Broiled Pike Mackerel with Watercress (and Why I Can Never Be a Solo Blogger)

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[js]
I've already spoken of my love for pike mackerel, and since grilling is not an option at this moment in time, I just broil them in the oven on both generously salted sides until they're done.

Eaten with a sprinkle of lemon, they are quite heavenly.

When I came home one day a while back and wanted a decent lunch, I noticed the thawing pike mackerel in the fridge. Then I remembered I also had a bunch of watercress in the crisper.

Aha, why don't I do a mackerel and watercress dish, kind of like those fancy appetizers at restaurants? I hadn't actually seen a menu here with an appetizer like that, but I hazily recall that I've seen variations on this theme either in magazines and on TV shows.

It doesn't matter, the progeny of this dish, I suppose. I thought mackerel and watercress would be a "fancy" lunch, and with some potatoes, either boiled or pan-fried, this would be quite filling as well.

And I thought I can blog about this lunch too! It was quite sunny outside and I thought I could take advantage of the lighting before it got dark at 4 in the afternoon.

Simple enough, this blogging business, you know:
Make the dish, take pictures of dish, write about it. Done. ;)


2 of 2 usable shots

[js]
I just have to contend with these potatoes. In my conceptualization, this dish would be better with some kind of potatoes in there somehow.

The advantage of having two bloggers doing one blog is I can rely on the other to do the tasks that I do not feel like doing. Like peeling potatoes. Like boiling them. Or pan-frying them.

But TS wasn't home, so I would have to choose to make the potatoes myself. I took the potatoes under advisement, since I was getting to be quite ravenous at this time. There was more than one mackerel (four, to be exact) in the bag: I thought I'd see how it goes first before committing to the potatoes.

So I went my merry way, broiled the mackerel and sautéed the watercress. The watercress bundle was pretty sizable, so maybe I didn't have to have the potatoes and call this dish a watercress salad with mackerel instead.

I plated the dish as you see above and went outside to take pictures. All along I was thinking, this wasn't too bad. See, it usually is TS who takes the pictures. I usually do not want to fiddle with cameras.

In my mind, what I think she is doing when she has the camera is this: I figured TS went outside, placed the plate on the chair, and started snapping away.

I could do all that too.

I opened the door, placed the plate on the chair, and started snapping away.

I checked the pictures.

Hey.

Shadows
[js]
How come there are shadows on this thing? This can't be good. I mean, the pictures could be nicer. This wasn't as easy as I thought. What do I have to do to take a decent shot of this dish?

I started moving the chair in various positions (okay, admittedly, just one more spot on the deck) and started snapping away. There were still shadows!

No good, no good.

I had the bright idea of just holding the plate with one hand and then taking a picture. I must have not held on the plate tightly because as soon as I started to fiddle with the camera --

Ack!

There goes my dish! On the floor!



Sigh.

Oh well, I took a picture of the mess, cleaned it up, and then went back inside.

And those potatoes? See, even procrastination and laziness have their rewards. If I had done the potatoes, I would have cried even more because the potatoes would also have been wasted.

I enjoyed my half of the fish and half a bundle of watercress with some plain ol' rice.

And that's why I can never be a solo blogger.

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[eatingclub] vancouver Mackerel dishes:
Torched! Shime Saba (Japanese Pickled Mackerel)
Grilled Pike Mackerel
Fried Hasa Hasa
Simmered Saba with Daikon Radish (Saba Oroshi-ni)
Broiled Pike Mackerel
Broiled Pike Mackerel with Watercress (and Why I Can Never Be a Solo Blogger)

Sardinas na Bangus (Milkfish in the style of Sardines) and Pressure Cooker Fear

[js]
I love sardines packed in olive oil, especially those with a kick to it. One of the best quick meals I can think of is a bowl (or a plate) of hot steamed rice with a can of these sardines on it.

For the longest time, I've been wanting to make "sardinas na bangus," which can be translated as "milkfish done in the style of sardines" -- that is to say, milkfish usually packed in a jar or bottle swimming in either a tomato-based or an olive-oil based sauce.



[js]
Our Yaya used to make a very good version of sardinas na bangus. I would request quite frequently that she make it, always preferring the olive-oil version and asking her to make it quite spicy.

Once we moved away, to satisfy cravings and pangs for this dish, I would buy the ones in jars. But they never tasted as good as the one my Yaya made, and furthermore, I found them to be quite expensive, costing as much as $5 dollars for a very small bottle with about 3 or 4 thin pieces of bangus.

When I asked Yaya how to make sardinas na bangus a couple of years back, she asked me if I had a pressure cooker.

Oh? Pressure cooker?

Pressure cooker with scary knobs and dials.

[js]
That distracted me from listening too closely while Yaya rattled off the recipe. Somehow, even though apparently our Yaya had been using pressure cookers for years, in our house, in our kitchen, I still picked up a fear of pressure cookers, viewing them as bombs waiting to go off.

Finally, several months ago, I did buy a pressure cooker. Being too lazy to read the manual, I had CSC read the manual for the safety instructions. She came back with so many warnings and various scenarios of disaster that I had decided to just return the darn thing and be done with it.

No sardinas na bangus for me.

The next day, however, CSC had a change of heart. She looked at the instructions and warnings again and decided they weren't so bad after all, that using the pressure cooker is safe. Clasping hands with tears brimming in our eyes, we hugged as we overcame our deep-seated fear of pressure cookers.

So we go on to this brand new day, free from fear, and free to make my long, anticipated sardinas na bangus.


Dump ingredients into the pressure cooker:
Garlic cloves (they don't even have to be peeled!), onion, carrot, green and red bell peppers, birds' eye chili peppers (or red pepper flakes), bay leaves, cloves, olives, and salt and pepper.

And of course, milkfish and olive oil.

Then turn the pressure on!

[js]
Sardinas na bangus is basically an "edgier" dump-in-a-pot recipe, because, of course, no matter how long we clasped our hands and turned our watery eyes heavenward in thanks for overcoming our phobia, there still lurks the very real danger of injuring one's self and others from an exploding pressure cooker.

I love this recipe, because there's the added bonus of milkfish bones being soft and edible. Everything in the pot is soft and edible, even the fish scales! Scaling is actually not recommended as they will hold the fish pieces together.


Soft and edible fish: scales, bones and all!

[js]
Is it just me? I must be getting old because I can still remember the time when milkfish had lots and lots of little bones that were just pesky to eat. This was before the time the bangus industry started creating and breeding bangus to be the boneless wonder that is the norm today.


Recipe

Sardinas na Bangus ("Milkfish in the style of sardines")
Makes approximately 6 servings

2 milkfish, gutted and cleaned (scaling optional, as the scales keeps the steaks from falling apart too much), cut into 1.5-inch steaks

12 garlic cloves
1 onion, sliced into rings
1 carrot, sliced into coins
half a green pepper
half a red pepper
2 birds' eye chili peppers (or red pepper flakes)
2 dried bay leaves
6 whole cloves
2 tbsp salt
1 tbsp whole pepper
a handful of olives (optional)

2 cups of olive oil
water (you might need to add water to cover the milkfish)

Put all ingredients in the pressure cooker. You may need to add water to cover the milkfish. Follow pressure cooker instructions. Usually, one batch cooks for 35-45 minutes in the pressure cooker.

Enjoy as a meal over white rice. Or, one can serve them as appetizers, or as part of several tapas dishes.

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[eatingclub] Philippine/Filipino food
pages and pages of Filipino dishes!

[eatingclub] Spanish
Tortilla de Patatas (Spanish "Omelette")
Roast Duck and Orange Crêpes with Orange-White Wine Sauce
Sardinas na Bangus (Milkfish in the style of Sardines)
Red Wine-braised Squid with Potatoes and Chorizo
Philippine Beef Salpicao (and a Spanish variation)
Stewed Tripe, Spanish-style
Lengua Estofada (Beef Tongue Braised in Red Wine and Veal Stock)
Bacalao con Patatas (Baked Salt Cod and Potatoes)
Salsa Romesco ("Queen of the Catalan Sauces!")
Grilled Calçots (Green Onions) with Salsa Romesco
Empanada de Pavo
(Galician-style Meat Pie with Turkey Filling), plus Turkey Cracklings!
Fideuá (Spanish Seafood Noodle "Paella")... and Paella
Cocido (Spanish Stew with Various Pork Cuts)
Slow-Roast Pork Shoulder, Two Ways

Canadian Onion Soup with Oka Cheese

[js]
American cuisine?

Mention American cuisine and I immediately think hamburgers. The association is so very strong and seemingly so inextricable that we decided to take burgers out of contention for our Regional Recipes by making one for Weekend Wokking! ;)

Hotdogs, then! We were running with the hotdogs idea, thinking of doing a chili dog or some such dog, but then we decided we couldn't do it, because we most likely couldn't find the right kind of hotdogs.

So what now? No hamburgers, no hotdogs? We thought of other "sandwich"-type things that seem to abound in the American culinary landscape. New England lobster rolls? Philly cheesesteaks? New Orleans po' boys?

Although the sandwich was supposedly invented by the Earl of Sandwich, that is to say, a Brit, I think America can claim to a kind of "sandwich supremacy" now, given the sheer quantity, variety, and quality of its sandwiches.

We were getting confused at the different sandwiches we could be making or the other set of sandwiches that we absolutely could not make. It was getting desperate, this pingpong-ing of ideas of sandwiches.

That's why it's always a good thing when a turkey plops into a pot. That was our eureka moment.

Since Wandering Chopsticks opened the door a tad and allowed the use the of term "America" to include Canada, why not do a soup to partner with the great sandwiches of America?

Eh?


[js]
The state of our freezer being what it is, it's often very hard to decipher what's inside freezer bags from their freezer-burned remains.

I wanted to make some stock to make soup for dinner that night and I grabbed a large bag of what I thought to be chicken carcasses. I wasn't paying much attention, because TS and I were still discussing our possible entries for this event ad infinitum.

I was surprised when a large-ish carcass plopped into the pot of water. Weird, I thought. I thought at first that it was two or three chicken carcasses frozen together. I went about my business.

Once heated, the pot of carcasses started to smell very buttery. Weird again. I smelled again and inspected the mass in the water. There was only one carcass in there. This must be the salt-and-butter-rubbed turkey we had last Christmas.

Given the richness of this stock, we decided to make onion soup. I saw Jamie Oliver doing what he called "English" onion soup with chicken stock (as opposed to "French" onion soup, I suppose, which is usually made with beef stock), so I thought, why not a "Canadian" onion soup with turkey stock?

I was happy with the congruity.

I was also happy that we finally had an entry. Canadian Onion Soup, it is!

Oka Cheese


[ts]
Besides the turkey stock, we had to use something even more "Canadian."

A while back, when we would fast-forward through the commercials while watching Top Chef episodes, we would see, in frenetic speed, robed monks in various stages of cheese production. This footage was part of the Oka Cheese ad running at this time. We saw this ad, in fast motion, several times until I was intrigued enough to watch the ad for real.

Apparently, these monks in Quebec have been making this cheese since... almost forever or so, from what they say. =)

One day, at the better-than-normal Costco here, we spotted a tiny box of Oka Cheese. We put it into our cart without any plans on how to use it.



[ts]
Lookee, you can eat it in various stages of aging!



[ts]
This oka cheese had a consistency like brick mozzarella and a mild flavor. I grated it for use later.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oka_cheese

The Soup


[js]
Onion soup is fairly simple to make. Patience is key, because the onions do need to get caramelized. After that, it's a matter of pouring the stock in and seasoning to taste.

[ts]
We used about 8 cups of turkey stock and around 8 large white onions.



[ts]
I heated some olive oil over medium heat then started sautéing the onions. I threw in a couple of cloves of garlic too. Eventually, the whole lot was caramelized and much reduced in volume.

We could've added some herbs and such in the soup, but our turkey stock was quite fragrant with butter and sage, so I didn't think it was necessary this time.

I deglazed the pot with some white wine. Hey, the opened bottle we had sitting in the refrigerator is a Canadian wine! This is turning out to be very Canadian indeed. Woohoo.

I let the caramelized onions and white wine cook for a bit, then added the turkey stock. I let the mixture boil, then lowered the heat and let the soup simmer for about 30 minutes.

I seasoned the soup with salt and pepper, and a touch of Worcestershire sauce.

Garlic-rubbed Oka Cheese Croutons


[js]
We ladled out our Canadian onion soup into individual portions.

For the croutons, we had some breadmaker Country Loaf lying around so we decided to use that. Some garlic was rubbed on toasted, olive oil-drizzled slices of the bread because we do love garlic.



[js]
A piece of toast was placed on each bowl followed by grated Oka cheese. These were broiled under the oven to get the cheese browned and bubbly.



[ts]
So, is this onion soup Canadian enough?

It's quiet, it's unassuming... but deep and substantial.

Recipe

Canadian Onion Soup with Oka Cheese
Makes 6 to 8 servings

olive oil for caramelizing onions
butter, optional

couple of sprigs thyme, optional
few sage leaves, optional
8-10 large white onions, sliced
2 cloves garlic, sliced

1/2 cup Canadian white wine
8 cups turkey stock (fragrant with butter)
Worcestershire sauce, optional
salt and pepper

6 to 8 slices whole wheat or rye bread
extra-virgin olive oil, for drizzling over bread
1 whole clove garlic, peeled
2 to 4 cups (as you like) Canadian Oka cheese, grated

Heat olive oil (and butter, if using) over medium heat. Add the sliced onions, herbs (if using), and garlic. Season with salt and pepper. Stir and cook until they are soft. Turn heat to low and keep cooking, stirring occasionally, until the onions are caramelized. The darker they are, the more flavor they have. This can take anywhere from 30 minutes to 1 hour.

Turn the heat to high, add the white wine and stir for about 1 to 2 minutes. Add the turkey stock and let the mixture boil. Once boiling, turn the heat down to low and let simmer for about 20 to 30 minutes.

Adjust seasoning (salt and pepper) and add a dash of Worcestershire sauce, if desired. Keep warm.

Preheat broiler.

Toast each side of bread slices under the broiler. Rub the whole garlic clove over the toasted bread slices and drizzle each with olive oil.

Ladle soup into individual bowls (6 to 8). Top each bowl with a slice of toasted, garlic-rubbed bread and divide grated cheese among the bowls. Place bowls on a baking sheet and place under the broiler until cheese is bubble and golden brown. Serve.

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We're submitting this to Regional Recipes, a blogging event created by Blazing Hot Wok that celebrates food from all over the world.

The region for this edition is North America. The round-up will be hosted by us! Entries are due on April 15. Please submit them to email [at] eatingclubvancouver [dot] com.

Regional Recipes information

Our Regional Recipes posts:
Greek Meatball Soup (Giouvarlakia)
Simmered Saba Mackerel with Daikon Radish (Saba Oroshi-ni)
Thai Fried Chicken
Roast Pork Belly with Puy Lentils
Beef "Ribbon" Kebab (Pasanda Kabab) with Cilantro Chutney
Canadian Onion Soup with Oka Cheese
Muffuletta
Börek with Beef Filling
Korean Pork Bulgogi (with Muu Namul, Kong Namul)
Lobster Congee from a Lobster Feast
Pork Jowl (Pork Cheeks) with Brown Sugar Rub
Beef Salpicao
Cuban Arroz con Salchichas (Yellow Rice with Vienna Sausages)
Cuban Pastelitos de Guayaba y Queso (Guava and Cheese Pastries)
Vietnamese Spring Roll (Cha Gio)
Grilled Fish Fillet on Oregano
Pastéli (Greek Sesame Snaps)