The piece of cod

We recently had a spectacular vacation in Italy. From time in Tuscany (cooking class being the highlight) to an amazing time in Naples. I must say that Naples is the most invigorating, exciting, exhausting, wild place I have ever been. And we only just scratched the surface.

Given where Naples sits, a great deal of the food comes from the Mediterranean. So we ate a lot of fish and other seafood. Of course the Neapolitan street food featured too, but this posting is about flavor intensity.

Cod is (of course) not a fish one would expect to see in Naples, but for this recipe, it works well. Other firm, white fsh would work even better, but I didn't really have time to get to the fish monger - so frozen cod it was. The fish isn't the star, however. The bold combination of flavors - capers, tomatoes, olives, oregano, olive oil all baked with the fish made for a delicious, quick, easy dinner.

Ingredients

8 oz Firm white fish in 2 fillets

6 oz cherry tomatoes - cherry tomatoes have the most flavor and the right skin to flesh ratio . And they are about the same size as the olives.

1/2 red onion, diced (soaked in water for 30 minutes, then drained)

4 Tbsp capers, draind but not rinsed. I wanted to keep the briny intensity and not need to add more salt

4 oz black olives, halved

A sprinkling of dried oregano

8 oz Small Yukon Gold potatoes

Mint to cook the potatoes

Salt, to taste in the potato water.

Lots of high quality olive oil

Method

Preheat oven to 375F (Fan assist or 400F conventional).

Place the fish on a parchment lined sheet pan. Mix the tomatoes, capers, red onion, olives, oregano, and olive oil together in a bowl.

Salt cold water in a saucepan, and add the mint and potatoes. 

Cover the fish well with the tomato mixture. 

Start to cook the potatoes over a medium setting. At the same time put the sheet pan into the oven. When the potatoes are cooked (8-10 minutes after being brought to a simmer), the fish is cooked.

Serve with a nice, crisp white wine.

Tapenade

 Classic tapenade isn't just about the olives. Capers play a major role too.  The name comes from the Provencal word for capers (tapenas). In the version that I make, the capers get equal billing with the olives. That makes for a tarter version than we often see. But it works pretty well.

Ingredients

1/2 cup non-pareil capers, rinsed and drained

1 cup black olives in brine, rinsed, pitted and chopped

2 anchovy fillets

2 larger cloves of garlic, crushed 

1/3 cup high quality olive oil (you might need a little more if the olives are quite dry)

Method

Place the drained capers into the jar of your blender. Roughly chop the olives with a few quick passes with your chef's knife. This serves 2 purposes. First it finds any pits that were left behind before your blender or teeth do. Second it allows for a shorter time in the blender so the capers don't get overprocessed. Add the anchovies and crushed garlic.

Pulse the mixture for a second or two. Then add the olive oil, and pulse until the desired consistency is reached. Maybe 3 pulses each lasting a second. Depends on the power of your blender.

Spoon out, the mixture and refrigerate - preferably overnight.

Serve with crostini and a nice glass (or several if you aren't driving) of a chilled Provencal rose.

Roasted Red Pepper Dip

This was one of those warm Texas evenings, a bottle of rosé , pita chips and the great outdoors kinds of recipes. We had a few red peppers, some pine nuts, olives, capers, anchovies and "secret ingredient" lying around. So of course a dip was the answer. Served with an Argentinian rosé (Pinot Noir).  Bagel chips as an accompaniment and we had very happy tummies.
It turns out that there are quite a lot of ingredients in this. But we happened to have them all to hand.

Ingredients

3 Red Peppers - roasted and cut into pieces

1/2 cup pine nuts - toasted

2T olive oil (not extra virgin - it becomes bitter with the use of the immersion blender)

1 salt packed anchovy

6 Niçoise olives, pitted

1T capers rinsed and drained

1t Habanero vodka (aka secret ingredient). May substitute any hot pepper sauce, but if vinegared, reduce vinegar in overall recipe

2T Sherry vinegar

Salt to taste

Method

Place all the ingredients except the vinegar and salt into the immersion blender's beaker and pulse until almost smooth. Crunchy peanut butter texture is what you are aiming for.

Taste once the desired texture is attained. Add salt (if necessary) and sherry vinegar to taste.

Chill and serve with pita chips

Squash Salad

In the summer here in Texas there is an abundance of squash - zucchini, yellow squash, crook-neck, 8-ball and a host of others. Our trip to the farmers' market on Saturday yielded some nice, firm zucchini - about 6" long each. Zucchini can be annoying to cook - all that water has to be driven off before they will brown - and then all of a sudden they are black. If you don't drive the water off, they are all limp and mushy - almost able to be sucked through a straw. Am I making them sound appetizing yet? I thought not.

Then I saw this thing advertised. It is a spiralizer. Once you get past the "gluten free" hype and stop trying to pretend that strands of zucchini are pasta, the idea is quite handy. The tool is unnecessary - at least for this dish. A good old-fashioned vegetable peeler is all you need. But the spiralizer did spark some thinking.

The secret to this dish is your choice of olive oil. It would be revolting with a neutral tasting oil. We used a California Koroneiki oil, an oil with lots of peppery notes and a silky, buttery mouth feel.

Ingredients (2 Servings)

4 medium sized zucchini

16 cherry tomatoes, halved

1 T capers, rinsed and drained

A few sprigs lemon thyme, leaves only chopped finely

A few glugs of high quality, peppery extra virgin olive oil. Probably 1/4 cup

Juice of 1/2 lemon

Kosher salt to taste

Coarsely ground black pepper to taste

1 avocado diced into 1/4" pieces

Crunchy sea salt for finishing

Method

Peel the zucchini, and then slice into ribbons length wise using the vegetable peeler. Discard the core where the seeds are.

Add the tomatoes, capers, lemon thyme, olive oil and lemon juice to the zucchini slices in a bowl and toss to coat. Add the seasoning salt and pepper to taste, and toss again.

Place 1/2 the avocado onto each plate. Mound the squash salad over the avocado. Sprinkle  some coarse salt on the surfaceof the salad. Frind some pepper onto the plate to make it look interesting, serve immediately

A kind of panzanella

It was a warm evening in September, here in TX. While the tomatoes are over, I was able to find some nice cherry toms and yellow small tomatoes at the store. Madame likes to use our home grown basil and bread in salads, so here is a variant on panzanella. It uses the bread in 2 ways - one mixed in to soak up all the juices and the other as a large crostini for display and crunch. The beer served with this is the excellent DuPont Saison.

There's a handy tip for slicing tomatoes and olives here http://seabirdskitchen.blogspot.com/2012/09/halving-olives-and-baby-tomatoes.html

Ingredients

10oz mixed small (cherry sized) tomatoes, sliced in half
6 oz pitted mixed greek olives
2T rinsed and drained capers
2 cloves garlic, sliced finely
Juice of 1 orange
1 cup whole basil leaves (divided use)
4 large slices of bread, grilled (or toasted)
High quality olive oil (drizzling)
Large crystals of sea salt
Freshly ground pepper
a couple of ounces of Pecorino Romano, shaved from a larger piece using a vegetable peeler.

Method

Halve the tomatoes and olives. Place in a gallon zip lock bag. Add the capers, garlic and all but 12 leaves of the basil chiffonaded. Add the orange juice Refrigerate for a couple of hours to let the flavors blend.

When ready to serve, grill the bread slices (or toast then if you prefer). Cut 2 of the slices into croutons, halve each of the other 2. Mix the croutons into the olive/tomato mixture and allow to stand for a few minutes - to soak up the juice.

Place the halved toast on the plate, and pile the olive/tomato mixture over most of the toast, leaving some of the toast uncovered so that it remailns crunchy and acts as a handle.

Drizzle the olive oil over the salad, decorate with the remaining basil leaves and a few grinds of pepper. Sprinkle large sea salt crystals for crunch. Arrange the sliced Pecorino Romano on top and serve.

Note

There were only 2 of us eating this as a main course. There was about 1/3rd of the olive/tomato mixture left over for a lunch time salad today.