Recipe: Crazy Dream Choo Chee Fish Curry

Today's recipe that you can prepare at home is Choo Chee Fish Curry and it comes to your kitchen via the exotic Southeast Asian kingdom of Thailand. It is a rich and flavorful dish and is best accompanied with a big bowl of Thai sticky rice. That sticky rice is going to serve an important function when eating this extra-spicy curry because it helps temper its heat quite well.

I'm not going the blur lines here, this curry is probably the hottest thing I serve in my home. It's not near the hottest thing I'll eat and enjoy, but it is plenty hot enough for my family. This dish packs a rich and delicious wallop for people who like spicy food, but for less robust palettes, well be careful who you prepare it for. It's just going to be too hot for some, but it does make believers out of others! My wife for instance. If you had told me all those years ago that she'd eat food this hot and not only enjoy it but request it, well I would have said you were deranged. Choo Chee Curry converted her to spicy foods.

It's also a full service seafood curry so try it with whatever makes sense. A lot of recipes call for shrimp, and I've seen others call for a kind of seafood stew which I'll be trying myself in the near future. I may even try the sauce over some panko-battered fried chicken. Now for the weird twist.

The weird twist of this dish (and hence its name) are the after effects. It makes me dream vividly and madly. At first I thought is was just a coincidence. However, after numerous similar post-chow-down experiences and even a few by my wife, I will caution you that maybe, just maybe you too may dream crazy, and dare I say forbidden and maddening things. You know, like being chased by the Teletubbies through a Jello cave while wearing a thick suit of woven angel hair pasta while aluminum foil hummingbirds whisper threats in your 31 ears.

Things like that. Still though, it's all worth it. IT REALLY IS!

Crazy Dream Choo Chee Fish Curry

1-2 lbs. of firm white fish fillets (I use tilapia or mahi-mahi)
All-purpose flour (to dredge the fish in)
4 TBS peanut oil
2 cups coconut milk (unsweetened)
Bottom half of 1 stalk of lemon grass (peeled into individual blades)
4 TBS red curry paste
1/2 cup of water
4 TBS fish sauce
3 TBS palm sugar (or brown or turbinado sugar)
2 cloves of garlic (thinly sliced)
4 TBS green onions (sliced very thinly)
3 TBS fresh cilantro (chopped)

Cut the fish in to pieces about 2" x 3" inches. Dredge individually in flour, set aside.

Heat the vegetable oil in a large cast iron skillet over medium-high heat. When the oil begins to shimmer cook the pieces of fish about 2-4 minutes per side until browned and crisp. Remove from pan and allow to drain on a paper towel while you prepare the cooking sauce.

Remove the unused oil from the pan and wipe out any residue. Replace the skillet over medium heat. Add half the coconut milk and the lemon grass blades and cook until it becomes fragrant and creamy.

Add the curry paste and cook, stirring constantly until well dissolved.

Add the remaining coconut milk, water, fish sauce, sugar, garlic, half of the green onions and half the cilantro. Bring to a boil and lower to a simmer.

Add the fish pieces and simmer in the sauce for about 3 to 5 minutes. Spoon the curry sauce over and around the fish while it cooks.

Remove from heat.

Remove the lemon grass blades and discard.

Serve the fish in deep plates with the curry sauce generously spooned over it. Garnish with the remaining green onions and cilantro.

Pair with Thai sticky rice.

Dream madly children, dream madly.

Recipe: Crazy Dream Choo Chee Fish Curry from Chop Onions, Boil Water by Henry Krauzyk
http://www.choponionsboilwater.com

Recipe: Saffron Seafood Linguini

This recipe goes out to Karen and all the other folks from Newport Hospital, Newport, Rhode Island, who check out "Chop Onions, Boil Water." Hello everyone, thanks for reading my blog. Keep it up and you'll find yourself in the book coming out in 2010!

The lack of a proper name has kept me from adding this recipe, but tonight I've decided it's going on the blog and the name will come to me as I type. Of course I'm typing right now and nothing is happening. Nope, not yet.

You see, by all accounts, it would appear to be a seafood linguini, only it's really not. The basis of the recipe is a French bouillabaisse and then I commenced to twisting it to my desire and well when seafood is involved I just know I'm going to add something Portuguese in there. I just love chourico, but when that doesn't work its got to be linguica. Then of course there's saffron. I mean you cannot pull off this dish without the saffron. So many complications.

So, in the end, what seems Italian is really French and then it's got a South Coast New England and Portuguese twist that just complicates the whole thing! A name should reflect something important about the dish. As of this moment a name hasn't come to me yet.

It's not that my ego can't float calling it "Henry's Awesome Friggin' Saffron Seafood Bouillabaisse Linguini", my ego could certainly handle that. It's just not pretty or short enough. As Shakespeare said "Brevity is the essence of wit."

Well, it's crunch time and I'm just going to type out a name as the words pop into my head here goes: Saffron Seafood Linguini.

Okay, it's done. For the record, you need saffron for this. There's no substitute for it and you cannot omit it. It's not going to be the same dish without it. Also, mail order the saffron because the grocery stores sell horrible saffron for bewilderingly high prices.

Saffron Seafood Linguini

1 lb. linguica (cut in 1/4" slices and pan fried until cooked and firm)
1 lb. linguini
1/4 cup olive oil
2 leeks (white and pale green parts only, cleaned, split and thinly sliced)
4 cloves garlic (chopped)
1/2 tsp saffron threads
1 cup of diced tomato (the redder, the riper, the better-ALWAYS)
3/4 tsp thyme
2 tsp fresh parsley (chopped fine)
1 bay leaf
1 tsp grated orange zest
1 TBS tomato paste
32 ozs. chicken broth
2 lbs. littleneck clams (scrubbed and set aside)
2 lbs. mahi mahi filets (or similar fish)
1 lb. sea scallops
1 lb. medium shrimp (in the shell)
2 lbs. mussels (scrubbed, debearded and set aside)
1/2 cup of white wine (I use pinot grigio)
1 TBS sweet butter
Salt and pepper to taste.

For the pasta, place a large pot of water on high heat to boil.

Place a large pot or dutch oven over medium heat. Add the olive oil.

When the oil begins to shimmer, add the leeks and the garlic and sauté until the leeks become translucent.

Add the saffron threads, salt, pepper, tomatoes, thyme, parsley, orange zest and tomato paste and blend together well for about 2 minutes.

Add the chicken broth and bring to a boil. Lower to a low simmer and continue cooking for about 30 minutes.

Bring to a higher simmer. Add all the seafood and cover and simmer until the littlenecks and mussels open wide (5 to 8 minutes usually). Discard any that do not open.

Remove all the seafood and place it in a large bowl to cool. Return broth to a low simmer.

As soon as it's cool enough to handle, remove all the seafood meat from its shells and place it in a bowl. Discard shrimp shells, but reserve littleneck and mussel shells. Cut mahi mahi into chunks and place in the bowl with the shrimp, littlenecks, scallops and mussels.

Place all littleneck and mussels shells back into the broth and cook until the white abductor muscles attached to the shells fall into the broth or are easily removed. Don't worry, these will not be tough and they add a creaminess to the final product.

The pasta water should be boiling by now, cook linguini in the normal way, drain and set aside. Try to time everything to end at the same time. Yes, it can be difficult, but you can do it.

Raise the heat on the broth until it comes to a high simmer. Add the white wine and the butter and reduce the broth until it begins to thicken. You're looking for the consistency of loose melted ice cream. I know that is a strange analogy, but it works.

When it reaches the desired thickness, add the fish, scallops, littlenecks, shrimp, mussels and linguica and toss to coat and warm. Immediately add the cooked and drained linguini and toss well to coat. Be sure the seafood and the linguica is evenly distributed in the linguini. Remove from heat and allow it to set and cool a little before serving.

Serve with a good white wine (Pinot Grigio) and crusty bread.
Recipe: Saffon Seafood Linguini from Chop Onions, Boil Water by Henry Krauzyk