Calamari with Lemony Pan Sauce

I was experimenting with some Spanish tapas ideas recently and came up with a successful appetizer dish here; the photos are bad but the taste was great! 

I started off by soaking some thawed calamari rings in milk, then coating them with flour mixed with some cayenne and salt. 

They sauteed easily in olive oil and I turned them as needed to crisp them up:

Next time I will let them form a little better since I obviously mangled them somewhat in the process.  After they were done, I made a quick pan sauce with white wine and fresh lemon juice, then thickened it with a little flour/butter mix (I'd like to think it was a bit of buerre manie).

The sauce looks more like melted cheese than a lemon sauce, but it was a tasty snack!  I'm not sure why I chose chopsticks for eating this but it probably had something to do with the leftover wine that I was enjoying while I cooked this.

Clam and Spam Chowder

For awhile I've been curious about the actual cooking potential with the much-lambasted processed pork substance known as Spam.  I've heard that serious cooks have used it creatively, and there's plenty of web recipes out there you can look up.

In light of the big Midwest blizzard about to hit, I bought a tin and have been sampling ways to use it.  I fried up a slice of it and ate it like a little slider burger--not bad!

In this experiment, I substituted it for bacon in a clam chowder dish I whipped up using classic techniques that I've done many times.  Here's what I did:

1) Diced half a potato and a quarter of a white onion, and sauteed them in a bit of olive oil.
2) Added about a 1/4 stick of real butter, and stirred it in along with a TBSP or so of flour (like a roux for thickening and enriching)
3) Stirred in a cup and a half or so of 2% milk, and a chicken bouillon cube (a little water may be needed)

4) I chopped a little of the Spam and mixed it in the chowder
5) I added a 6.5 oz. can of minced clams along with maybe half of the liquid

I let it simmer on low heat for awhile, tasting it to get a sense of how soft the potato chunks were getting.  You can also judge thickness by how the liquid rolls off your spoon as the picture above shows (still too watery).  I simmered it about 15-20 minutes longer and added a shake of Chulula pepper sauce for a kick.

When it thickened and concentrated the flavors, I served it up and enjoyed.  I added a bit of salt earlier in the process, but the Spam and bouillon provided plenty of salt kick, so I wouldn't bother next time.

If I discover some new things to do with Spam, I'll post again!  I will likely be Spammed-out, however, after the one little tin......

Asian fish and stir fry adventure!

Last weekend I ventured into a random southeast asian food market near Elgin, IL, where there's a significant Laotian population. I picked up a few unfamiliar ingredients and decided to put something together. Here's what I got:

*gailan (also known as Chinese broccoli)
*baby bok choy (it was curiously labeled "shan h choy" but I couldn't find anything about that while Googling it)
*golden pompano fish (purchased frozen)
*rice vermicelli noodles
*chili basil paste



I grilled the fish for about 5-6 minutes a side after thawing it out. Separately I stir fried the bok choy and gailan with olive oil, soy sauce, and added the cooked noodles and chili paste until the ingredients were balanced and well cooked.


When the fish was done I served it for a great meal accompanied with San Miguel beer, a lager brewed in the Phillipines but popular in Spain where I spent my 19 year-old summer!

The fish was incredible and the vegetable stir fry good; the paste, however, was a bit strong and I may simply stir with my own sauce from scratch next time!