Meatballs, fruit and fish, oh my!

Where's that tanker load of clarified butter? 

Texas brags about how big things are there, but I found this lobster in the Florida Keys! The Caribbean or Spiny Lobster doesn't have the giant fighting claws of the cold water Maine Lobster. The Spiny is smart enough to hide in holes in the coral reef to prevent being eaten.

This exquisitely detailed giant metallic Spiny Lobster has been a tourist attraction in the Keys for decades. The story is that it was built some forty years ago, as a response to a bet, by an out of work carpenter. For the last 20 years or so it has occupied the parking lot of a typical Keysian tourist-trap shop -- you know the kind of place -- full of shells and knicknacks and chatchkies to take home and remind you of the sunburn, windburn and salt water burning your eyes that are the true memories of your trip!

 

Meatballs Part I

I caught an episode of a food program a week or so back that was dedicated to the variations in meatballs. And there is so much more to good meatballs than just ground meat rolled into spheres! An entire hour that praised meatballs from the size of marbles to 3" monsters. All beef (well, there may have been a passing mention of pork).

I do love meatballs, but Sally and I don't eat a lot of beef - or pork for that matter. Finding recipes for chicken or even fish meatballs was not an easy task. The first chicken meatball I discovered was for Tsukune. 

 

Tsukune - Japanese Chicken Meatballs

1 lb ground chicken

5 oz. medium firm Tofu

1 Red Bell Pepper

2 Green Onions

1 inch Ginger finger

1 Egg

Salt & Pepper

Drain the tofu for 15 minutes and then crumble. Dice the pepper and green onion, mince the ginger. Combine meat, pepper, and onion. Add the tofu and egg, and smoosh together to mix everything well. Form into balls. Bake or griddle or pan fry until GB&D. I baked mine in a silicon mini-muffin tin, for about 15 minutes, until they 'set.  I took them out of the muffin tin, basted them with teriyaki sauce and broiled them for about 5 minutes to dry them out and add a bit of brown. Serve with Teryaki dipping sauce. 

Sally suggested more garlic and less ginger, but balance the flavors to your own taste. Next time I'll add a bit of hoisin sauce to the mix for more flavor, and less tofu. The tofu made the meat mixture very 'wet' to work with.

Kaffir Lime Marmalade

Long known as the Kaffir Lime by food afficianados, the PC modern world prefers the Thai word makrut because kaffir has negative connotations in Africa where it was a perjorative word for the natives. The heck with that PC nonsense!  Limes don't have a thing to do with calling people names!  

As you can see, the fruit is half-way in size between a Persian lime and the tiny Key lime.  It has little juice and a lot of tiny seeds.  The aroma of a cut kaffir lime is very pungent but aromatic; not much like the aroma of Persian or Key limes.  The leaf of the kaffir lime is to Thai cuisine what the bay leaf is to French cuisine.  Here's a recipe I found for Kaffir Lime Marmalade:

4 Kaffir limes, enough for 2 tablespoons lime zest
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup water
1/4 cup lime juice

Zest the limes. Combine zest with sugar and water in a sauté pan. Cover the pan with wax paper cut to fit its width (apparently to prevent evaporation and enhance flavor concentration. Cook gently on low heat for 20 minutes, until the mix starts to lightly bubble. Add juice and let it cook for another 15 minutes, while stirring. Serve chilled.

That's what the original recipe said. I had three kaffir limes, not four. And I wanted to do this microwave style. So I minced the three limes (not enough bulk to go in the blender without getting lost) and put that in a glass measuring cup. Came to 3/4 cup. I added a 1/4 cup of other fresh-squeezed lime juice and 3/4 cup sugar. Stir, and microwave for 8 minutes.

I'll admit that I've always had trouble making lime marmalade. Seems like it tends to burn more readily than other citrus fruits or fruit combinations. And the skin bits don't soften as readily as other fruits. This time what happened is that when the marmalade set, I ended up with what could be called Lime Toffee! Really tasty and distinctly Kaffir Lime flavored, but stiff enough to cut with a knife!

Next time I'll try the original recipe!

Red Dragon Fruit Smoothie

Pitaya roja is the Spanish name of this original Mexican cactus fruit which has spread throughout Latin America, Hawaii and Asia. The white-fleshed variety is pitaya blanca. 

Both are members of the genus Hylocereus cactus family The many-seed-spotted meat of both varieties is relatively tasteless, with a slight sweetness. The seeds are like strawberry seeds, more or less. You don't really notice them. 

Last year I wrote about pitaya blanca. This time when we stopped in Homestead, "gateway to the Keys", the fruit vendors had lots of the roja variety and almost no blanca.

I scooped the fruit out of the two leathery shells and put it in the blender with a couple tablespoons of Saw Palmetto Honey we bought at the same fruit stand, plus a third cup of half & half, and gave the concoction a whirrr. I didn't want to overwhelm the subtle flavor with the acid of Greek yogurt. The resulting drink wasn't very thick, but it sure was tasty. The honey seemed to bring out something extra from the fruit.

Grilled Corn, Avocado and Tomato Salad 

with Honey Lime Dressing

I saw this on Facebook last week and it sounded really good, so I just had to try it. I substituted yellow tomatoes for red (Sally likes the less-acidic yellow tomatoes), and added diced red bell pepper to put the color back in the mix.

Salad:

1 pint grape tomatoes
1 ripe avocado
2 ears of fresh sweet corn (you could substitute a cup of frozen kernals, thawed)
2 tbsp fresh cilantro, chopped (this is needed, even if you hate cilantro)

Dressing:
Juice of 1 lime
3 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tbsp honey
Sea salt and fresh cracked pepper, to taste
1 clove garlic, minced
Dash of cayenne pepper

Remove husks from corn and grill (or broil) until starting to char and blacken. Cut the corn off the cob. Set aside and let cool. Slice the tomatoes in half. Dice the avocado and chop the cilantro.

Put all the dressing ingredients in another bowl or large cup, and whisk to combine.

Combine the tomatoes, avocado, cilantro, grilled corn and dressing and spices, mix gently so everything is evenly coated. A pinch of cayenne is more than enough; you may prefer chile powder or hot paprika. Be careful not to mash the avocado. 

Let the salad sit and chill for at least 10-15 minute so the flavors marry. I served it Sunday night for our light supper -- Tuna Melt and Salad, with Mamey Mousse for dessert.

The salad is really tasty. Next time I think I'll roast the red bell pepper too, for added flavor.  We both love the dressing, and I may make up a cup-sized batch for Sally's Chopped Salad.

One Fish, Two Fish, Three Fish

In the last week or ten days we at fish almost every day, and tried a couple new kinds. We eat a lot of fish, but it tends to be the locally available grouper, cod, mahi-mahi, tilapia and occasionally catfish. When we can get it, we order the ugly, but oh so tasty Hogfish.  The long snout is used to root crustaceans out of the sand.  Hogfish are line caught or speared, not net caught, as they live on the reefs.

But last week, in Key Largo, there was a fish on the menu that we recognized the name of, but had never tasted -- Cobia. So I ordered a platter, broiled, when we were at the Key Largo Seafood Company. Nice flaky white fish, a little juicier than I'm accustomed to. Nice tasting, but a bit more fishy than mahi-mahi or grouper.  I'll try it again, perhaps pan-fried, the next time I see it on a menu.

When we got home I went to the local Megamart to re-stock the fridge, and my Seafood Guy said I should try a fish they've had in for a couple weeks, called Wolf Fish, which comes "fresh" (frozen only once) from Icelandic waters. They are apparently half way between an ordinary fish and an eel, living in crevasses in the rocky bottom.  Seafood Guy claimed that "it tastes like lobster", a claim also made for Monkfish. So I got a half pound and pan-poached it. Another mild and tasty fish! Doesn't taste like any kind of lobster I've ever eaten, but the texture is somewhat similar, I will say.   Another ugly but tasty fish!