Cornmeal-crusted trout with mashed root vegetables and crispy leeks

So I was wandering around New Seasons, as is my wont these days, wondering what to make for dinner. It's citrus season again, so I grabbed some blood oranges. Even though they're not particularly sweet, I'm always suckered into buying them for their novelty. It's an orange! That isn't orange! Here, take my money.

I was sort of hankering for seafood, but after a recent flirtation with food poisoning (waited a day to cook fresh mussels, ate one or two, and realized they smelled like ammonia - luckily, came away unscathed) I wanted to play it safe with a nice salmonid. Salmon, steelhead and trout are so ubiquitous in these parts that kids growing up here get a shot at catching their very own at least once. My grandpa used to take me and my brother fishing at Rooster Rock State Park in the Columbia River Gorge when we were little. We'd always giggle at the fact that there was a nude beach at this park, and never caught anything but brown bullhead catfish. My grandpa usually ended up swinging us by the rainbow trout farm at the end of the day so we wouldn't come home empty-handed.

My mom would dutifully dredge the cleaned trout in some cornmeal and fry them up in a cast iron skillet. I think this was the only way I ate fish (or in fish stick form) until I was a teenager. Some wheels need no reinvention, and this is one. That said, I did want to doll up the cornmeal a bit, and so to it, added blood orange zest and fresh thyme.

I got about a half inch of grapeseed oil hot, then tossed in some sliced leeks to get nice and crispy. This is an idea I totally stole from Peter, and it's a good way to use a leek that languishing in the crisper. Also on the verge of going to waste was a bag of parsnips and a few carrots. Feeling the sweet root veg vibe, I simmered these in milk and mashed them with lots of butter. I fried the fillets of Idaho trout in the leek-flavored oil and in only a minute or two, dinner was ready. It was totally worth the mess.

Serve with a Pinot Prosecco and wedges of tart blood orange.

Pub Grub

Doesn't this look like a happy picnic of all of your favorite fried foods, fresh from the pub, all laid out on a blanket of glee and sunshine? Don't be fooled, it's rainy and sardonic out there. This new lamp burns my retinas until I see only magenta and green splotches, and I can't adjust the white balance on my camera if it's on the macro setting. The bloody fuck?

When Scott and I quit smoking a year ago (next week), we knew there was only one place that we'd miss terribly: the Horse Brass. We had our commemorative send-off into ex-smokerdom there, to add one last wisp to the raw umber patina on the walls and to engage in what would be our last blissful respite in overt self-destruction. Not being ones for doing things half-assed, we had to order the halibut fish and chips (Scott's favorite) and the Scotch egg (my downfall).

In case you haven't surmised, a Scotch egg is a hard-boiled egg that's been wrapped in sausage and deep-fried. I made bite-sized ones with quail eggs. It was a total hassle, but worth it. I made a honey-horseradish dip for them and it rocked me like a hurricane.


Just as big a hassle, but similarly worth it, were the halibut fish and chips (in a Boddington's ale batter) and sweet potato fries. With plenty of homemade tartar sauce (store-bought mayo thinned with a little red onion vinegar, Dijon, lemon zest, chopped homemade pickles and S&P). The fries were alright, not awesome - they could've been a little crispier. We joked about making onion rings too, but there was so much golden brown on the plate already. To be honest, after eating the first perfect Scotch egg, I wanted to eat only those and didn't need anything else.

I also made a batch (actually, a restrained bowl) of simple slaw by finely slicing savoy cabbage and scallions, and whisking together a dressing of mayo (opting again for store-bought), Dijon, white balsamic, honey, lemon juice and zest, salt and lots of pepper. It would've benefited from a denser crunch in retrospect, and I wish I'd added some apple or kohlrabi to the mix.

My cravings for fried, crispity goodness having been thoroughly slaked, it'll be a long while before I wreck my kitchen again doing this (and at $18/lb., halibut was a real once in awhile treat to buy fresh). Besides, bars are smoke-free now. Horse Brass here we come.

Chicken and Waffles

Chicken and waffles. The first in a series I call Monochromatic, Yet Delicious. Some of my readers (particularly the ones who hail from exotic locales) have blank looks on their faces. It's a real thing, I assure you, to eat fried chicken on waffles. And it's really fucking good.

Chicken and waffles is an American dish that was invented by black people in the 1930s to serve the needs of Harlem's hungry jazz cats after a show. They often played so late into the wee hours that by the time they were done, it was too late for dinner and too early for breakfast. Anyway, that's the most widely-accepted creation myth. I think it might have a little more to do with the amount of grass those dudes were smoking, but that's just my theory.

Chicken and waffles are a Thing. They are a thing for which I hanker, and only one joint in town (that I know of) sells them, and then only on Sundays at brunch. Even those waffle carts that are popping up all over NoPo are missing the boat on the chicken. As usual, I had to take matters in to my own hands.

Granted, my chicken is merely oven-fried (I hate frying, especially in a freshly-cleaned kitchen) with a corn flake crust, but it comes close. I like it spicy and crunchy, on a fluffy waffle (a basic baking powder-leavened recipe instead of Belgian for simplicity - I didn't feel like waiting for a yeasted batter to do its thing). Smeared with maple sugar spread and butter, a little syrup for good measure, and you're havin' kittens, baby.

Enjoy with a screwdriver and Dizzy Gillespie.

Fried squash blossoms

Yes, I fucking did it, so get off my back already! Actually, it wasn't that bad. Contrarily, I might start viewing all foods through the Scottish "these'd be crakin fried" lens now (eh, Kittie?). This will spell ultimate doom for my figure. My muffin tops don't need any help getting buttered, thankyouverymuch!

I really don't know why I procrastinated so long. I'm really not afraid of frying, but the leftover oil will have to be dumped into a pile of wadded newspaper and thrown away in the trash so I don't assrape the municipal water system. (I really hope none of you are actually dumping used grease down the drain!)

My froggy sponge holder is sneering at me mockingly in perfect focus. Froggy and my camera think it's pretty funny to fuck with me like this, and are having a grand old laugh. You can't see it in the (terrible, terrible) picture, but I stuffed my little pattypan blossoms with a mixture of fromage blanc, chopped brie (the wedge I bought in July had started growing rind on the cut sides), minced shallot and fines herbs. Just tease the blossom open, stuff a little spoonful of filling in and close the campanulate corolla lobes back together (uh, the "petals").

The batter is so simple! Don't waste your money on packaged tempura batter mix - just plain flour (wheat or rice) and ice-cold club soda (you could also use beer, but why waste it?). I also added some garlic powder and chopped herbs to the batter just for shits and gigs.

Next time I would use a fattier cheese (chevre or mascarpone would be creamier), because the fromage blanc didn't really melt or get gooey - it just doesn't have enough fat. I think even just the little hunks of Havarti that I originally planned would have worked, but I didn't want something too heavy, because I made these to go with a peppery flatiron steak, another batch of that corn-roasted poblano pudding (this time cooked in a terrine for easy slicing - having brunch guests tomorrow) and tomato salad.

So I know someone is totally going to make these, take a sunshine-backlit, properly exposed photo and get it on Tastespotting. And everyone will think, "oh, how clever _____ is to make these!" and ______ will get all that sweet, sweet blog traffic and the extra $3.28 from Foodbuzz this month. Not like I'm claiming to have invented them or anything, I just made them with this unique and delicious filling and then photographed them poorly. Which, in the blogging thing, means I may as well have never made them at all.