seafood

Something to Read: Eat, Memory

~ wellfedemily ~ Leave a comment

30days

It’s been five days since I had my wisdom teeth out and my mouth still throbs with a dull, insistent ache. I haven’t eaten a satisfying meal in what feels like forever, and nobody is interested in indulging me as I whine about it. These are the worst of times. I am not exaggerating, I don’t care what Nick says. Also we have ants. And I’m almost out of pills.

I am having a hard time mustering a kind word or the slightest enthusiasm for anything, so I’m phoning it in tonight, and leaving you with a poem and a recipe for Sole Meunière, a wonderful thing and a meal I could probably eat if someone else would make it for me. The poem and the recipe both come from Eat, Memory, a book of culinary essays from the New York Times, assembled and edited by Amanda Hesser.

eat_memory

The Fish, by Billy Collins

As soon as the elderly waiter
placed before me the fish I had ordered,
it began to stare up at me
with its one flat, iridescent eye.

I feel sorry for you, it seemed to say,
eating alone in this awful restaurant
bathed in such unkindly light
and surrounded by these dreadful murals of Sicily.

And I feel sorry for you, too –
yanked from the sea and now lying dead
next to some boiled potatoes in Pittsburgh –
I said back to the fish as I raised my fork.

And thus my dinner in an unfamiliar city
with its rivers and lighted bridges
was graced not only with chilled wine
and lemon slices but with compassion and sorrow

even after the waiter removed my plate
with the head of the fish still staring
and the barrel vault of its delicate bones
terribly exposed, save for a shroud of parsley.

Sole Meunière

  • 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
  • 2 tbsp. oil, such as canola
  • 2 fillets of sole
  • Salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • 4 tbsp. unsalted butter, diced
  • 2 tbsp. white wine
  • Juice of 1/2 lemon
  • 1 tbsp. finely chopped flat-leaf parsley

Place the flour in a wide dish, such as a pie plate. In a large skillet, heat oil over high heat.

Season fish on both sides with salt and pepper. Dredge through flour.

Cook in the oil for two minutes, the flip and cook the other side a minute more.

Pour off the oil in the skillet and wipe clean with a paper towel.

Place the pan back on the heat, and add the butter. Cook the butter until it has melted and turned golden. It should smell faintly nutty. Add the wine, and boil for 20 seconds. Add the lemon and parsley, and cook another 20 seconds. You’ve just made a beurre blanc. It is fabulous. Pour it over the sole and eat immediately. Serves two.

I got crabs from Paul.

~ wellfedemily ~ 3 Comments

Plaid.Saturday was a good day. Crisp, a little chilly because the west coast has decided it’s not summer anymore and now periodically sneezes cold air to remind us that this is Canada and we ought to be wearing jackets. Well, not that cold, but it was a tad nippy at the water, which is where we were. Paul decided to teach us about crabbing. Dungeness crabbing.

Crabbing involves cages and beer. And, to look at my companions, it also seems to involve plaid.

Baited.

Tossed.

Perhaps not enough plaid, as I didn’t get the memo on the dress code, which could explain why we didn’t catch all that much. I DID wear my crabbing socks, though it wasn’t a solid enough effort, apparently.

Hotness.

We caught starfish.

Murky ... can you make out what this is?

Prickly.

And I kept getting excited, because it looked like we were catching the kinds of things we could most certainly cook immediately and eat. I even helped.

Crabbing makes me look fat.

I am squealing with anticipation and glee in the background.

This one didn't measure up.

But every time we caught something, we’d have to throw it back, because of Paul’s “ethics” and the stupid “law.” So we tossed a lot of otherwise edible critters back into the sea, and we waited, and drank beer, and Nick whined about the cold because he’s a bit of a pansy delicate.

Ultimately, we had to quit on Saturday because there was a karaoke dance party I needed ample time to sparkle my cleavage for, and also it got a little windy and we all had to pee.

And then the rest of the weekend happened, and then I promised you I’d tell you all about soup and liar with my pants on fire that I am, that didn’t happen. Because today, Paul went crabbing. And he caught three. And then, not an hour later, he appeared at our front door with a bucket of crabs and a chilled bottle of wine.

Which is infinitely more fun to talk about than soup.

And ordinarily, the first crab or lobster of a given season is to be prepared in its purest form, and that is boiled in salt water and served hot with melted butter. You can get creative with future crabs, of course – I like to wok-fry them in 1/4 cup butter, 2 tablespoons of sriracha or chili-garlic sauce, three cloves of minced garlic, and a handful of chopped scallions. If you’d prefer not to cut into them live, you can pre-boil them, ten to fifteen minutes depending on the size, and then bake them at 500F for eight to ten minutes until everything is sizzling and smells good. Paul likes them steamed in white wine, also with butter. The possibilities are buttery and almost endless.

Paul, avec Crab.

Legs + Butter + My Mouth, please.

Dunk!

Happy unsexy badger.

And we ate and ate and ate and I ate all the parts no one else wanted and we were stuffed, and it was wonderful. I doubt I’ve ever eaten a fresher crab, and I am a contented badger now, at almost 1:00 am as a result. Right now? I’m boiling shells down for stock and making bagels, which is unrelated but also quite exciting. It may not just be soup to tell you about this week, after all. I can’t wait, I can’t wait, I can’t wait!!!