Clam Linguine

Oh isn't it pretty!

Back when my husband and I were newlyweds I would make this for special occasions! We thought we were so elegant and blessed to have beautiful things to cook. We'd break out candles and napkins and everything.

Now I serve it on paper plates because the dishwasher is too full to handle the supper dishes. So be forewarned! Serving this dish may lead to six sets of dishes being used at most meals.

Wait! Wait! Come back!

This is a light oil based sauce not a heavy creamy one. So you can serve it to your girls for lunch or your man for dinner (just make sure he gets extra clams.)

Like all good recipes it starts out with a stick of butter!

Into the sauce pan it goes!

Now for some olive oil. It's so green it looks like it came from a tree doesn't it? Now if you like you can switch the proportions around and do twice as much olive oil and half as much butter.

Of course, back in the day butter was going to kill you so we had to use margarine because trans fat was so much healthier than saturated fat. Oh and they made us put all our babies to sleep on their bellies because it was safer and healthier too. Seriously! Do they test any of this stuff before they make these broad proclamations? Do you know how hard it is to flip a sleeping baby over and have him remain sleeping? Of course, nine years later I had my second child. He had colic and needed to sleep on his tummy. Which they assured me would lead to his certain death. I became a little unbalanced . . . it was the lack of sleep . . .

back to the linguine . . .

You can go ahead and turn the heat on to get the butter and oil melting together. They love each other and want to be together.

What would clam linguine be without garlic? This recipe's star is garlic! The clams give umami flavor. They really do play more of a cameo roll. The garlic adds heat and bitterness and POW!

You want the garlic minced up nice and fine so you get lots of garlicky notes from it!

You could use a Microplane, if you liked.
You can even mince it up with a chef's knife.
You could crush it with a mortar and pestle.
You could use a fork and salt and a little muscle.
You must mush it as much as you can!
Yes you must Sam I am!

Really, I'm only drinking hot tea, really!

Shake up your cans of clams and turn them over. Minced clams sometimes get stuck in the fridge at the bottom and who wants to waste clams? Who wants to spend time with a skewer trying to pick them out of there? Of course, these clams are chopped so they're in bigger pieces but waste not want not! If you use minced clams the children will think it's chopped up chicken in there. Chopped clams make them wonder why mom is serving them bits of rubber bands.

They're there, under the clam broth. DO NOT DRAIN IT! Clam broth is where most of the clam flavor is! They actually sell this in bottles! Why would you throw it away?

Here's can number one! Open the rest and throw them in too!

OREGANO! I told you this dish was about garlic didn't I? Well oregano is the beautiful starlet that flits in and out of the picture to tantalize!

Give it a good rub down with your nice clean fingers as you put it in. Helps it release all those beautiful oils into the butter and oil.

Basil is our big name co-star for the garlic. Yes, I'm using dried basil! It's super "basily" but without the vegetal notes. Fresh basil is great in most things but for this recipe I really love the flavor and depth of dried basil.

It smells so good! My mouth is watering!

Give it a good rub as it goes in! My hands smell so good now. The cat was momentarily interested in them. He would prefer I rub the clams though . . .

Pepper? Why yes please! As much as you like. A little red pepper flake would be lovely at this point too.

Now a little taste to check on salt.

Just a half teaspoon. It's going to cook down you see. These clams and their broth weren't very salty. We're going to be throwing salt in the linguine noodles and adding Parmesan at table so I'm really holding back.

Bring it to a boil and then simmer it for 30 minutes. You can make this ahead of time and refrigerate it till you need it later in the day.

You've got a big pot of boiling salted water going right? Throw the linguine in! Make sure to stir it at the one minute mark!

Cook it really, really, al dente. I like to start checking it two minutes before the lowest time recommended on the box. Plus, I start to time it from the minute I throw it in the water--NOT when it returns to boil! Reserve a cup of the pasta water for insurance! Drain your noodles and mix the sauce and noodles together. The brothiness will finish cooking the noodles so if you cooked them too far you'll end up with more of a delicious hearty pasta stew. Let it sit two minutes. If they're not tender yet and they've soaked up the sauce you can add some of the reserved pasta water and put them on the stove to finish for a few minutes. I LOVE cooking insurance.

You can add a 1/4 cup of grated Parmesan if it's looking a little soupy. It usually thickens it up a little.

I like to garnish with some beautiful parsley and Parmesan cheese of course!

This is so garlicky and herbaceous I just love it. The clams are meaty little nuggets of deliciousness. The noodles are at their best coated in butter and fruity olive oil! This is a lovely meal to have with a salad. Maybe a nice balsamic dressing to give that sweet acid balance to the salty bitter garlic and herbs? We actually had lovely sweet carrots. You could even mix in a bag of frozen peas to give the sweet balance.

Clam Linguine

4 cans of minced or chopped clams, undrained
1/2 cup of butter
1/4 cup olive oil
4-6 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 tsp dried oregano leaves, crushed
1 Tbsp dried basil leaves, crushed
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp salt
1 lb of dried linguine

garnish
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
chopped flat leaf parsley

Mix sauce ingredients in a small sauce pan and bring to a boil. Simmer 30 minutes. Boil pasta in hot salted water for 6-7 minutes, timing it from the time it enters the water. Reserve 1 cup of pasta water. When pasta is flexible yet still chewy drain. Put pasta and sauce in pot and allow pasta to finish cooking for 1-2 minutes. Adjust salt and pepper. Garnish and serve.

TO MAKE THIS FOR TWO JUST CUT ALL MEASUREMENTS IN HALF!!!
Wine recommendations? A nice rose would have a lovely crisp sweetness against the pasta sauce. If you don't care for pink wines I would recommend a Pinot Grigio. The white wine of your choice is fine too!

Fast Food-Salmon Style

So I spent most of the day working on a recipe for Irish Soda Bread. Notice the lovely picture of it?

What?

You've not seen Irish Soda Bread that looks quite like that before?

Well the truth is that none of my Irish Soda Bread turned out! I spent a good two hours on Irish Soda bread between the research, shopping, mixing, photographing and baking. I made it TWICE. We have enough lackluster soda bread to last us a week at this point so I had to stop.

Then it became time for supper . . . supper? . . . SUPPER!  We NEED supper. The children and menfolk get cranky without it! Occasionally they get cranky with it but that's a whole other issue.

Luckily, my man brought this home for me!

A gorgeous, GORGEOUS, fillet of salmon. I have heard that part of some ancient culture's marriage ceremonies involved the suitor bringing raw meat to his beloved. If she cooked it for him it was tantamount to "I do!"

I'd rather a side of beef than a diamond necklace! Same price! Better value! He has no idea what to do with me.

I was in a hurry. So I actually dumped some cheap soy sauce on the salmon right in it's little Styrofoam tray and let it sit for 10 minutes. This gave me time to line a cookie sheet with foil, preheat my oven, and start some water for rice. I flipped the fillet to make sure the soy got on both sides of course!

Salmon is incredibly meaty and rich. Lots of umami flavors in it. It cries out for balance and I'm willing to supply it. Pictures? I have no stinkin' pictures of this process! I was in a hurry remember? We've got soccer practice to get to!

Salmon loves a little sweetness and a little bit of brown sugar goes a long way towards that! It also makes a nice surface for the heat of the oven to interact with.

I actually just sprinkled a little on the salmon after I laid it on the pan and rubbed it in. It mixed with the soy still pooling on the surface.

Then I threw on a few sesame seeds for attractiveness insurance. I didn't know if the heat I was planning would caramelize the brown sugar or not. I throw sesame seeds on broiled meats quite often. They distract the eye. It makes the eye go "polka dots! I like polka dots!" Who doesn't like polka dots?

Then I threw it in the oven for 15 minutes. Then I shut my oven off and left it there because my man and daughter had ran to the store. I stayed 5-10 minutes. It came out beautiful. We were so hungry that . . .

This is all I've got for a final shot! Salmon is very forgiving. It sat in that hot oven and just finished cooking.
If you are in a super hurry just break into it with a knife and check on it after 15 min. As soon as it's not raw looking you're good to eat! We had some lemon at the table but everybody seemed pretty content with the fish as it was. A nice vinaigrette dressed salad would of been the perfect foil for this dish.

This fish was positively silky on the tongue. It tasted of the sea! There was a hint of sweet saltiness just on the outside before you hit the meaty center! The edges where the fish gets very thin will turn dark crusty brown during baking. They are WONDERFUL to eat. Think salmon jerky! Sweet, salty, meaty and crispy!

Good with a slightly "crisp" wine. I had Cupcake Sauvignon Blanc with it and was delighted! Probably was the reason I didn't dress my salmon with any lemon at the table! If you're a hard core red drinker salmon tolerates red's well too! May I suggest going with a Twisted Cabernet?

Soy-Brown Sugar Glazed Salmon

1 large salmon fillet
1/4 cup of soy
1-2 Tbsp of brown sugar
1 Tbsp sesame seeds (optional)

Sprinkle soy sauce on salmon and allow to sit 5-30 minutes. Preheat oven to 400 deg F. Line cookie sheet with foil. Place salmon fillet on foil and sprinkle with sugar. Rub onto fish. Sprinkle with sesame seeds.  Bake 15 minutes and then turn heat off. Allow to sit in oven for 5-10 minutes more. Check and make sure fish is done before serving. (You CAN turn the oven back on again if its not done but I can't imagine what type of monstrous size fish you'd have if it wasn't done!) Good warm or cold!

Ribeye of the Sea

Look at that beautiful steak!  Huh? Looks a little pale to you? The marbling looks a little strange too? Maybe you're thinking of a beef steak! This my friend is a gorgeous tuna steak.  Starkist refers to it's canned tuna as "chicken of the sea." That may be true. But this beautiful fresh fillet ranks up there with ribeye!

A fresh fillet of yellowfin is generally the preferred steak in my home! At least amongst the adults. This is what I make when I want to make my man happy!  You know for his birthday or Valentine's Day.

I went to the store looking for some fish for our Valentine's Day dinner. We had a music lesson and a basketball practice to get to and I needed something quick and light.  These beauties caught my eye. The fish people say never go to the store with a specific fish in mind--you want whatever fish is the freshest and prettiest.  Here in Missouri that's a nice frozen salmon fillet half the time.  These fillets were basically singing a siren song from the fish case! No drippiness, no fading color, no dryness, no separating. They fit the bill perfectly!

First you need some tuna steaks!  This was three steaks. So they ran just a little over $4 a piece. Now if you figure that they offered me a lovely tuna fillet at Capital Grille the other night for $38 you can see why I still consider it a good deal! 

I'm going to make a little marinade. The tuna doesn't have to have it but it insures moistness.

You need some olive oil. Extra Virgin is the way to go!

You'll want to use a tablespoon per fillet.  Put it in the highly specialized fish marinading device of your choice. I'm choosing a gallon size zipper seal bag.  A pie plate would work too but you'll have to flip it a little. 

Now for some seasoning. I like this one. It has all sorts of interesting spicy things in it. A little chili pepper, dried orange peel, sesame seeds, dried ginger and a few little flecks of seaweed!

A half teaspoon per tablespoon of oil!  Now if you happen to run out of Japanese chili pepper seasoning there are plenty of substitutes. Make your own mixture from black pepper, chili powder, fresh orange peel, lemon peel, garlic powder, etc. You can even use lemon pepper or Old Bay seasoning. If you have fresh herbs you could chop some of those up too. Thyme, tarragon, parsley are all delicious on tuna.  Just keep it to about a half teaspoon per fillet and you really don't want to be adding a lot of salt at this point. 

There's my marinade! I'm going to stick the fillets in there for an hour or so. My fillets were 1 1/2 inches thick so I really could of marinated them as long as I wanted since there was no salt in my marinade. If you've got the 3/4 inch fillets or used a seasoning mix with lots of salt like lemon pepper or Old Bay I would keep it to under an hour. Olive oil really soaks into the thinner fillets and people can complain that they get greasy!

There they are. Ready to go into the pan. Now is the point where you'd add a little salt if you hadn't added any earlier.

I heated up a nice big nonstick pan for a few minutes. I put a teaspoon of oil in the bottom since these pans don't like to be heated without something in them. I also could tell how hot the pan was from it.  When the oil gets "shimmery" add the tuna!

After 2 1/2 minutes I could see that the fish was starting to cook into the fillet so I flipped them.

It's enough to make my heart go pitter-patter!  Two and a half minutes more and the anticipation was too much for me! 

Fish does a lot of "carryover" cooking. Meaning the "doneness" level goes up dramatically the longer you let it rest after taking it off the heat. My steak was probably medium rare when I took it out of the pan. But I had to pour milk, gather the kids, let them use the restroom, pray, and serve all of them before I got to eat my steak!  The solution is to go ahead and cut it open right away.  You'll notice that in a lot of restaurants they serve your medium rare tuna all cut up. They're trying to prevent carryover!

I was so hungry I forgot to take pictures!  Now at 2 1/2 minutes a side this fish was more of a medium than medium rare but it was still delicious!  Tender, meaty, moist it truly should be called the ribeye of the sea.

This steak is purely a umami experience. If you want to balance out the flavors with some salty, sweet, sour, bitterness try a dipping sauce. May I recommend my Asian A-1?

Pan Broiled Tuna steaks

8 oz tuna fillet
1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1/2 tsp chili pepper (optional)
1 tsp vegetable oil
salt and pepper

Mix oil and seasoning powder together and marinate fillet in it for about an hour.  Take out of marinade and season with salt and pepper. Heat 1 tsp vegetable oil in a nonstick pan over high heat until it shimmers.  Turn heat down to medium high and put fillet in pan.  Cook 2 - 2 1/2 minutes per side. Slice immediately if you like your meat medium rare! Let rest for a few minutes if you like your meat medium.