running with tweezers

love cakes

After a week of soup, I thought that this blog needed a little bit of love - in the form of solid food!

For our Valentine's Day dinner, our group of friends decided to forgo the usual dinner reservations in lieu of a home-cooked gourmet meal. I'm ruined - V-day and New Years are "holidays" I only want to spend in the cozy company of friends from here on out. We all picked a direction and a course...and mine turned up to be "West" and the appetizer course. I looked for something with West Indian spices and came across this recipe on the Food Network's site. I ended up tweaking it as I went along and, while I'm not sure that what I ended up with was West Indian, it was absolutely delicious.

In addition to the crab cakes themselves, I made a quick garam masala and grapefruit aioli which I smeared on the plate. To cut some of the richness and give some zing, I garnished the plates with a quick salad of frisee and blood orange segments. The brightness and the texture of the frisee was great to contrast the sweet richness of the rest of the dish.

Curried Crab Cakes - makes 10 2" diameter cakes - recipe originally found here

    *  1 egg
    * 1/2 cup mayonnaise
    * 1 tablespoon whole grain mustard
    * 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
    * 1 tbsp. mild Madras curry
    * 1 tbsp. hot Madras curry
    * 2 scallions, chopped
    * 1/4 cup red bell pepper, diced
    * 1/4 cup yellow bell pepper, diced
    * 1/4 cup orange bell pepper, diced
    * 1/4 cup red onion, chopped
    * 2 tablespoons parsley, chopped
    * 1 cup panko bread crumbs
    * 1 1/2 pound crab meat, jumbo lump
    * Salt and freshly ground black pepper

- Combine everything in a mixing bowl except the crab meat and panko. Taste the mixture for seasoning. Gently fold in crabmeat, careful not to break up crab meat too much. Fold in panko, adding enough so that the mixture is not too tight.

- Cook 1 crab cake and taste. Adjust the seasoning if necessary. Form into 2 1/2-ounce cakes. Saute on both sides until golden brown. I garnished my plates with a smattering of chives and the before-mentioned aioli and blood orange salad.

in the raw

I'm not sure about in other places but here in Atlanta, the burger craze is in full effect. They have reached cult status here in our town with the opening of Flip, the burger "boutique" concept of Richard Blais - yes, of Top Chef fame.

The wide variety of burgers there at Flip - from the lamb burger to the Vietnamese "bun mi" burger - really inspired me. My favorite that I've had there was the steak tartare - a really delicious twist on a classic. It got my mind working on a version that incorporated one of my favorite things on earth: tuna tartare. With a slab of really fresh tuna, some wasabi and a couple other simple (and high quality ingredients) - this came together brilliantly. The play of the toasted bun with the tooth of the raw tuna and the crunch of the frisee was pretty sublime. It was also a lot of fun to let your mind wander and come up with your own answer to the question - what defines a burger?

The full story is available here at Atlanta Cuisine in page 16 of the January issue.

Tuna Tartare Burger - serves 2 large burgers or 4 smaller "slider" sized burgers

• 1 pound fresh ahi tuna
• 1 small handful chives - minced
• 1 tbsp. sesame oil
• 1 tbsp. rice wine vinegar
• 1 tbsp. soy sauce
• salt and pepper to taste
• 4 large high quality hamburger buns - brioche would be a nice touch here!
• 3 tbsp. creme fraiche
• 1 tsp. prepared wasabi
• 1 large handful of frisee or other greens

For the wasabi creme fraiche: Bring creme fraiche up to slightly below room temp. Mix with wasabi paste and set aside.

For the tuna tartare: Using a very sharp knife, dice tuna in small 1/4 - 1/2 inch dice. Place tuna in a bowl set inside an iced bowl to keep the tuna cold during assembly. To the tuna, add the liquid ingredients and stir carefully not to break up the fish. Throw in minced chives and gently stir again. Salt and pepper the tartare to taste. If not serving immediately, keep the tartare on the iced bowl to keep it cold.

Assembly: Lightly toast hamburger buns or cut-out rounds of brioche. Spread a scant smear of wasabi creme fraiche on the bottom of the bun. Top with the tartare in whatever ratio you want and will accommodate the number of burgers you're making. Top with a small handful of frisee or other greens. I like serving the burger open face with the bun on the side and let your diners decide their best plan of attack.

on the waterfront

I'm just tickled to finally be able to post about this recipe...and the great stories that go along with it. I have started writing a regular column for Atlanta Cuisine, a sort of online foodie gathering place here in Atlanta, called Deep Dish. Every month, it's going to be a mix of dining adventures and cooking at home. A study in what inspires what. Which came first: the restaurant or the recipe?

For the first piece, I was blown away by a dish I had during a spectacular meal on vacation in St. George Island. A tasting menu at Avenue Sea in Apalachicola that rivaled any meal I've had here in town. One dish stood out in particular: clams with chorizo, lemon, and paprika oil. I came home and immediately tried to replicate it - with my own little twists.

You can read the entire story about how this dish came to be here at AtlantaCuisine.com. The recipe is posted at the bottom of the article in its entirety. Please feel free to leave feedback there or here on the blog - whether you're a resident of A-town or not!

keeping it raw

More raw(ish) meat on my blog! I promise this won't become a running theme, either literally or figuratively. I just had to post this recipe - I made this for a shoot a few months ago and now I've been coming back to it in my head for days now. I'm sure it's the combination of still being in beach mode and having Cinco de Mayo coming up today.

While I was on vacation in St. George Island, we were inundated with fresh seafood.  Fresh shrimp purchased from the side of the road and made into a shrimp cocktail lunch. Huge, plump raw oysters and steamed crab legs at the dive-y raw bar around the corner. It was just incredible...and it's a way I would like to eat all the time. While I do live in a major city and have access to all varieties of foods, the freshness of local seafood is something you just can't replicate - even when you pay $17.99 a pound for it at Whole Foods.

A really easy way to have that brightness of flavor and the ease of a warm-weather dish is ceviche. When I made this batch for the shoot several months back, it was the first time I had made it myself. I love ceviches of all sorts but always had trepidation about balancing the acid and the heat and all of the flavors in between. Those fears were truly unfounded - it couldn't have been easier.

I love calamari/squid in my ceviche, so I added that to the cod fillets I used. While this recipe makes a LOT of ceviche, you can easily cut it down and eyeball the amount of lime juice or acid you use to "cook" the seafood. You can also easily adjust the heat by amping up or minimizing the peppers. Add a glass of crisp white wine and some Saltines to this and you've got a divine (not to mention low fat and - without the crackers - low carb) summer meal.

Ceviche - recipe originally found here at Cooks.com

• 3 pounds of catfish fillets (any whitefish, fresh or saltwater will do, or some shrimp may be added.)
• 3-4 medium tomatoes
• 5-6 Serrano peppers
• 1 onion
• 24 limes
• 1/2 tablespoon salt
• 1/4 cup cilantro (finely chopped)

- Dice fish into small pieces approximately an inch in size. Place in large plastic or glass bowl - it doesn't need to be shallow.

- Using a lime juicer, add the juice of all 24 limes. Marinate for 1 to 1-1/2 hours in the refrigerator. Dice onion, tomatoes, and Serrano and add to the fish mixture. Stir in salt and cilantro. Cover and place back in refrigerator for at least 30 minutes to allow flavors to mix.

We use this for parties and family gatherings. Recipe may be made smaller by reducing ingredients to half or one third of original quantities.

Remember to use 7-8 limes per pound of fish. The bottled lime juice may be used, but it will not yield the same result. It adds a concentrate sweet/bitter flavor to the dish and is not as good as fresh squeezed.

P. S. The "juice" of ceviche is called "Tiger's Milk" and is thought to increase virility and cure hangovers.

Thanks to Tony Clark for sharing in this amazing meal we made that day and for taking such beautiful photos of it, as usual!!!