A Well Fed Daddy is a Happy Daddy

Smoked fish, a good bagel, cream cheese is one of those hit-the-spot comfort foods I gotta have. Smoked salmon on a bagel and diet coke; car food before picking the kids up from school.  Also sable on a bagel ($12 a pound at Market Basket!)... mmm.... and that salmon spread with onions and capers is the very end of the hand sliced salmon a few posts earlier.  All served on toasted Kupel's bagels from my stash in the freezer.

Blackened Cod Tamale

This started as an effort towards blackened cod, which doesn't work because the cod flakes apart.  Instead I wrapped them in fresh corn husks, a la tamale, and blackened them instead.  This contained the fish, which sort of steamed, and the blackening spice on the corn husks came off on the food, the plate, the fingers when you open them, and seasoned the fish lightly.   I included the corn kernels in the tamale as a nod to the tamale's staple cooked corn meal filling.  Served with lemon wedges -- well, OK, slices, and just a couple of drops of hot sauce.  

Perfect Sicilian

OK, no one's ever going to agree on the single platonic perfect for food.  But if you accept versions of perfection, I offer:  Sicilian style fish soup, which originated as an eight pound whole cod I picked up from the wholesaler down the street.  It was baked much like the haddock below, with root vegetables and heads of garlic for the soup.  I set the meat aside, and used the cod frame to make a fish stock that gelled like, well, jelly.  Rich mouthfeel from the collagen.  Let it sit 24 hours with oregano and thyme from the garden.  Fed to people chilly from a walk on the beach.  

Note the loaf of Virgilio's semolina bread ('bread of the fishermen'... I like the end piece best).  Food stylist credit to Eileen Fielding.  The chopsticks, meanwhile, are for eating the salad.  It feels more like using my fingers.

 

Baked Haddock

Bought a fresh haddock, about 5 pounds, from Connelly's Seafood in Gloucester.  Basted it with wine and olive oil during roasting, and served with root vegetables in herbs from the garden.  Haddock salad rolls the next day.

Exploded Codfish

My locavore version of yam pla dook foo (Thai exploded catfish salad).  I used big cortland apples from Marshall's farm stand instead of green papaya, and cod trimmings from Connelly's seafood instead of catfish.  

Deep fry and tease apart the cod until it's reduced to crackling.  Julienne the apple and dress with fish sauce, lime juice, hot pepper, and palm sugar.  Serve the fish cracklings and apple salad separately, and mix just as you eat them.   This dish has met to rave reviews from my most discriminating friends, and I have been requested to make it for guests this weekend.  Shout out to Bret Thorn, who introduced me to exploded catfish (and plenty of other tasty stuff) in Bangkok.