer for 15-20 minutes or until potatoes are cooked.  Cool on the stove.  Chill in the fridge, then puree in a blender.  Strain through a fine-meshed sieve.  Whisk the milk and salt into the strained soup.  Chill again, if necessary, and serve cold.