Baked Rainbow Trout in Foil

I bought two rainbow trout from the San Rafael farmer’s market today and decided to cook one of them for dinner and freeze the other. The girl who sold me the trout told me that I could serve one whole trout per person. She also discounted them by $1 per lb  (bringing it down to $5.99/lb) since they were about to close up.

I had some leftover lemons at home so I thought I’d stuff it with lemon and then season the fish with some thyme and salt and pepper and bake it in foil.

Preheat oven to 425F. I rinsed the fish and dried off with a paper towel before placing on a sheet of tin foil. I proceeded to sprinkle a little dried thyme (would have used fresh if I had some) on both sides of the fish before salt and peppering inside and out. I cut the lemon and placed inside the fish.

I then wrapped the fish up nice and tight so no steam could get out and placed on cookie sheet before putting in the oven.

I baked for 20 minutes although probably could have checked it at 15 minutes. I made a salad from the ingredients I got from the farmers market and whipped up an olive oil, balsamic vinegar and minced garlic dressing to go on top.

After 20 minutes, the fish was moist and tasted pretty good. I probably could have used slightly more salt but I rather undersalt than oversalt.

Here is a shot of the Trout meat.

Grilled Fresh Sardines

I’ve been on the lookout for sardines at my local butcher after enjoying fresh sardines in Monterey, CA over Memorial long weekend. The key is to find fresh sardines as frozen ones tend to be mushy once thawed.

Besides being healthy they are actually pretty easy to prepare although you do have to be careful handling them. I ended up purchasing 6 sardines for dinner.

Bag of sardines (6)

3 Garlic cloves, minced

Salt and pepper

Olive oil

1 Lemon

Cherry tomatoes (optional)

Rinse the sardines in cold water, gently pat them dry, and lay them out on a piece of paper towel.

Mince some garlic.  Preheat the grill pan over medium-high heat  and add a generous helping of olive oil and swirl to cover the bottom of the pan. Add the garlic and fry for a few seconds. Careful not to burn the garlic.

Salt and pepper the sardines.

Place the sardines on top of the garlic and grill for 4 minutes. Turn over and cook another 3-4 minutes.

Place on serving dish. Add cherry tomatoes and squeeze fresh lemon on top.

Salmon Collars with Ponzu Sauce

We’ve been going to the San Rafael farmers market for a number of years now. Besides being able to get some fresh fruit and vegetables it’s a chance to get out of foggy San Francisco and get some sun.

Depending on what I need that particular week, I also pick up meat from either Marin Sun Farms meat or Prather Ranch and fresh seafood from Santa Rosa Seafood which is owned by Mike & Trudy Svedise.

One time I had bought a striped bass and some salmon from the seafood vendor and wondered if it was farmed or wild. It took awhile and a bit of googling but I found Mike Svedise’s email address and sent him a note.

He got back to me right away with a detailed answer. In summary, he said, the striped bass is farmed from company called CleanFish which raises safe and sustainable seafood while the salmon is wild from Alaska.

He then proceeded to tell me how his family also owns one of the largest seafood companies in California supplying the Bay Area and 80-90% of Whole Foods’ seafood needs. He invited me to come visit his commercial kitchen in Santa Rosa to see how they cut, fillet, smoast ((his word for smoke/roasted) and pack seafood and if I had any additional questions to ask him or his daughter next time I was at the farmers market. Very cool.

This  past visit I bought a bag of salmon collars along with two fillets. The collars are a lot cheaper than the fillets and pretty meaty.

I was pretty excited to get my hands on the collars and decided to keep it simple and try not to screw up the cooking of them. I thought simply salting and broiling them with some ponzu sauce on the side would be best.

1 bag of salmon collars

salt

1 green onion, cut into small rounds.

Preheat the oven on broil. Rinse the salmon collars and put on baking sheet.

Lightly salt both sides and broil for 10 minutes, flip at 5 minutes. You need to be careful because the fish sticks a bit on the foil which I learned quickly after tearing a few collars in two. Oops.

Place broiled salmon collars on a dish and garnish with green onion.

Ponzu sauce

3 tbsp soy sauce

2 tbsp rice vinegar

1 tbsp fresh lemon juice

1/2 tbsp sesame oil.

Mix all ingredients together in a small bowl and use as a dipping sauce for the collars.

For this particular dinner, I also made a variation on the pork with long green beans substituting chicken instead. I used my Aunt #3′s recipe from her Yan-Kit So: Food of China cookbook.

Black Cod with Miso

We really like black cod (aka butterfish) and it’s healthy for you so we try to have it fairly regularly. We also have this really easy recipe so  when you come home from work you can quickly make it.

The only thing is you need to remember to make the marinade the night before and plop the fish in it overnight. But even that’s pretty easy to do.

One thing I always forget to do is to scrape off the marinade right before putting on the grill pan. If you don’t you’ll burn the fish. It’s still really moist but the outside may not look that appealing. As you can see I kind of forgot my own advice!

Adapted from Nobu’s recipe.

6 Tablespoons white miso (fermented soybean paste)
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup mirin (sweet Japanese rice wine)
1/4 cup sake *if none, replace with mirin
12 oz black cod

Pour 1/2C mirin* into a sauce pan and bring to a boil. Add miso and whisk until smooth. Add sugar and whisk until dissolved. Remove from stove top and cool.

Add black cod to dish and pour over marinade. Or alternately use ziplock bag which I found easier. Marinate overnight. Redistributing marinade and turn over at least once.

Preheat oven to 400F. Heat grill pan over medium-high and add fish skin side down. Cook for 2 minutes.

Flip the fish over and put entire pan into oven. Roast for 10 minutes, until flaky.

I made a quick stir fry of bok choy with oyster sauce and ginger and some ho fun in homemade chicken soup to go along with the fish.