How many times can one person write the word crispy in one post title? Guess five times was enough.  Now how many times can one person write crispy within a post? Word count at the end of this post – I know you’ll be on the edge of your computer chair. Seriously, the other night I was craving crispy like something fierce!  I didn’t want fried chicken crispy or thincrust pizza crispy, but I wanted that delicate balance between baby food smooth and crunchy/crispy. Am I loosing you yet, folks?  Does anyone ever have this craving? Well, my craving was quelled by this fabulous mix of fish that was pan seared until the skin went super crispy (the trick? get all the moisture off your fish by patting it dry with paper towels and running your knife against the skin to remove any excess moisture and then putting it in a hot pan that is immediately turned to medium once the fish hits it skin side down), laid on a bed of creamy parsnip puree and sprinkled with all sorts of roasted vegetables.

One new thing that I discovered upon my crispy craving was that roasted broccoli rabe is really, really good.  I tried it and it worked.  The leaves and sides of the florets went super crispy with the stem staying perfectly crunchy.  I also roasted other things that were rolling around in my fridge including onions, a bit more leftover parsnip, cauliflower and shiitake mushrooms.

Ahhh, roasted mushrooms, my newest obsession.  They are sliced thinly and roasted until they almost become concentrated in flavor and crunchy.  If someone came out with a bag of roasted mushroom “chips” I’d happily snack away all day.  These are the perfect topping to any fish, pizza, chicken or bruschetta dish and I highly recommend you trying them.

I topped off this whole dish with a little “sauce” of reduced seafood stock with a squeeze of lemon and some butter mixed in.  The whole thing satisfied my crispy craving and made my cold winter night a little bit warmer.

Crispy count? 10.  How annoying was this post on a scale from 1 to 10? 10.  Deliciousness factor of this meal?  10.

CRISPY FISH WITH ROASTED VEGGIES AND PARSNIP PUREE (serves 2-4)

Ingredients:

• 2 filets of trout with skin (or any other mild flavored fish)
• 1 8oz. package of mushrooms (we used shiitake, you could use cremini, white button, etc.), sliced in 1/4 inch slices
• a variety of vegetables including cauliflower, onions, parsnips
• 1/2 bunch of brocolli rabe
• 2-3 large parsnips, peeled
• 2 cloves of garlic, roasted in the oven for 20 minutes (optional)
• 1 teaspoon whole grain mustard
• 1/2 cup milk (may need a bit more depending on size of parsnips)
• olive oil
• salt and pepper
• 1/2 lemon
• truffle oil (optional)

What to do:

1. Heat your oven to 450 degrees and boil and pot of salted water for the parsnip puree. 
2. In a bowl, toss the cauliflower in a bit of olive oil and (optional) a few drops of truffle oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Spread on a baking sheet lined with foil.  Next, toss the mushrooms with the same – olive oil, optional truffle oil and then salt and pepper. On a seperate part of the the baking sheet, add the mushrooms.  Repeat this “toss and season” thing with each vegetable you will roast, including the broccoli rabe, and add to a baking sheet, giving enough space for each vegetable to roast evenly.  Put in oven and roast at first for 15 minutes (total roasting time will vary for some veggies depending on how crunchy you want them to be).
3. Peel your parsnips and cut into 2 inch chunks.  Add to the boiling water and allow to cook until soft – about 15 or 20 minutes.
4. Pat your fish dry with paper towels and make sure you get the excess moisture off the skin by running your knife up and down the length of the skin. Sprinkle with salt and pepper on both sides and allow to rest until ready to cook.
5. After the first 15 minutes of roasting time is up, turn the vegetables in order to promote even browning. Your mushrooms will start to be looking more dried out than the other vegetables.  Turn each mushroom slice on to the other side – if they are to your liking, remove them to a bowl and reserve until you are ready to plate.  The broccoli rabe will need to be tossed around as well, ensuring that the delicate leaves don’t get too burnt. Put all the vegetables back in the oven and roast again – the mushrooms will only need another 5 to 8 minutes and the rest of the veggies will need another 15 to 20 minutes.
6. Remove your soft, boiled parsnips from the water and add to a blender or food processor along with the milk, roasted garlic, whole grain mustard and salt and pepper.  Add a bit of olive oil to bring it all together and taste for seasoning.  Keep warm in a pot or by keeping the lid on the food processor.
7. Heat a pan up on high heat until it comes up to temperature.  Add about 2 tablespoons of olive oil and your fish filets skin side down in the pan.  As soon as the fish hits the pan, turn your heat down to medium-high (or medium if your range has a very strong flame).  Allow to cook skin side down for 5 to 6 minutes.  Carefully flip the trout filets over and cook for a minute and then turn off the heat.  It will continue to cook in the hot pan while you assemble your plate.
8. Remove all the veggies from the oven and plate – add the roasted broccoli rabe on the bottom then a dollop of the parsnip puree and then lay the trout filet on top. Sprinkle some of the other roasted veggies around the plate, top the trout with a few of the crispy mushrooms, squeeze some lemon and drizzle with olive oil.  Enjoy.

We decided against posting a recipe for each roll we’re featuring in this pictorial. This is simply to give you inspiration for making your own rolls.  One of our favorites which we have yet to find at any other Japanese restaurant is a vegetarian roll simply called Peanut Avocado.  It is sweet, salty, crunchy and rich and we recreated it with cashews instead. 

Finally, we would like to share the recipe for the Sweet Brown Sauce that accompanies many rolls like Salmon Skin, Shrimp Tempura and others.  It is a keeper in our recipe book, so if you ever are making sushi, go a bit further by topping some of your rolls with this delicious sticky sauce. 

Oh, and one last hint on sushi-making:  those deliciously, crunch Salmon Skin rolls so many of you love?  Remove the skin from the bottom of a filet of salmon, thinly slice into 2 inch pieces and deep fry in some oil for a few minutes. Yes, it’s that simple! But be sure to use and eat it immediately – it doesn’t stay crispy for long!

Sushi-Stuffing Ingredients

Putting on the sushi rice and preparing a spicy scallop roll with crunch

Spicy Scallop Roll with Crunch and Scallions (spring onion)

Shrimp Tempura Roll with Cucumber and Avocado

Salmon Skin Roll with Cucumber and Sweet Brown Sauce

Cashew and Avocado Roll

Tamago (sweet omelette) Roll with Masago (Smelt Roe) and Tobiko (flying fish roe)

Same roll as above, just a whole plate of it!

Tamago – Rolled Sweet Omelette
Ingredients:

• 4 medium eggs
• small pinch of salt
• 1tbsp water
• 2tbsp granulated sugar
• 2tbsp good soy sauce
• 3tbsp dry sake
• 3-4tbsp vegetable oil

Recipe:

• Beat eggs together in a bowl and add the salt.
• Add water to mixture and continue to beat until fluffy.
• In a separate bowl, mix together sugar, soy sauce and sake, then mix in with egg mixture.
• Typically, tamago is made in a square frying pan. We don’t own one so we used a boring old round one, but if you have one waiting around for just the proper occasion, go ahead, knock yourselves out.
• Heat your pan to medium heat and add a splash of oil and rotate pan to coat evenly.
• Pour in a third of the egg mixture and allow to become firm.
• Before bottom of pan is completely dry, roll omelette towards you so that at one side of the pan you have what looks like a thick rolled crepe
• Re-oil pan and add second third of egg mixture making sure to lift rolled omelette from first round so that egg coats whole bottom of pan.
• Again, allow to cook all the way through before rolling it up and placing it on top of the first one.
• Oil pan a third time and add remaining egg. Repeat cooking and rolling steps and then remove all three rolled omelettes to a plate.
• Allow to cool enough so you can handle them and spread plastic wrap on your chopping board.
• Then unroll omelettes and place them on top of one another so you have three lying on top of one another.
• Roll them up tightly and wrap tightly in plastic.
• Allow to cool in refrigerator until use. Then slice against the grain to reveal a beautiful layered pancake-type look and add to your sushi rolls. Enjoy!

Sweet Brown Sauce for Sushi
Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup of soy sauce
• 1/4 cup of mirin
• 1/8 cup of sugar

****This recipe can easily be doubled to make a larger batch!

Recipe:

• Mix everything together in a pan and reduce until thick and sticky on medium-low.  Watch it though, it can really reduce quickly.  This needs to be served soon after it has been reduced because it can be so thick in it’s cooled version it is impossible to drizzle on things!

Check out these other posts you may enjoy:

• SANDWICH DE MERGUEZ (BAGUETTE FILLED WITH MERGUEZ SAUSAGE, FRENCH FRIES AND FRIED LEEKS)
• GRILLED STEAK WITH TARRAGON GARLIC BUTTER BLOOD ORANGE MARGARITAS
• WHOLE FISH BAKED IN SALT
• FRIED LAMB RIB CHOPS WITH ROSEMARY-GARLIC REDUCED BALSAMIC
• CREAMY LEMON PASTA
• SAUSAGE AND PEPPER SANDWICHES

Lately, we’ve been making a lot of southern European dishes and we felt we needed a break, but we were also looking for a dish that wouldn’t take all night to make and require us to buy a load of ingredients we’d use for one dish and then sit and rot in our refrigerator. So, we decided to go old-school Japanese-American style and make a dish so reminiscent of the 1980s that you’d almost expect to look up from your plate and find Mr. Miyagi and Daniel-san across the table.

But instead of accompanying this dish with some studied fence-painting or the practicing of our wax-on, wax-off technique, we went for a really simple scallion salad called Pa Muchim we’ve been loving at Korean restaurants lately.

Both of these dishes are unbelievably easy and are perfect for a weeknight evening in, especially if you’re lucky enough to have the Karate Kid trilogy on hand for some post-dinner entertainment…

We’re entering this into this week’s “Weekend Herb Blogging” event hosted by Coffee and Vanilla.

Broiled Miso-Glazed Salmon with Udon Noodles

Ingredients

• 1 lb salmon fillet
• 4tbsp miso paste
• 1 x 8oz package ready to eat udon or soba noodles
• 2tbsp mirin
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed and chopped
• 1tbsp ginger, crushed chopped
• 1tbsp (reduced sodium) soy sauce
• 1/2 carrot julienned
• 1/2 red bell pepper julienned
• 3oz green beans
• 1tbsp peanut oil

Recipe

• Turn on your broiler to high and place a sheet of aluminum foil over a baking sheet and oil lightly.
• Cut salmon fillet into two roughly equal portions and coat lightly on all sides with miso past, probably about half of it.Heat your wok or skillet to very high heat and add peanut oil. Then, quickly toss in the carrot and green beans. Allow to cook, moving constantly for about a minute until beans start to wrinkle a bit.
• Hit pan with ginger and garlic. When you can smell these nicely, add the mirin and soy sauce, followed after a couple of seconds by the udon noodles. Stir these together so noodles are well coated with sauce and vegetables and then remove to a plate.
• Slap salmon under broiler (skin side down first). After between 1-2 minutes or until miso starts to caramelize, turn fish over and broil for another 1-2 minutes skin side up.
• When skin is crispy and glazed-looking, remove fish and serve over the noodles and top with scallion salad (pa muchim).

Scallion Salad (Pa Muchim)

Ingredients

• 3-4 medium scallions (spring onions/chinese shallots)
• 2 tbsp rice wine vinegar
• 2 tsp white sugar
• 1 tbsp sesame oil
• 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes (chili flakes)
• 1 pinch coarse/kosher salt
• 1tsp toasted sesame seeds

Recipe

• Slice scallions lengthwise into fine strips (1-2mm or 1/16inch wide) and submerge in cold water until curled – 30mins-1hr.
• Drain well and place in a bowl then dress with remaining ingredients. Serve either as a garnish, side dish or panchan (mixed korean starters) to your favorite Asian dish.

Check out some other posts you may enjoy:

• SWEET ANISE-FLAVORED SALMON IN A POUCH (SALMON EN PAPILLOTE)
• PROVENCAL RABBIT WITH OLIVES AND CAPERS
• PASTA (PERCIATELLI/BUCATINI OR SPAGHETTI) AL’AMATRICIANA (ROMAN CLASSIC PASTA DISH)
• VEAL SAUSAGES WITH HERBED POLENTA AND ROASTED BEETS
• OKRA FRITTERS WITH LOUISIANA REMOULADE
• BREAD-CRUSTED FISH WITH LEMON-BUTTER SAUCE
• WHOLE FRIED SNAPPER WITH GARLIC AND PARSLEY SAUCE

This time, I wasn’t feelin’ the citrus-marinaded Pernil, and I had plenty of herbs around to use up so I figured, what about an Italian-style pork shoulder? I made a paste of herbs, olive oil, peperoncino and garlic and rubbed it all over my pork shoulder. With no time to marinate, I just slapped it in the oven using my low-and-slow pork shoulder method. Cooking at about an hour a pound, four hours later, we had a deliciously moist and hearty meal. Although it may seem as though long-cooking meals are more difficult to create, most times it’s actually the opposite. Making that paste (which took about 2 minutes) was the toughest part of the meal! Once you slap it in the oven, you let the heat and the pork fat do the work.

The addition of the fresh salsa verde was perfect. Many people associate a roast withfall and winter. The addition of fresh herbs and the bright green of the salsa verde actually ‘springs-up’ the meal. Also, anchovies make this sauce. Even if you’re not an anchovy lover, still use them – just like in Lidia’s Lamb dish, leaving out the anchovies is like leaving out the pinch of salt. You just need it to make the dish but it doesn’t leave a fishy flavor. We also added some white wine to the baking dish and when mixed with the meat drippings, that made a delicious sauce on it’s own! I added a bit of creme fraiche to my risotto and I was amazed at how much creamier and delicious it turned out. I’ve added cream before, but the creme fraiche really brought it together. I’ve decided not to include my recipe for risotto since I assume most people can follow the directions given on the side of the package. But to give you the head’s up – I always add garlic and onions to mine and always saute the arborio rice in them for 2-3 minutes before slowly adding my stock. At the end, I finish it with some butter or, in this case, creme fraiche and a good handful of parmigiano reggiano.

Here’s the cuban sandwiches we made with the pork leftovers. We managed to have 2 dinners and 4 lunches with a 4-pound pork shoulder. I highly recommend making this low and slow style Italian pork shoulder. By the way, I’m entering this recipe for Eat for Dinner’s Tried, Tested and True event.

ITALIAN-STYLE PORK SHOULDER WITH SALSA VERDE (serves 4-6)

Ingredients for Pork Shoulder:

• 1 4 to 6 pound bone-in pork shoulder
• 1 to 2 tablespoon fresh rosemary
• 1 to 2 tablespoon fresh sage
• 1 to 2 tablespoon fresh parsley
• 1 to 2 tablespoon fresh thyme
• 1 tablespoon ground fennel seed
• 6 cloves of garlic, mashed into a paste in a mortar and pestle
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• salt and pepper
• pinch of peperoncino
• 1 cup white wine

Ingredients for Salsa Verde

• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 tablespoon rosemary
• 1 tablespoon sage
• 1 tablespoon chives (optional)
• 1/2 cup of chopped parsley
• 3 anchovy fillets
• 1 tablespoon vinegar (white or red wine)
• lemon juice + 1 tablespoon lemon zest
• salt and pepper
• olive oil (enough to infuse the whole thing – about 1/2 cup)

What to do:

1. Preheat your oven to 475 degrees.
2. In a food processor or blender, add your herbs, ground fennel seed, garlic paste, peperoncino and salt and pepper and pulse a few times. Push down any of the paste that may have accumulated on the sides of your blender. With the lid on and the blade going, add your olive oil into the mixture so that it all incorporates and makes a paste.
3. Make 1-inch deep slits all over your pork (even in some of the skin). Salt and pepper your pork all over. Rub your marinade all over the pork and poke some into each slit. Fat side up, place pork in a roasting pan. Cook pork uncovered for 1 hour.
4. After the hour is over, remove pork from oven and add the wine to the bottom of baking dish. Use a spoon to pick up some of the brown bits. Tent some tin foil over your pork and put back in the oven, turning oven down to 275 degrees. Cook for 3 to 4 hours on this low setting. (I recommend about an hour or more per pound). Optional: Every 40 minutes or so, spoon some of the wine/cooking drippings over the pork.
   
5. While the pork is cooking away, make your salsa verde. This can be made up to one day ahead of time. It’s super easy. First, add your herbs and the garlic in your food processor or blender. Puree as best you can with no liquid in there. Scrape the sides of the blender and add your anchovies. Puree again. Scrape the sides. Add your vinegar and lemon zest and a squeeze of lemon (about 1/2 tablespoon). Blend and scrape. Finally, with the motor running and the lid on, slowly drizzle your olive oil into the mixture until it’s completely emulsified. Give it a taste and season accordingly with salt and pepper. You may desire a bit more lemon juice. Blend again. Voila!
   
6. About 40 minutes before the end of your final hour of cooking time, remove the foil from the top of your pork. This will cook the skin a bit more.
7. Allow the pork to rest 15 to 20 minutes before slicing. Serve with risotto and greens of your choice (we used broccoli di rape) and top the pork slices with salsa verde.

So, rather like the DJ I never was, but always secretly thought I could be if I could just get my hands on 1,000 records, 2 gold Technics 1200s, and 5 years to practice in my bedroom, I’m starting this post, or jam, if you will, by giving a series of shout outs. The first big shout goes out to Steven “Steve” Raichlen of the seemingly discontinued, but wrongfully so, PBS show Barbecue University for initially encouraging us to give this a try and then providing us with a couple of simple and tasty variations. And the second holla is at Peter of Kalofagas who reminded us that we had been meaning to write this post for quite a while with his recent, delicious-looking piece on churrasco chicken.

You see, for a while now we’ve been convinced that the problem with so much chicken, like many kinds of poultry, is that when cooked whole, some parts end up perfectly cooked and other parts under-done, or in order to remedy this, some parts get overcooked and dry, so that the other bits are done right. It’s a dilemma which faces every American household at Thanksgiving every year, and frankly, I’ve yet to eat a turkey anywhere that was cooked in one piece that didn’t have dry breast meat. In fact, it gets even worse in the summer when you’re over at the neighbors’ house and they stick a load of chicken drumsticks in bbq-sauce on the grill. 20 minutes later they’re black on the outside and bloody and gross on the inside. That’s really quite unpleasant. However, we think we’ve found a solution to these common problems in spatchcock. Yes, you heard it right, spatchcock.

The derivation of the term is uncertain. Some suggest it is a contraction of the phrase “dispatch the cock” but I’m not sure about that. It just sounds unlikely. Similarly, the inventor of this technique is also unknown, but it is used widely throughout the world in recipes that call for the grilling of a whole bird because it results in deliciously moist flesh throughout, every time. And I mean, every time. It’s almost a fool-proof recipe providing you have a moderate level of control over your limbs and have some concept of fire-safety. Here’s how to do it:

Spatchcock Chicken (with adobo rub)

1 large oven-roaster chicken (about 3-4 lbs)
5-6 tbsp adobo seasoning/rub (this can either be store bought adobo – Goya brand – or you can make your own (see below)
2 tbsp olive oil

Adobo Rub
3 tbsp kosher salt
1 tbsp black pepper
1 tbsp dried oregano
1 tbsp lemon pepper
Combine dry spices in a bowl or make double/triple quantities and store in an airtight jar for later.

*Please note that adobo doesn’t necessarily have a set recipe. It has commonly recurring ingredients, but like many recetas de abuela each one is slightly different.

How to “spatch” the cock: (follow the illustrated step-by-step)

1. Take a pair of good, strong scissors or kitchen shears. Pat your chicken dry with some kitchen paper/towels and place it breast side down on a cutting board.



2. With your scissors cut along one side of the backbone – breaking through the ribs with a satisfying “snick” – all the way through to the other end. Turn the chicken around and cut along other side of the backbone, so you’re left with the intact backbone in one hand, the scissors in the other, and a chicken with long gap in its back.









3. Now press down on the sides (ribs) of the chicken either side of the breastbone until you hear another little crunch. Feel free to slice open the membrane surrounding the breast bone and remove that too, but it’s kind of a pain and I nearly always end up savaging the breast meat by being clumsy. Anyway, what you get is a chicken that’s now mostly flat.



4. Take your scissors again and trim off the wing tips at the first joint. These tend to burn when cooked.



5. Next, make two small incisions into the flaps of skin below the breast (at the leg end) and poke the legs through these holes. This will help keep your bird flat. Be careful not to rip these holes as you do this, as you want your first spatchcock to look as good as it tastes, right?







6. Then, you’re almost ready. (see how simple this is?) Rub your bird very lightly with olive oil – do not drench it or the spices will all just slide off. Then sprinkle very liberally all over with the adobo rub, patting it on to make sure it sticks. It might look like you’ve used a lot of rub here, and you have, but some will fall off during cooking, and you’re not flavoring the chicken with anything else, so you can afford to be generous. Let your chicken sit with the rub on it, at room temperature for at least fifteen minutes before cooking.



7. Now, you need to prepare your grill. And this must be done on a grill. Okay, it can be done in the oven and turn out well, but with spring approaching you just can’t beat the al fresco cooking experience.
8. Before igniting anything, make sure your grill is clean. Remove the grate and fire up the grill – charcoal or gas, is fine. You want the grill at around 350F. If you’re using charcoal make sure you can rearrange the coals once they’re ready. And if you’re using gas, make sure you can control which burners are on or off – this is crucial to success here because the perfect spatchcock chicken is cooked using indirect heat.
9. When grill is up to temperature, rearrange charcoal (or turn burners on or off) so that you can fit a 10-inch aluminum baking pan containing about an inch of water in the middle of the grill so that it is not directly over the heat source. Replace your grate and brush with oil. Close lid of grill and allow to return to 350F – about five minutes. If you’re using gas you might have to fiddle with the temperature a little because you’ll almost certainly have to turn off at least one of the burners.
10. Anyway, when the thermometer reads 350F place your chicken breast-side up on the grill directly over the baking pan and let it cook for at least 25 minutes. All the while making sure the temperature remains at least 350F. Do not peek at the chicken. It’s doing fine by itself. Every time you even crack the lid a little you add five minutes to the cooking time!
11. Then after 25 minutes, turn your chicken over and cook for another 25 minutes. Depending on your grill you might want to power it up a bit here. You’ll know how it’s doing by how well colored the skin has become. If it’s still looking a bit pale it might either need longer at 350F or a bit more heat. We typically crank it up to a shade over 400F for the last fifteen minutes to make sure the skin gets crispy, which, apart from moist flesh, is the principal requirement of any roasted/grilled poultry.



12. When your chicken is looking golden brown or perhaps a shade or two darker, take it off the grill and tent it lightly in foil for around fifteen minutes. We rarely use our meat thermometer because it’s not accurate, but if you have one you trust, now would be a good time to give it blast. Remember, always check the bit between the breast and the thigh. Generally speaking though, if the juices in the leg are running clear at this point, you’re in a good shape.

We ate our adobo spatchcock chicken with some roasted potatoes and a mixed green salad, but frankly these accompaniments are just gilding the lily. If you’ve done this right, the chicken itself will be almost too delicious to adulterate with any side dishes.

Naturally, you can flavor your chicken with anything you like. We’ve made north African-spiced chickens, Pollo alla Diavola (Tuscan-style chicken with red pepper flakes), Thai-perfumed birds, and “summer chicken” rubbed with thyme, rosemary, sage, salt and butter, amongst others. Again, the point is not the flavorings you use, but how perfectly this technique cooks chicken. The breast stays moist, the legs are cooked perfectly and the skin gets crispy. And it works every time. I’m planning to spatchcock a chicken every week now it’s getting warmer.