Today I threw together a Brazilian fish stew, or at least somewhat inspired by Brazil. Very colourful and tasty, took some time to prep and cook though.

Here’s what we need:

• 28 oz can of tomatoes
• 1 lbs of salmon fillets
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 large onion
• 1 big yellow squash
• 1 big zucchini
• ½ cup fresh parsley
• 1/4 cup dried cilantro
• 1 tbs peperoncino
• 2 plantains
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 1 cup water
• 1/4-1/2 cup lime juice

Roughly chop up the onion. Pour the olive oil into a big pot and fry the onions on low heat for about 5 minutes. Add the crushed tomatoes and garlic, let boil under lid while cutting up the yellow squash into strips (like fries) and the zucchini into small cubes. Add to the mix and also add the cilantro, peperoncino. Cut up the parsley rough and add as well.

Put the salmon on top and squeeze a good amount of lime juice over them. Put on the lid and cut up the plantains. About 1 inch thick pieces (around 8 pieces per plantain) add to the mix and stir. Add water and let simmer on medium heat until the fish and plantain is cooked through. About 20 minutes. Stir forcefully to break up the salmon into small pieces.

Salt and pepper to taste and then it’s ready to serve!

For this seafood dish you’ll need:

• 2 lbs of mussels (I used Blue Maine mussels)
• handful of Thai basil
• 1 bottle of panang sauce (I got a pre-made one)
• 1 tsp red curry paste

Clean the mussels really well. Pull out any seaweed that they’re in the middle of eating (this was more than I expected!) Discard of ones that doesn’t close, or that give away an AWFUL odour. When they are all scrubbed and rinsed pour in the panang sauce into a big pan and bring to a boil, while heating up dip in the red curry paste. Pour over the mussels and simmer/steam for about five minutes and put on a lid. Chop up some Thai basil, turn off the heat and mix the basil into the mussels.

Here’s what you need:

• 1 lbs octopus (cleaned and rinsed)
• 1 lbs shrimp (peeled and deveined)
• 14 oz. can of coconut milk
• 3 tbs red curry paste
• ½ cup of water
• 2 tbs brown sugar
• 2 tbs fish sauce
• ½ lbs asparagus

Start out with the octopus. I cut off the legs and chopped them up in about 1-1½ inch pieces. Same with the head, cut it up into 1-1½ inch strips. When it’s all cut up heat up a big frying pan and pour in the coconut milk and then mix in one tablespoon of red curry paste, let it all mix and then add another tablespoon. Taste inbetween each time you add the red curry paste until you’ve reached desired degree of spicy. For me three tablespoons was just enough. While mixing the coconut milk and curry paste heat up a pot with water and when it’s boiling blanch the octopus for about 30 seconds then add to the coconut milk/curry mix.

Let simmer for about five minutes and then add fish sauce. Again taste the mix between additions of fish sauce. 1-2 tablespoons makes it really delicious. Also add two tablespoons of brown sugar. Mix it all together and let simmer for another five minutes.

Add about a cup (½ lbs) of any vegetables you’d like, I used asparagus and also some fresh Thai basil. Pour half a cup of water over the mix. Put a tight fitting lid on and let simmer for 10-20 minutes, until vegetables are tender.

Add the shrimp about five minutes before turning off the heat. Simmer with the lid on.

Serve with the coconut rice I made and garnish with Thai basil, delicious! :)

Note: I read about cooking the octopus for a long time, and it seems as if unless you slow cook it for a very long time it will have that chewy, fibrous texture. Good luck!

I looked up a remoulade recipe a while ago and made some changes to it. It’s not as good as other remoulades I’ve had in the past but it was alright :)

For the remoulade:

• 2 egg yolks
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon hot sauce
• 2 tsp capers
• 2 tsp shallots
• 2 tsp spicy brown mustard
• 1 tsp dried tarragon
• 2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tbs lime juice
• salt & pepper to taste
• 2 tsp fresh Italian parsley

Separate the yolks and whites in two different bowls. We will use both. Mix together the mustard and yolks. Add the oil in a thin stream against the side of the bowl. When all mixed together and smooth add all the other remoulade ingredients. It doesn’t matter what order :) When all mixed together, cover with plastic wrap and let stand in fridge while making the fish.

For the salmon:

• 4 salmon fillets  (inch thick)
• 2 egg whites
• Rest of shallot
• A tbs of dried tarragon

Mix together shallots and tarragon in a bowl. Dip the salmon in the egg whites, make sure it’s fully covered and dip down in the shallot/tarragon mix. Let fry on low heat for about ten minutes, flip fillets and cover. Let fry for another ten minutes or so. If unsure, just gently split the fillet with a fork or knife down to the middle to see if cooked through.

Served on a bed of potatoes garnished
with Italian parsley

Super Bowl Sunday is on. The game starts in about 5½ hours and I will not even have time to shop after work to get home in time. So no cooking for Kingly Foods today! Instead I pulled out some great recipes from the archive that suits the occasion perfectly!

From the left: Pico de Gallo, Honey Soy Wings & Pizza!

Enjoy the game!

Anyway, I saw a nice oven steamed vegetable recipe and decided to recreated with whatever I could find: bell peppers, squashes and shrimp. Sounds like a meal right?

For this storm emergency dish I found:

• 18 shrimp
• 1 yellow squash
• 1 yellow bell pepper
• 2 tbs white wine
• olive oil

Chop both the squash and bell pepper length wise to make strips. The bell pepper about half an inch thick and the bell pepper very thin. Pour white wine over the vegetables and a good amount of olive oil, to really moisten the vegetables. Mix around until all is covered and put in the middle of a big aluminium foil sheet. Peel the shrimp and put on top of the vegetables and wrap the foil sheet up. Preheat the oven to 450F and let the “foil hut” cook for about 20-25 minutes.

Served with potatoes fried in Old Bay seasoning.

For this you will need:

• 4 flounder fillets
• half a cup of corn flour
• 1 tbs ancho chilli powder
• 1 tbs garlic powder
• 1 tsp salt
• half a cup of oil (I used cancanoola)
• lemon juice

Mix together all the dry ingredients on a big plate until it seems like the spices are mixed evenly. Thanks to the chilli this should be pretty easy to spot. Then get out your flounder fillets and rub them with the batter.

Pour the oil into a frying pan. So it covers up the bottom and heat it up for a couple of minutes. When hot, put in the flounder and let fry for a couple of minutes on each side. When serving: squeeze a little bit of lemon juice over the fillets. Enjoy!

Battered flounder with cilantro garnish

As with past seafood dishes, this one is very simple (but takes a bit longer). I made a very delicious seafood soup with salmon fillets.

This recipe is a very nice one to follow because it does take time, but you are working the whole time, whether it be prepping the ingredients or washing off the cutting board/cleaning dishes.

Alright, so this is what you’ll need:

• A bit less than a pound of salmon fillets (or any other fatty fish)
• Sprigs of fresh thyme
• 2-3 tbsp olive oil
• 2 yellow squashes
• 2 zucchinis
• 2 medium large potatoes
• 2 celery stalks
• 1-2 carrots
• 3½ cups of stock (chicken or fish)
• salt & pepper to taste
• 1 onion
• 1 can (14oz) of tomatoes
• 1 bay leaf
• Italian parsley for garnish

Start off with cutting up the onions into cubes or chunks. Anything that will fit a spoon basically. Then chop up the celery roughly. If you want to you can also chop up the carrot now, or add it later if you like it crunchier. Put two to three table spoons of olive oil in the pan and heat it up. Tip in the vegetables you just cut up and stir occasionally, cook until softened.

While the onions and vegetables soften start chopping up the squashes and potatoes, again into anything that will fit on a spoon.  Tip them into the pot together with the sprigs of thyme and mix around. When everything got a bit of colour add the can of tomatoes, stock and bay leaf. Stir put the lid on and let simmer for about ten minutes.  Add the zucchinis, mix, and let simmer for another couple of minutes. Lastly add the salmon fillets on top of the soup (don’t mix it down yet!). Put the lid back on and let simmer until the fish is cooked through. Push a spoon through occasionally to check on the fish.

When the salmon is cooked through, start breaking it up with a spoon (or your tool of choice) until in small chunks – stir and serve :)

So lets start with the fish, I bought a barramundi (also known as “Asian bass”) a smaller fish around the pound size. I bought it whole and untouched meaning I had to clean, scale and gut it myself.

Clean the fish by rinsing it under cold water and scale it with the dull edge of a knife (a regular dinner knife works, just don’t press too hard). When I did this scales were flying everywhere. In my face, eyes, hair, all over my shirt and on the kitchen floor. Once again I suggest buying a pre-cleaned fish. I was scared about gutting the fish since as far as I can remember I’ve never done it with my own hands. I’ve watched a lot of people do it though. But it was very simple. You just cut a medium deep cut at the belly of the fish, starting at the vent and continuing up towards the head and gills. Don’t cut too deep, you don’t want to puncture the organs. When you have cut open the cavity just stick a finger in there and pull out all the contents. Some things you might have to use a little knife help for but it shouldn’t be much. Then rinse out the cavity and you have your scaled and gutted fish ready to be cooked.

Wrap aluminium wrap around a baking pan and oil it lightly or spray it with cooking spray. Place the fish and make diagonal cuts like in the image.

For the stuffing:

• 1 sage leaf for each cut
• 2 thin garlic slices for each cut
• rosemary sprinkled in each sage leaf and all over the fish
• 1 lemon

Place some garlic and rosemary on a big sage leaf and roll it up, place it in a cut. You can also put a slice of garlic on the outside of the sage leaf for extra flavour. Cut the lemon into wedges and stuff the cavity. I pressed them lightly to spill some lemon juice on the inside.

Bake in the oven at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes, until the flesh is completely white and tender.

I had trouble serving this for one reason, being that I used too little oil and the fish was stuck to the aluminium. But other than that I just cut it up and served on a plate of potatoes with some hollandaise sauce :)

Clams are kind of a hassle though. You have to clean them, scrub them, make sure they are alive. After you cook them you have to keep making sure they are alive. Usually when one is dead, it will open. And it will stink really, really bad. But some just dont open when they die, and if they dont open after cooking – they’re dead.

The cooking process is very quick as with most fresh seafood. But clams are, at least to me, especially fun to cook!

Here’s what I used:

• 1lbs of fresh mahogany clams
• A whole package of prepacked basil, Whole Foods brand
• 1dl of white wine with lemon flavour
• 1dl (roughly) chopped parsley
• 1 red jalapeño pepper
• Garlic, lots of it

Start out by rinsing and scrubbing the clams clean under cold water, make sure they are all closed. If any of them are open just tap them to see if they close. If they don’t close they’re dead and you must discard of them. The smell of a dead clam is not pleasant. After the clams are rinsed, start chopping everything up roughly. Julianne the jalapeño and either slice or crush the garlic (I sliced it).

In a lidded pot put a table spoon or two of olive oil, heat it up, dump in the cams. Throw in all the ingredients but the parsley. Put on a lid and hold it tight and shake/swirl it around to mix the content. Let the clams steam in the wine for about five-ten minutes or until all of them have popped open. When all the clams have popped open strain them in a colander that you put inside a bigger bowl to save the clam juices. After the juices are drained put the clams in a separate bowl and boil up the clam juices again, add the parsley and some pepper to taste (you could add salt if necessary but since clams are very salty naturally you might want to skip the additional salt in this dish ;))

Ready to serve!

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