Lunch 2023

[BeeZee]

This is the best time of year for fruit...cherries and nectarine with Greek yogurt

 

[lindag]

40 minutes ago, BeeZee said:

This is the best time of year for fruit...cherries and nectarine with Greek yogurt

 

Nectarines are $2 EACH  here!

[btbyrd]

Spicy yellowfin tuna rosette with avocado and smoked shoyu. A few layers of thin avocado slices sprinkled with Maldon salt, with a "well" of spicy mayo in the center topped with the tuna dressed with smoked shoyu and avocado oil, and a sprinkle of schichimi togarashi.

 

 

[Paul Bacino]

@btbyrd  --  where did u get the tuna?  Looks awesome

[btbyrd]

  

2 hours ago, Paul Bacino said:

@btbyrd  --  where did u get the tuna?  Looks awesome

 

Thanks! One of our upscale grocers (The Fresh Market) sells sashimi grade yellowfin tuna steaks. I buy them vac packed and frozen and then wait until I find the right avocado. 

Edited August 4, 2023 by btbyrd (log)

[KennethT]

26 minutes ago, btbyrd said:

  

 

Thanks! One of our upscale grocers (The Fresh Market) sells sashimi grade yellowfin tuna steaks. I buy them vac packed and frozen and then wait until I find the right avocado. 

How do you find the texture of the fish once thawed?  I also am amazed at the color of your tuna - usually when I see raw tuna that's been frozen/thawed it has a brownish color to it.  Do you thaw it still in the vac pack?

[btbyrd]

The texture's great! It's important to get vac-packed tuna that has been deep frozen. Virtually all tuna consumed in sushi restaurants has been deep frozen at some point in order to kill parasites. I thaw it in a bowl of cold running tap water and it's ready to go in like 15-20 minutes with little in the way of drip loss. And because you're thawing in the bag, the tuna's never exposed to oxygen during the thawing process. A cold (or even warm) water bath is the best way to thaw most frozen proteins.

Edited August 4, 2023 by btbyrd
Harold McGee (log)

[heidih]

And yet the vac pac frozen fsh I get says not to thaw in bag. We've discussed this before here. I do it anyway. 

[AlaMoi]

lazy day lunch here . . .

[KennethT]

45 minutes ago, heidih said:

And yet the vac pac frozen fsh I get says not to thaw in bag. We've discussed this before here. I do it anyway. 

They say not to thaw in the bag because of botulism concerns, primarily.  Although I also wonder if it depends on how hard teh vacuum is and whether it could damage the soft, defrosted flesh.

[btbyrd]

You aren’t going to get any spore forming activity in the 15 minutes it takes to thaw a piece of fish. And once the fish is out of the cryovac machine it is no longer under vacuum, so that’s of no concern.

[KennethT]

6 minutes ago, btbyrd said:

You aren’t going to get any spore forming activity in the 15 minutes it takes to thaw a piece of fish. And once the fish is out of the cryovac machine it is no longer under vacuum, so that’s of no concern.

Right, but I think they're concerned with people defrosting it in a refrigerator overnight still in the cryovac.  And if a person's fridge is say 40F, that is a bad idea.

 

Yeah, I didn't think about that.  If the fish was frozen when it was wrapped, the most pressure on it afterwards is 15psi.

[C. sapidus]

 

Bounty from the fridge and farmer’s market: Chorizo with corn, green beans, and orange tomato, seasoned with onion, Serrano chile, garlic, and cilantro. Feta and reduced half-and-half to smooth it out a bit.

[KennethT]

Singapore national Day is coming up so Teochew Bak Kut Teh with Argentinian red shrimp

 

[BonVivant]

The last time I saw the sun or felt its warmth on my skin was on July 18. The day after this photo was taken the rain started and it's been raining buckets every single day since.

Summer savoury from the garden.

Mushrooms (half chanterelle, half king trumpet). More cream was added to the lentils before eating.

----#2------
Gooseberries, quark, Iranian red pistachios (also in coarsely ground form on left), Cretan honey, chocolate and matcha tea.

----#3---------
Smokey aubergine pulp and "tzatziki" (quark, chopped capers and garlic, lemon juice, cucumber).

Turkish tandoor bread (bigger than a dinner plate)

Fish without chips. Hake fillets from the market fishmonger (the same one I always get oysters from every weekend).

Dreaming of Greece. Mediterranean-style food makes me forget this endless rain for a while.

 

On 7/23/2023 at 10:53 PM, weinoo said:

 

What happens to the oysters, which appear to be unshucked?  Do they get shucked a la minute?

 

Sometimes I shuck 1 or 2 but usually don't touch them until after the photos are done. Once opened they release lots of liquid and it just keeps dripping on the table the whole time.

 

Yesterday. Box of 25, bladderwrack to keep it moist.

 

[lindag]

1 hour ago, BonVivant said:

The last time I saw the sun or felt its warmth on my skin was on July 18. The day after this photo was taken the rain started and it's been raining buckets every single day since.

Summer savoury from the garden.

Mushrooms (half chanterelle, half king trumpet). More cream was added to the lentils before eating.

----#2------
Gooseberries, quark, Iranian red pistachios (also in coarsely ground form on left), Cretan honey, chocolate and matcha tea.

----#3---------
Smokey aubergine pulp and "tzatziki" (quark, chopped capers and garlic, lemon juice, cucumber).

Turkish tandoor bread (bigger than a dinner plate)

Fish without chips. Hake fillets from the market fishmonger (the same one I always get oysters from every weekend).

Dreaming of Greece. Mediterranean-style food makes me forget this endless rain for a while.

 

 

Sometimes I shuck 1 or 2 but usually don't touch them until after the photos are done. Once opened they release lots of liquid and it just keeps dripping on the table the whole time.

 

Yesterday. Box of 25, bladderwrack to keep it moist.

 

A small price to pay for ALL THAT!

Anything more would be sinful.

Edited August 6, 2023 by lindag (log)

[johnnyd]

Soft shell lobsters are everywhere. Our supermarket cooks off a small heap of them every morning and sells for $6-$9 each. Takes no time to break it down while butter/garlic/sage leaf warms up. Cheaper than a sandwich this time of year.

 

 

[MaryIsobel]

59 minutes ago, johnnyd said:

Soft shell lobsters are everywhere. Our supermarket cooks off a small heap of them every morning and sells for $6-$9 each. Takes no time to break it down while butter/garlic/sage leaf warms up. Cheaper than a sandwich this time of year.

 

 

Being on the North West side of the Pacific, I have never heard of soft shell lobster. Here 6-9 dollars would not get you much lobster at all. Are they like soft shell crab? You can eat the whole thing, shell and all?

 

[heidih]

1 hour ago, johnnyd said:

Soft shell lobsters are everywhere. Our supermarket cooks off a small heap of them every morning and sells for $6-$9 each. Takes no time to break it down while butter/garlic/sage leaf warms up. Cheaper than a sandwich this time of year.

 

 

Not envious at all

[johnnyd]

23 hours ago, MaryIsobel said:

Being on the North West side of the Pacific, I have never heard of soft shell lobster. Here 6-9 dollars would not get you much lobster at all. Are they like soft shell crab? You can eat the whole thing, shell and all?

 

 

Lobsters pour into the Gulf of Maine to molt. They get into the shallows and hide in the rocks and shelves, then shed the hard shells that they've outgrown. Lobstermen string baited cage-traps marked by bouys in a depth of around ten feet, they check on them every 3 or so days, pull any lobsters and rebait the traps. During molting season (summer) most harvested lobsters have a shell so weak you can break them open in your bare hands.

Starting autumn, they are strong enough to move back to deep water. Trap lines go much deeper - like 100 foot - in the winter, and you have to steam out there for miles. Those lobsters are much more expensive, and the shells are like stone so you need those crackers to open the claws.  So summer is the time to eat them here - plentiful and cheap. I've had, maybe, two a week this summer and the corn is just coming in. I make a corn chowder and plop a whole lobster-worth of meat in the middle. Freaking heaven, I tell you. Stay tuned to this channel - should post in a couple weeks.  😀

[heidih]

So @johnnyd you are still removing from shell right? Are the shells worth saving for stock? Your chowder - major envy

[johnnyd]

11 minutes ago, heidih said:

So @johnnyd you are still removing from shell right? Are the shells worth saving for stock? Your chowder - major envy

 

Yes! And the body and legs. There's nothing of real value in there, tomalley mostly, so it all goes into a pot that simmers for a little while. I get in there with something sturdy to break up and spread everything around. Let cool, strain, freeze for seafood chowder base. These ones I get for lunch I don't bother with cuz there's so many now and I have three quarts in there already.

[MaryIsobel]

8 hours ago, johnnyd said:

 

Lobsters pour into the Gulf of Maine to molt. They get into the shallows and hide in the rocks and shelves, then shed the hard shells that they've outgrown. Lobstermen string baited cage-traps marked by bouys in a depth of around ten feet, they check on them every 3 or so days, pull any lobsters and rebait the traps. During molting season (summer) most harvested lobsters have a shell so weak you can break them open in your bare hands.

Starting autumn, they are strong enough to move back to deep water. Trap lines go much deeper - like 100 foot - in the winter, and you have to steam out there for miles. Those lobsters are much more expensive, and the shells are like stone so you need those crackers to open the claws.  So summer is the time to eat them here - plentiful and cheap. I've had, maybe, two a week this summer and the corn is just coming in. I make a corn chowder and plop a whole lobster-worth of meat in the middle. Freaking heaven, I tell you. Stay tuned to this channel - should post in a couple weeks.  😀

63 years in and I still learn something every day. Thank you for that clear and succinct information. If I had a fainting couch, that's where I would be right now, thinking of your corn chowder with a "plop" of fresh lobster. I have had too much disappointing lobster (although I have had some good ones) that I am leary of buying or ordering it. I had great lobster in Nova Scotia and PEI but they are clear across the country so we don't get there often.

Edited August 11, 2023 by MaryIsobel (log)

[chromedome]

Across the border here in Atlantic Canada, lobster fishing closes each year during moulting season. Apparently it's not actually illegal to harvest soft-shells here (which was the impression I'd garnered), as long as it's done during the season, but the limited numbers available just before and after closure (and the lower price for soft-shell lobster) means that they're seldom harvested in practice.

[liuzhou]

Donkey noodles.