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Chef2Chef Recipe Club - Volume 5 Issue 74 - October 9, 2003 Chef2Chef Recipe Club Member Forum: http://forums.chef2chef.net -------------------------------------------------- Hello Recipe Club, Did you ever have a restaurant dish so good, it haunted you? A dish so good, eating anything else -- regardless of how well-prepared -- can't satisfy you? A dish so good, you would sell your soul to get it? Of course, I could only be talking about one thing: Swanson chicken pot pies. ... Oh no, hold it: that was when I was eight. Let me fast forward about 40 years and check my notes. ... Just where are my glasses? ... OK yeah, now I remember: I was going to write about Mariscada Salsa Verde today. But to set the stage for this installment of "Mike Rodmanıs Compulsive Food Disorders and the Elusive Recipes that Fan the Flames," I must first talk about its origin. And like many of my favorite dishes, it all starts with that Mecca of Great Food, that city by the bay, that toddlin' town: Newark, NJ. Now, I don't want to upset anyone who might live in Newark, but most would have to say Newark isn't exactly the center of the cultural universe. But there is a section of Newark called "Ironbound" that has a Spanish/Portuguese restaurant on nearly every corner. And on a typical night, it's not unusual to see luxury cars with New York license plates filling their parking lots. Of course, most New Yorkers wouldn't spit on New Jersey if it was on fire -- a combative snobbery I couldn't quite understand while growing up in the Newark suburb of Maplewood. But then I started to travel the country and said, "Ya know, theyıre right -- this place does stink." However, that didn't stop me from moving back to my native state in 1983, where I promptly got a sales manager job, covering the eastern seaboard. But regardless of how many great meals I charged to my company as, ahem, "business expenses," my best meals were when I returned to Newark Airport and drove a couple of miles to Ironbound. And my dish was Mariscada Salsa Verde every single time I went to one (with a little shrimp in garlic first and some Spanish rice on the side - recipes that will also be supplied today). When I first started to cook for real -- upon moving to Arkansas in 1991, to jump-start a career in newspapers, left behind years before because $200 a week and all the ink you can steal only goes so far -- I had no illusions about trying to duplicate Mariscada Salsa Verde. "A chicken dish is one thing," I told myself, mostly because I was the only person in the room. "But Mariscada Salsa Verde is a dish of the gods (assuming the gods liked seafood)." But nearly a dozen years later, I set upon the adventure to make this shellfish stew in a white-and-green sauce. And I bravely did so because, well, I'm an idiot -- and the first couple of attempts proved it. Tackling the project in the Information Age, I reasoned, would give me a head start. All I had to do was jump on the Internet and I'd have dozens of recipes at my fingertips, right? Wrong. Don't believe me? Try it. There are no recipes on the Internet for the Mariscada Salsa Verde I ate in Newark. There are plenty of recipes for regular (red) Mariscada, but none for the Salsa Verde version I wanted to make. Finally, through a Spanish professor I communicated with, I was able to score a recipe for a dish that called itself Mariscada Salsa Verde -- although one look and I knew it wasn't close to the dish I craved. But I did use that solitary recipe as a starting point because it included coconut milk, which forced my dimly-lit brain to say, "Gee, ya think that's why it was white?" After contemplating this for a mere few weeks, I decided that might be it. So I set about creating the sauce that I had one day promised would make a millionaire out of the first person to bottle it. So why am I giving it away for free? Well, I think I answered that with the "idiot" comment. -------------------------------------------------- Got a Passion for Cooking or know someone who does? Make it your Career! Shop and compare TOP US Culinary Institutes that offer Financial Aid and Job Placement. Request Information today and get your Career cooking in just 15 months! Chef2Chef.Net/Culinary-Institute -------------------------------------------------- Before the payoff, two notes: 1) Use any combination of shellfish you want. One of my ingredients is lobster slipper tails, which are the small guys. I love the way they add vibrant color to the stew and they're close in texture to the langostinos used in the Newark restaurants, which I can't find here in Arkansas. I also like to use the frozen, pre-cooked New Zealand greenshell mussels, widely available these days. I find them meatier and tastier than regular blue mussels and, again, the color looks great. The more varied your shellfish selection, the closer to authentic your Mariscada will be. 2) There is a lot of sauce in this dish, just like the Newark restaurants that served the dish in a stew pot (that's right -- they just plopped it down on your table, giant serving spoons and all). And since I hate wasting good sauce, I recommend you save it and throw-in some sectioned lobsters for Lobster Salsa Verde -- or even, an octopus for Pulpo Salsa Verde. MARISCADA SALSA VERDE Ingredients: 12 littleneck clams 8 lobster slipper tails (membranes split lengthwise) 1/2 lb. bay scallops 1/2 lb. shrimp, peeled and deveined 1/2 lb. squid bodies, cut into rings (save the heads for salad) 1 lb. pre-cooked New Zealand greenshell mussels 1/3 cup olive oil 1 lb. tomatillos, minced (see instructions) 1 lg. onion, minced 1 large head of garlic, minced (or two smaller ones) 1 14-oz. can of UNSWEETENED coconut milk 4 cups of fish stock (or chicken stock) 2 cups of white wine 1 bunch chopped fresh cilantro (about 1/2 cup) 1 tsp. salt 1/4 tsp. pepper 1 tsp. hot pepper sauce Procedure: Remove leaves from tomatillos, boil for 3 minutes, cool in cold water and mince in a food processor. Combine the minced tomatillos, onion and garlic for a coarse purée. In a large soup pot, heat olive oil until hot and add the coarse purée. Cook, uncovered, for 5 minutes or until onions are tender. Add coconut milk, stock, wine, cilantro, salt, pepper and pepper sauce. Return to a boil; then simmer, covered, 20 minutes. (Can be made ahead to this point.) Add shellfish, return to a boil and simmer, covered, 5-7 minutes or until clams open. -------------------------------------------------- SeafoodByNet.com With over 20 years of restaurant purchasing experience, now you too can have the same superior quality seafood reserved for the finest restaurants. We specialize in rare, hard to find items from our Jumbo Alaskan King Crab Legs which are twice the size as those found in grocery stores to Shrimp from the Gulf Coast that are over an ounce a piece and Lobster tails from Australia and Maine. Our salmon, tuna and swordfish steaks are immediately flash frozen, assuring you of the freshest product available. Choose from one of our standard seafood packs or design one of your own. We offer corporate rates. Visit Seafood Buy Net http://html.chef2chef.net/goto.php?id=164 -------------------------------------------------- Need a little Spanish something beforehand? Well, you might as well start the garlic trail with some Spanish Shrimp in Garlic: SHRIMP IN GARLIC 1/4 cup olive oil 4 lg. cloves of garlic, minced 1 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes 1 lb. medium shrimp, peeled and deveined 2 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice 2 Tbsp. dry sherry 1 tsp. paprika Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste Chopped fresh Italian (flat-leaf) parsley In a sauté pan over medium heat, warm the olive oil. Add the garlic and red pepper flakes and sauté for 1 minute. Raise the heat to high and add the shrimp, lemon juice, sherry and paprika. Stir well, then sauté, stirring briskly, until the shrimp turn pink and curl, about 3 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper, and sprinkle with parsley. (NOTE: For an authentic presentation, serve on a heated fajita platter with plenty of crusty French bread, to soak up the sauce.) Mike Rodman is a free-lance writer who lives on Beaver Lake in Northwest Arkansas. His next vacation will be spent eating in Newark. -------------------------------------------------- For a side dish, our moderator, Dave, will now provide a recipe for Spanish rice. Dave's Spanish Rice Serves 4 A must with southwestern dishes of all kinds. Simple to make and holds up well in the refrigerator for leftovers. Ingredients: 2 tablespoons butter 2 tablespoons yellow onions, chopped 1 cup rice, white, long grain 1/2 cup tomato juice 1 cup water 2 chicken bouillon cubes 3 dashes bottled hot pepper sauce 2 teaspoons chili powder 1 pinch black pepper 1 Roma tomato, chopped 2 tablespoons red bell peppers, chopped 2 tablespoons green bell peppers, chopped Procedure: In a saucepan that has a tight fitting cover, melt the butter and sauté the onions until soft. Add the rice and stir to coat the rice with butter, then add the tomato juice, water, bouillon cubes, pepper sauce, chili powder and black pepper. Stir to dissolve the bouillon cubes and bring to a boil. Once the liquid reaches a boil, reduce heat to its lowest setting, cover and go away for 25 minutes. Do not stir, do not look under the lid, do not worry !! Once your timer goes off, remove the pan from the heat, lift the lid off quickly and throw in the tomatoes, and chopped peppers and put the lid back on quickly. Do not stir, do not taste, do not worry !! Allow the rice to steam in the pan for 20 more minutes. Now... If you didn't cheat and if you didn't worry, your Spanish rice should be perfect. Stir in the tomatoes and peppers and serve with a smile. If you did cheat...Well, Shame on you !!! -------------------------------------------------- QUESTIONS, Comments, Technical Support: http://forums.chef2chef.net |