Dgourmac's Blog

I have a new preferred fish supplier recently — Sven Fish. The convenience is unmatched, and the quality and selection are very good. Yesterday is a good example of why I like them.

I ordered my fish online before midnight last night, and it was delivered early this afternoon at my back door — without charge. I chose two items: (1) flounder fillets, and (2) Peruvian Bay Scallops, one pound of each. The seafood is vacuum packed and delivered in an ice-filled cooler. I made two dishes: Broiled Flounder with Lemon Curry Butter, and Bay Scallop Crudo with Gochugaru pepper flakes, Slovenian Sea Salt, Lime Juice, and Ligurian olive oil.

I finished the dish by slicing Radicchio di Treviso and placing it in the hot oven with the remaining fish liquid and olive oil.

A slice of Peasant Bread toast, rubbed with sliced tomato — Pan con Tomate style — was just perfect.

A glass of 2018 Ayunta Etna Bianco was a perfect match.

I bought the bay scallops with another dish in mind, but my first choice was a crudo, inspired by The Kimchi Chronicles, featuring Jean-Georges Vongarichten and his wife.

The dish called for sea scallops, but I adapted it for the smaller cape scallops.

The addition of finely-sliced basil and lemon verbena worked very well with the sea salt, lemon juice, olive oil, and chili flakes

The wine was another gustatory triumph, the 2016 i Clivi Brazan Friulano, which was delicious with the crudo.

I have mixed feelings about Portugal. Its record as a global colonial power, a major player in the slave trade, and a rapid follower of the Spanish Inquisition in the persecutions of Jews are all reasons to feel that they have been a “bad actor” over the last 500 years. On the other hand, as an American, I feel that our country’s record on these same issues is not much more meritorious, so we have no right to act “holier than thou”.

With those reservations clearly established, we can move on to the main focus of this blog, namely food and wine. I’ve been to Portugal twice — to the Algarve and Lisbon in 2014, and to Porto and the Douro Valley in 2019. Both trips were extremely gratifying, and they established Portuguese food and wine as one of my favorite ways to celebrate culinary excellence.

Today’s adventure involved Hake, a lovely white fish which is one of the specialties of Portuguese cuisine. I had purchased over a pound from Sven fish, so I had at least 2X what I normally cook, and I decided to share the bounty with good friends. Here’s the recipe:

The full recipe was enough for 4 people. After delivering my friend’s portion, I kept my fish on the counter at room temperature, and I had it ready to eat — after the appetizer. I still had 8 of the 12 Wellfleet oysters remaining from the rest of my Sven fish order. It was a great opportunity to re-create a dish I had enjoyed years ago: Warm Oysters with Fresh Tomato Curry.

It was spectacular — every bit as good as I remembered.

The tomato-flavored Hake dish was enhanced by a Portuguese wine, 2019 Taboadella Alfrocheiro.

The dish was served with roasted potato slices and a mixture of our own green beans and local farms’s wax beans. I would make this all again.

One of my great joys at lunchtime is the ability to select great ingredients and to prepare them as a relaxed meal without time constraints. Today’s roster had three diverse elements:

• Wellfleet oysters
• leftover baked stuffed zucchini
• a small head of cauliflower

As you can imagine, these three do not easily merge into a dish, so I treat them as independent mini-meals, with all of the best aspects of each on display. The idea is to prepare each one in a way which highlights the best flavor and texture of each element.

The oysters needed very little preparation, only a good brushing of the shells under running water. I just bought a dozen oysters from Sven Fish, and I decided to shuck 4 of them for my lunch. They were relatively small, fresh, and sweet-smelling. All they needed was a splash of lemon juice.

For the wine I was motivated to open the San Pietro Friulano from i Clivi, a delicious wine imported by Gianonni Selections.

The next section was provided by leftovers from last night’s dinner: remaining pieces of stuffed zucchini, based on a rich tomato sauce, homemade breadcrumbs, and plenty of Greek olive oil.

I cut up and ate one of those zucchini boats, and enjoyed the pimenton-flavored tomato sauce immensely.

Now it was time to deal with a small, partial head of cauliflower that needed attention very soon. It looked pale and flabby in the refrigerator, but I decided to steam it into an edible state immediately. I usually find cauliflower to be insipid, but there is a remedy for that when you are looking for “Essential Elements”. The answer included finely-chopped red serrano chili pepper, a few dashes of Red Boat Fish Sauce, and a smattering of TTantta bittersweet vinegar from the Basque region in Txakolina. The third chapter of this meal was as good as the first two.

And the wine was perfect for all three.