Two Options

As the school year came to a close, I came to grips with the realization that I was facing two options: either it was time to purchase a set of bigger pants or it was time to change some lifestyles.  Thus, it was time to not only resume The Diet, but actually incorporate something new...The Exercise.  You can safely anticipate me complaining about both of those sometime soon.  Today was a good day for leisurely grocery shopping and taking my time with prep work.  The goal was to have an appetizer ready for when The Bride returned from work, and then prepare the main course afterwards.  As afternoon set in, I started getting back into the Better Lifestyle by starting the marinade for the Marinated Escolar Tuna With Red Pepper Relish on page 309.

Escolar is a wonderful fish that is often found in high-end sushi restaurants, especially noted for its oiliness (read: tastiness).  It is hard, however, to find here in Cincinnati at the fishmongers, so I settled for high-grade tuna.  The recipe called for a much longer marinade time compared to most.  Fish usually cannot be marinated for more than half an hour as the acidity will start to "cook" the proteins in the fish, which is the essence of ceviche.   Still, I always like to follow a recipe as close as possible the first time, unless I see something glaring that needs addressing.

Into the Ziploc bag!

The red pepper relish was next as I had some time on my hands.  You are supposed to roast the pepper on the grill, but since I was doing this an hour beforehand, I went with the range instead.  This is actually pretty easy to do if you have a gas range.  Just place the pepper on the grate and wait.

When the skin starts to blister and blacken, give it a quarter-turn.

When all sides are done, place in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap to let the pepper steam the rest of its skin off for a few minutes.  I know I've shown you this before, but it's been a while.

While the pepper was steaming, I prepped the rest of relish.

Once the pepper was cooled, I removed the skin, diced the flesh, and mixed it in with the relish.

I then moved on to appetizer, the Spicy Seafood Bowl on page 71.

 Let's skip ahead to the mise en place!

I sauteed the onions, added in the garlic and red pepper flakes, and then the rest of the stew ingredients (sans seafood stuff).  Basically, if you look at the above picture, it was glass bowl on left, second glass bowl, and then large porcelain bowl.  Have I mentioned that I LOVE mise en place?  The tomatoes needed a few minutes to break down.

Ten minutes later (pardon the steam in the picture) the stew was achieving the correct consistency.

While the sauce was reaching that point the seafood was on the grill, expect for the clams.  These were to be steamed open by the stew.

Cover the dish and let the steam work its magic.  Give the pan a shake from time to time.

The seafood came off the grill.  I learned that grilling cod is a pain.

I cut up the seafood and threw it all in the saucepan.

Here is the appetizer:

After we ate the stew (more on that in a bit) I cooked the tuna steak and plated our dinner.

First of all, the stew was AMAZING!   I think it very well could be in my Top Ten of All Time.  The flavors were off the chart, not to metion quite broad.  I'm actually at a bit of a loss as for how to properly describe how much I enjoyed this.  I did, however, make one critical error: I neglected to pick up some bread.  This dish screams for some toasted San Francisco sourdough bread.  I would also, in the future, double the stew ingredients.  I had cut the amount of seafood in half since it was just The Bride and me for dinner, and there was still barely any room in the pan.  

Regarding the tuna steak and red pepper relish...meh.  It was good, but forgettable.