culinary experiments and explorations

I've got a couple of acquaintances who are pescaterians -- that is, vegetarians who will also eat fish -- and as it turns out, my culinary experiments to date have sadly neglected fish. So this evening, I cracked open one of my favorite Thai cookbooks and decided to adapt a recipe.

The basis for tonight's experiment was plah toht kamin -- fried fish with turmeric. I wanted to go a little bit further than the recipe did, though, and so I stole some spicing ideas for the breading from a completely different source of southern style. The American South!

The result was surprisingly delicious (although, being unable to find catfish, I went with tilapia instead).

( Tilapia Fillets Fried With Turmeric, Southern Style )

I made this with a pound of frozen tilapia fillets, suitably defrosted in my fridge during the day, and it turned out amazing. The fish was tender enough that it nearly fell apart on my fork, and the combination of the marinade and the spiced breading was multilayered and memorable. I would serve this dish with or without any dip -- it's just that tasty, for my palate.

I'll definitely be making it again!

Yesterday was the Adam Ezra Group's Ramble (which was, by the by, awesome), and as last year there was a bake-off (with cookies for free to anyone, and you put money into the jars of the cookies you liked the best, all proceeds going to charities to help feed the hungry). Determined to impress, I made not one but four different batches of cookies: traditional oatmeal raisin, triple chocolate cranberry, my spicy ginger cookies, and an experiment...

( Peppermint Chocolate Chip Cookies )

Aside from uncertainty over the color of the cookies (which is why I say the addition of the food coloring is completely optional), these were generally well received. People said, and my experience with a test cookie matches, that they ended up tasting pleasantly like Thin Mints.

(And on a side note, although I didn't get recognized as having one of my batches raise the most contributions -- I came in a close third -- I'm quite happy that the combination of all four different batches just around tripled what anyone else's single batch did. All in all, I'm quite happy with that, particularly since the proceeds all go to charity. *wry smile* )

A few years back, on a trip to the American southwest, I randomly picked up a bottle of Mrs. Dash's Southwest Chipotle mix. It turned out to be a my favorite, near-perfect thing to add to scrambled eggs, chili, and other needing-to-be-spiced-up dishes. Unfortunately, it's not really sold around here -- and though I could get a half-dozen bottles online from Amazon or similar places, it would take me something like a dozen years to use all that spice.

Instead, I started screwing around with making a spice mix of my own, working off of the list of ingredients on the side of the Mrs. Dash's bottle. It took a little experimentation, and a lot of "shake my spice mix in bottle and compare scent to original Mrs. Dash's mix", but I finally got the proportions worked into something I'm fairly happy with.

( Southwest Chili Pepper Spice Mix )

It might not be precisely the same as the Mrs. Dash's mix, but it's certainly close enough in appearance, scent, and taste for my purposes. Enjoy!

For a while now, starcat_jewel has been urging me to track down the local Penzey's Spices. Today, I decided to make the pilgrimage to the closest one -- down at 1293 Massachusetts Ave., Arlington, MA.

Penzey's itself is a top-notch place -- cheerful and helpful staff, excellently organized stock, and of course TONS of spices of all flavors everywhere to be seen. I picked up a double handful and then some of varied spices (3" Ceylon cinnamon sticks, minced lemon peel, minced orange peel, two flavors of Hungarian paprika (sweet and half-sharp, to be used in a 2:1 ratio at the lowest), cardamom pods, whole cumin seed, whole Ceylon cloves, whole nutmeg nuts and ground nutmeg, ground caraway seed (realized after I got home that I already had some; oh well), Balti curry seasoning, powdered star anise, whole celery seed, Oriental mustard powder, and gumbo filé powder).

All that, plus a $25 wooden peppercorn grinder (my glass one was left in the wrong place on the oven and, um, sort of half-melted) ran to just under $85. Considering how long spices tend to last me, and given the size of the jars (plus you can buy more in plastic bags to refill jars you already have), I'd say that they offer some fantastic prices. That's particularly true when one looks at what even the discount supermarkets charge for spices.

Moreover, I've got to say, I really like Arlington. It's got a lovely small-town feel to it, despite being less than ten miles from the center of Boston.

From I-95 down Route 2 to 1293 Massachusetts Ave. in Arlington.

Important note on getting there from 95, though -- once you get off route 2 east onto exit 55, turn left at the bottom of the off-ramp (Pleasant Street), then right at the T-junction about three-quarters of a mile up the street. I misunderstood the Google Maps directions, turned right at the bottom of the ramp ("towards Waltham") and ended up halfway to Belmont before I went "Hey, there's no sign of Massachusetts Avenue yet..." *grin*