Leftovers

Mmmm, skate.


Skate, as I learned this afternoon, is a stingray-like creature. I bought some yesterday at the H-Mart because it was a nice compromise between the boring fish (tilapia) and the weird/scary seafood (snails, monkfish heads, LIVE tilapia), and I remembered my Bouchon cookbook has a few skate recipes in it.

This afternoon, went to cook it, only to be overwhelmed by ammonia. Considerable internet research allowed me to conclude that it (*probably*) won't kill me, and that soaking it in lemon for an hour will help.

In the meantime, a little food blogging about things Gen ate in the recent past:

[EDIT: skate=fail. It cooked beautifully, and I was so excited to try it. I'd sauteed some oyster mushrooms in butter rather than follow Keller's recipe, and it made a nice sauce. I lifted the first forkful of fishy goodness, and was (again) overcome by the smell of ammonia I thought I'd eradicated. It was too strong for even me to try. Lunch was sauteed mushrooms, boo.]


Crab.

This is the leftovers of a fabulous meal I made from scratch on Sunday. Homemade crabcakes on arugula with some goat cheese. I also made lemon-goat cheese biscuits (not pictured) as an adaptation of the biscuit recipe from my new cookbook, Beard on Bread. They froze really well.

Also in recent eating news:

Dolmades

Being the weirdo I am, I had this for breakfast a few days ago. Vegetarian dolmades from Phoenecia, with arugula and a poached egg. Like most normal people, I suck at poaching eggs. I was excited about the concept, dreaming of velvety poached eggs from brunches past, only to fail, again. I followed the procedure described in my circa-1960s Joy of Cooking, but got only watery egg drop soup. I tried again, with slightly better results, but had to fish slippery egg chunks out of the pot for my salad.

Finally, Mai's. I was really annoyed with their refusal to let me try anything interesting on the menu the last time I went, so it had been months since we'd visited. They did it again. I almost walked out when the waiter refused to let me order the salty limeade I wanted. We argued for several minutes, and he finally relented. I LOVED it- it tasted like lemon-lime Gatorade, or maybe Mountain Dew, but made with real juices. Sooo good after a hot day in the sun. After seeing me enjoy it, our waiter didn't even blink when I ordered the jellyfish salad.


It was the PERFECT summer food. I'd been craving jellyfish for weeks (I'm not kidding- it's actually delicious), and it was very different from the Chinese-style jellyfish salad I was used to, but it was awesome. It had jellyfish, tons of crunchy veggies, peanuts, spicy sauce, and fresh fried shrimp crackers. So now I actually like Mai's. But I wonder how much more business they would get if they would let their waiters let customers be adventurous without a fight.