What's for Dinner #51 - the It's Dark Outside! Edition - November 2019

thanks. I only buy tilapia loin from Costco.
Well, if the skin is crispy, that is how we like our grouper.

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Went freezer diving earlier and found some pulled pork from a shoulder I smoked a couple of months ago, so that’s WFD, along with some shredded sauteed Brussels sprouts. Duck cracklings and a Portuguese red for appetizers!

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@thwysg You’re never alone with Hungry Onion. I bet at any hour, you can find someone posting something.

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We made our usual trip to our favorite Sichuan restaurant and ordered the PSTO food and had enough leftovers for 2 more dinners. Between Chengdu 1 Palace and Drew’s we have enough leftovers to take us to Thanksgiving. This gives Mrs. P some time to work on her Christmas decorations. Below is a link to the details and mouth watering food.

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Finishing leftovers that built up because… too many meals out.

Chicken methi (fenugreek) curry, freshly sautéed cabbage, parathas, rice.

Last night was out at an izakaya. Day before was a mish mosh of idlis and coconut chutney from the freezer, plus green moong bean crepes (pesarattu) with yogurt and green chutney.

Now I gots to go start some thanksgiving baking.

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that pasta is swoony!

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Brunch today with BF, we expanded our routine and shared a croque madame with our fries. :relaxed:

For dinner, made my first Pasta alla Norma. Yum! I’d use more eggplant next time (I used a whole big one but they do shrink so much). i used the Nigel Slater preserved tomatoes for the sauce, added chili flakes, and roasted the eggplant chunks in the oven, with a good amt. of olive oil, so they essentially fried . Ricotta salata sprinkled over the top. Leftover Calabrian sausage for the BF. Sauteed beet greens with garlic cuz we had 'em. Salad of arugula and toasted pine nuts, with lemon/shallot/dijon dressing.

Then I took the leftovers, layered with mozz and more ricotta salata, stuck them in a casserole, and into the oven. If it lasts that long that’ll be the BF’s Thanksgiving dinner while I’m at my sister’s helping with dogs.

Pasta%20alla%20Norma%20casserole

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duck cracklings!! omfg marry me

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Dinner tonight was at a small Italian joint in Matawan, NJ. Delicious, all of it! Accompanied by a bottle of Apothic Red and half a handle of Sutter Home white merlot that we were trying to kill off.


Homemade breadsticks with toasted garlic and seasoning on top


Buffalo Calamari. Perfectly crispy, right amount of sauce, just spicy enough


My Chicken Sorrentino: topped with thin sliced breaded eggplant, prosciutto, fresh mozzarella, and a brown sauce over rigatoni


Mom’s rigatoni bolognese. I’m not usually a fan, but tried a little bit and thought it was good. Very creamy.


BF’s calzone with bacon and black olives. He loved it and I thought it was great and extremely well-made. Lots of bacon, burning hot inside, and gigantic! That’s only a small.

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Taste testing sous vide turkey legs.

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Cold and wet tonight.

Multigrain rice (not shown);
potatoes and bacon in butter; and
cod fish hot pot - carrots, leeks (all mine - the mister dislikes them), mizuna, shiitake and tofu.

Soup base is homemade kombu dashi (soaked for more than 5 hours). Cod fish sure is expensive here, $80/kg. :sweat_smile:

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What a GREAT idea!

Wow, that is pricey. You have prepared a beautiful dish, though!

I’m from New England, where codfish was once legendarily plentiful and cheap. Atlantic cod has been overfished so now we’re much more likely to see haddock in place of cod in dishes that call for white fish.

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That is more or less $25 (US) a pound! Are all fish the same price. Bass, Grouper, Haddock are pretty similar - are those as expensive?

S$80/kg is from one of the largest supermarket chains. If I went to the higher end ones, the fishes probably would cost even higher. Norwegian farmed salmon ranges from $30 to $40 per kg. King salmon from NZ would be $40 to $60 per kg. And some supermarkets priced the cuts differently. Fillets are usually more costly than steak cuts. I once bought a fillet of spanish mackerel (local fish known as batang) at $50/kg, even way more costly than what I get for a same cut from a Japanese supermarket.

Local wet markets would still be the cheapest to get the fishes - just that there’s a slight risk of the stall owners cheating the scales.

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Salmon prices at Whole Foods at times are similar here in the US (although usually not for the farmed salmon). I’ve never seen Cod that expensive. I do pay S$55-S$70 for lox though.

I’m not so sure about the other fishes except for chilean sea bass and grouper. These two are more commonly seen in higher end supermarkets, there’s a few others which the locals have easier access to - stingray, threadfin, sea bream, white and red snappers, other species of spanish mackerel, and last but not least, farmed Norwegian salmon.

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I can get grouper much cheaper when on sale at Asian market, pan fried till crisp.
The most expensive fish is Chilean Sea Bass which is one of our favorites pan fried with Miso, ginger, sprig onions and a splash of rice wine and a small amount of mirin, just enough to counteract the saltiness of the miso.
The second would be halibut , which used to be a favorite for bouillabaisse. However, I no longer own a slow cooker so halibut is now coated with pesto, cooked in 2 layers of oil, on the grill until the foil is blackened but with the halibut skin crisp and crunchy, to be served with bit ore pesto as the pesto that it is cooked in has dissolved.

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That spring onion and ginger style sounds like those tze char stalls (local stir-fry stalls using woks to have “wok hei”) offering meat dishes, usually with venison or beef. Is the fish marinated with miso first or all condiments go in together with miso? Maybe I can try this with other fishes.

I just recalled there’s two other fishes which I ate during childhood days - white and black pomfrets, although there’s a silver pomfret in our markets too. Expensive too, which my mum ended up switching to other fishes and of course our government had been promoting eating salmon is way healthier than other fishes back in the late 90s. Barramundi is also available in the higher end supermarkets.

Am more familiar with the Japanese fishes nowadays instead. :rofl:

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I use a cast iron pan to which I just spray with PAM or a very light coating of olive oil ( I prefer PAM so fish does not stick ) as you well very know that Chilean Sea Bass is very oily and as it pan fry, a lot of oil is released. I like the steak cut , pan fry until it is crispy almost blackened but not charred . Then, I remove the fish to my serving plate, with the oil from the fish now in the cast iron pan, I add garlic, ginger, spring onions, and then some broth, turn the heat to low to simmer, then in goes the miso, making sure not too much so it will not be too salty, splash of mirin to counteract saltiness of miso, pepper, small amount off cider vinegar and be very careful, perhaps, turn the stove off ( my commercial Vulcan stove remains hot long after I turn it off )
I add this sauce to the fish, spoon some rice onto my cast iron pan to absorb and take advantage of the delicious gravy
CAUTION!
Once the miso is added to the broth, the mixture can thicken very fast and before you realize it, the broth gravy might dry up which we like on the fish as well as rice because the miso here has a thickening agent like rice So, be aware of that, turn y our burner low or off as in my case and have extra broth on hand if this gets out of hand.
I have tried this recipe on salmon but our favorite nowadays is chilean seabass when there is a sale.

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