This week, I make perhaps my most standard standby pasta, a mix of onions, tomatoes and bacon–great year-round, and totally doable with just pantry items. On the side, I boil a bit of kale and dress it up with chili flakes and vinegar. Click to play this episode in a new window; right-click to download […]

This week, I make a fish tagine–essentially, fish cooked in a stewpot–with spices from a favorite Indian recipe. On the side: carrots with cinnamon, honey and red pepper…and some potatoes that take a damn long time to cook.

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Fillet of white fish (tilapia, cod, etc)

Carrots

Grape tomatoes

Whole lemon

Cilantro (optional)

Garlic

Ginger

Fennel seeds

Coriander seeds

Cumin seeds

Whole cinnamon stick

Aleppo or other red pepper

Honey

Rice, couscous, orzo, potatoes–your choice

Indian-Spiced Fish Tagine

A tagine is a Moroccan cooking pot with a cone-shaped lid. The cone-shaped lid helps condense the steam created in cooking and keeps the food moist. But, happily, you don’t actually need a tagine to make this–any heavy cooking pot with a good lid will do. (Here’s an example–Cathy puts her pot in the oven, but you can just as easily keep it on the stovetop.) For more on tagines, see the note at the end of the recipe.

Tagine is also the word for the stew cooked in one of these cone-shaped pots. But the spice combo here is from a great Indian recipe for eggplant, so, really, if you don’t use a tagine to cook it, and it’s not a Moroccan spice mix…I guess you can’t exactly call it a tagine at all. But it’s delicious regardless, and the basic technique is a great one to know because it’s so versatile.

You can serve this fish with virtually any kind of starch. In the podcast, I boil some potatoes because I happen to have them, but couscous is of course good, as is rice or even orzo (rice-shaped) pasta. So as not to repeat my blunder in the podcast, you may want to start cooking whatever starch you prefer before you embark on the fish.

Serves 2 modest portions

1-inch chunk fresh ginger root

3 or 4 cloves garlic

2/3 pint (or so) grape tomatoes

Olive oil

About 1 tbsp whole fennel seeds

About 1/2 tbsp each whole cumin and whole coriander seeds

1 large filet tilapia or other mild white fish

1/2 tbsp butter

Salt

Zest from 1/2 lemon

Fresh cilantro, for garnish (optional)

Slice ginger into 1/4-inch-thick rounds–3 or 4 slices. Peel and roughly crush or chop garlic cloves. Slice tomatoes in half (use this technique).

Place your tagine (or heavy pot) over medium heat. Drizzle in a bit of olive oil, to coat the bottom of the pan. When oil is hot and shimmery, add the whole fennel, cumin and coriander and immediately stir to coat in oil. Continue stirring until they are fragrant, usually only a few seconds. If you’re afraid your spices might burn, feel free to yank the pan off the heat. Otherwise, quickly add the ginger and garlic–this will help lower the temperature of the oil–and turn down the heat to low.

This week, I make a fish tagine–essentially, fish cooked in a stewpot–with spices from a favorite Indian recipe. On the side: carrots with cinnamon, honey and red pepper…and some potatoes that take a damn long time to cook. Click to play this episode in a new window; right-click to download Subscribe via iTunes Subscribe via […]

This week, I talk about ways to get motivated for cooking in the fall. And I discuss my new cookbook, Forking Fantastic: Put the Party back in Dinner Party.

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Fall means back to school…so get back in the kitchen, you summer slackers! In this podcast, I talk about a few ways to get back in the habit of cooking.

One of the best ways is to invite someone over for dinner. But if that gives you palpitations, then please check out Forking Fantastic! Put the Party back in Dinner Party, my new cookbook with Tamara Reynolds. It’s due out October 6, and you can preorder it at Amazon and other online booksellers.

Finally, it’s official–Cooking in Real Time is scaling back to once every two weeks. I will be busy promoting the cookbook, and I want to be able to concentrate just on the cooking segments, and not so much on the recipe decoders, etc.

And I would greatly appreciate positive reviews of the podcast on iTunes, and any word you can spread on blogs, Twitter, Facebook, etc. Thanks so much for listening, and keep the requests and questions coming!

This week, I talk about ways to get motivated for cooking in the fall. And I discuss my new cookbook, Forking Fantastic: Put the Party back in Dinner Party. Click to play this episode in a new window; right-click to download Subscribe via iTunes Subscribe via RSS Fall means back to school…so get back in […]

This week, I put together a very quick late-summer meal: Maryland-style crab cakes, sliced tomatoes and corn on the cob with butter. (For more on how I got this crab-cake recipe, visit my food blog.)

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Lump crab meat, 1 cup or so (about 1/3 or 1/2 pound)

Egg

Mayonnaise

Dijon mustard

Old Bay

Bread crumbs or saltine crackers

Baking powder

Ripest, juiciest tomato you can find

Corn on the cob

Butter

Baltimore-style Crab Cakes

First, a disclaimer: the ingredients here are all Maryland, but the actual shape of the crab cake is not. (I guess I instinctively replicate the salmon cakes my mom used to make for dinner.) For a more authentically Baltimorean look, see the note and the photo at the end of the recipe, provided by Peter.

Now let me just say: there is nothing better than a really simple crab cake with very good crab. So, while there are some varieties of canned crab that are passable, most of them are awful, and you should make an effort to get fresh (or at least pasteurized) crab meat–see the note at the end of the recipe for more details.

Serve with sliced ripe tomatoes, generously salted, and corn on the cob, boiled in salty water for just a couple of minutes. In the podcast, I drain the water off the corn, then toss a bit of butter into the pot with the hot corn and shake it around to coat everything–much easier than trying to smear butter on at the table. Be sure to drizzle any remaining butter-and-corn-water over the corn and tomatoes when you put it on your plates.

Serves 2 with summer (ie, somewhat light) appetites

1 egg

1 cup lump crab meat (about 1/3 pound; see note)

Large dollop mayonnaise (about 1 tbsp)

Small dollop Dijon mustard (about 1 tsp)

Old Bay, to taste

1/4 tsp baking powder

1-2 tbsp bread crumbs or crushed saltine crackers (see note)

1 tbsp butter

Whisk the egg up in a small bowl until the white and yolk are well blended. Place the crab meat in a larger bowl, then drizzle in about half of the whisked egg. Add the mayonnaise, mustard, Old Bay (start with about 1/2 teaspoon; add more if you like spicy, or if your Old Bay is showing its age) and baking powder and mix well. The mix will likely be beige-orange from the Old Bay, and fairly wet. Add the bread crumbs, starting with 1 tablespoon, and adding a bit more if the mix still looks like it won’t hold its shape when scooped with a spoon. (If you’re making the mix in advance, don’t add any extra crumbs–as the mix sits, the crumbs will absorb more of the moisture.)

Shape the mix into two crab cakes, as in the photo (or see the more traditional method in the

This week, I put together a very quick late-summer meal: Maryland-style crab cakes, sliced tomatoes and corn on the cob with butter. (For more on how I got this crab-cake recipe, visit my food blog.) Click to play this episode in a new window; right-click to download Subscribe via iTunes Subscribe via RSS Shopping list […]

This week, I explain some of the most common mistakes new cooks make–and how you can fix them. It’s surprisingly easy. Click to play this episode in a new window; right-click to download Subscribe via iTunes Subscribe via RSS There are a handful of very simple-to-correct mistakes that novice cooks make. In this episode of […]