What's for dinner?

[hwinpp]

Excellent site there, Bixa! Thanks.

Sour mango salad:

Shred mango, add 1 finely sliced shallot (they call 'em red onions here), add sliced chile and fish sauce according to taste, add coriander to taste, add a TB or two of dried, shelled minishrimp. If available break in a smoked fish or two (they're only about three inches long here). No need for lime and don't pound in a mortar or you'll have mango salad puree.

Seems quite easy actually. As I like tomatoes I sometimes add in a couple of sliced cherry tomatoes but my girlfriend always says 'not original, not original'...

Smoked fish:

[bixaorellana]

Thanks, HW -- I'm glad you found it accurate, too.

And a big thanks for the salad directions. I can get all the ingredients and can't wait to try it.

As for your girlfriend, when she says "not original", just turn up your nose and answer, "fusion!".

[hwinpp]

I'm not sure I'll try and explain 'fusion' to her...

One thing to add to the above, apparently the sour mangoes turn sweet when they're ripe. I always thought they were a different kind.

As the salad can be very sour indeed it's not eaten in big amounts. I like to have some fresh salad leaves and roll up or wrap a chopstick full of mango in them.

[bazfaz]

Our dinner with the French/Scottish last night was fine and French: delicious home made tapenade on toast with the aperitifs, ratatouille, grilled sea bass with rice (the French always insist on rice with fish) and a green salad, little pots of blood orange sorbet and chocolate mousse topped with Cointreau.

[bixaorellana]

What an extremely nice meal, Baz! Rice with fish is very fine indeed.

Tomorrow is market day & I wanted to use up stuff in the house. Bought some fresh tasajo (the very thinly cut lean beef) and zucchini, then made a killer stir fry with that + onion, carrot, poblano & hot pepper and cilantro.

[Deleted]

Mar 19, 2009 7:59:34 GMT bazfaz said:

the French always insist on rice with fish

In Northeast France, fish comes with boiled potatoes. Well, just about everything there comes with boiled, roasted or fried potatoes.

It is true that in Paris it would be rather complicated in many cases to get fish without rice, although I think that "écrasé de pommes de terre à l'ail" is becoming the new fad (semi-mashed potatoes).

[bazfaz]

There is a little restaurant here that serves rice with fish. But we always ask for frites instead and they are happy to substitute it.

[hwinpp]

Did you make the sorbet yourself, BF?

[bazfaz]

No, we went to this couple's house. She made it herself.

[Deleted]

Thanks for the salad recipe hw. Mr. C. will love it.

[Deleted]

Cucumber peeled, chopped and drained. Radishes cleaned and sliced. Tomatoes cubed. Chives chopped along with a celery stalk. Parsley finely chopped.

I think it will all be mixed together with a can of tuna, salt, pepper, olive oil and balsamic vinegar. That should do for tonight.

[Don Cuevas]

We're finally having the pinto beans and cornbread, plus steamed acelgas (green chard.)

We eat the beans with sliced white onion, the cornbread, optional pickled jalapeños chiles. It's a Southern kind of thing.

Although I didn't grow up in the South, it sort of adopted me after living there 25 or so years.

[bixaorellana]

That sounds like a perfect salad, Kerouac.

I'm also anticipating a perfect salad, since I just bought the ingredients for the Cambodian mango/smoked fish thing. HW, I also have some slices of coconut I was thinking of adding -- waddaya think?

[Deleted]

Just see if they drop on or off the plate by accident. HW still has a few more hours to go before getting back online.

[Deleted]

At one of the St.Joseph Altars today we had a wonderful sit down meal of stuffed artichoke,olive salad,fried cabbage,pasta bolognese,daube in red gravy,baked white fish also with a light red sauce and lemon,sauteed mushrooms. Dessert was a variety of Italian cookies,anise flavored cake and a fig filled pastry "Cuccidata",Chocolate-Wine Biscotti.

[bixaorellana]

*sobs piteously*

I coulda been a contender at that!

I love cuccidata more than words can express. My grandmother made them -- she called them cats-in-the-sack. And she never, to her infinite credit, put the little sprinkles on top.

For those who don't know them, they're sort of a Sicilian fig newton, except that they're insanely delicious.

[bixaorellana]

Oh ~~ that's right ... we have an OP on this thread!

For my supper ~ ta da ~ I had the green mango/smoked fish salad, which was stellar. Really, I liked that as much as anything I've eaten in my life. I forgot to get any shrimp for it (will remedy that next week), and really put in too much fish, as the one I bought was too salty. I did add the coconut -- very young & tender & non-fibrous -- and found it too be a perfect addition.

For a side dish I had watermelon -- it all went together beautifully.

Thank you HW & thanks to GF of HW!

[hwinpp]

I was about to ask how it went. Looks like it was ok then. The smoked fish here isn't salty, should have added that above in the recipe.

[bazfaz]

It's off to Blighty for the weekend - a nephew's wedding. We'll be staying with one of Mrs Faz's sisters so I have no idea what we'll be eating. Last time we were there I was put in charge of cooking. It was a bit like the TV show Ready, Steady, Cook. For those who don't know the programme the chefs are presented with a heap of ingredients and have to produce a meal in 20 minutes. So I was presented with a mixed bunch of stuff that I would never have associated together - you know, tuna steaks, turnips, stilton, bananas - and left to get on with it. The second night I thought I would do a stir-fry and I asked if there was a wok. Yes, at the back of the cupboard. When the cobwebs had been wiped off it was discovered to be entirely rusty.

[Deleted]

But didn't you say you had some sort of iron deficiency, Baz? The rust should do the trick.

[Deleted]

Tonight is the time for some grilled duck breast again, with roasted potatoes and a salad.

[Deleted]

Neighborhood Crawfish Boil

[hwinpp]

Add basil to the mango salad! Forgot to mention, sorry.

[bazfaz]

Tonight it will be a pissaladiere; then rabbit legs with balsamic vinegar and the last of the frozen broad beans (the next crop is flowering nicely).

[Deleted]

Tonight's vegetable will be green asparagus from the frozen food supermarket. I think the other part of dinner will be salmon steak. A lemon butter herb sauce should go well on both.

[bixaorellana]

I wanted plain and stodgy, so I made oatmeal with some raisins and fennel seeds that was lightly spiced with cinnamon, ginger, and a breath of curry powder. First I had some with sugar & lime juice sprinkled on top, then I had some with little pieces of emmenthaler and a good dusting of cayenne powder.

It fit the bill.

[Don Cuevas]

Toasted homemade pumpernickel bread, Dijon mustard, a couple of small slices of mozzarella cheese. (We really need to get some more variety in cheeses here.)

[Deleted]

Heating up the red (black) beans and fatback, retrieved from the freezer. I don't plan to bother to make rice, but I will sprinkle chopped onions and parsley on top.

[bazfaz]

This has been one of those meals that haven't been as planned.

I got an aubergine at the market today. But I put it down along with other stuff while I went up to the other end of the stall to select some apples. When I came back one of the lads had moved all my bags of fruit and veg into their van. Bringing them out, he forgot the aubergine.

So tonight I put a topping of chicken and gruyere on endive leaves instead of grilled aubergine slices; then pork croquettes (with a couple of chopped dried apricots to make Kerouac jealous) with corkscrew potataoes and green salad; and ortaniques.

[Deleted]

I almost bought aubergines this afternoon, and then I remembered that I don't really care for them.

But they almost got another chance, because I was going to do different things to them.