I love a good chowder and haven’t had any in quite a while. So I threw together this New England inspired soup with an eye for making it light and healthy, but very tasty. I started with a medium onion chopped finely. This was sweated in a hot pan with a splash of olive oil and some salt and pepper. Once the onions began to turn translucent I threw in a good healthy dose of chopped garlic and a couple cups of finely diced cabbage along with two finely diced potatoes and a cup of frozen corn. After sautéing for a few minutes I added 3 cups of skim milk and 3 cups of water. I also seasoned the broth with some clam dashi powder to give it more of a seafood flavor. I also sprinkled in a tsp or so of Old Bay seasoning. I let this simmer for about 15 minutes until the vegetables were thoroughly cooked. At the end I added 1 can (~15 oz) of pink salmon, 8 oz of imitation crab meat, about 20 peeled raw shrimp and 6 oz of chopped up pollock filets. This was cooked for an additional 8-10 minutes just until the fish was cooked through. Even though the chowder was low fat with all the fish and seafood it had a wonderful texture and an even more wonderful hearty flavor. It was very satisfying.
Fish and Seafood Chowder
Soup and Salad – Mediterranean Inspiration
I’ve been on kind of a Mediterranean kick the last couple days. Soup and salad usually go together but I actually made these on different nights. This evening I made a really wonderful soup. The other day I roasted an eggplant in a hot oven until it was soft and tender. I was thinking maybe baba ganoush would be on my menu soon. But there it sat in the fridge neglected. Tonight I decided to make a soup out of it. I started with a hot pot and a couple tablespoons of olive oil. In went a couple of chopped up onions, salt and pepper. These were sautéed until they were just starting to caramelize. Next I added a good dose of chopped garlic, about 6-8 cloves worth. These were cooked for about a minute or so with the onions. In went a can of diced tomatoes, 2 cans of chicken broth, the flesh of the roasted eggplant, and some seasonings. I added the juice of a lemon, about a teaspoon each of dried thyme and dried oregano, and a healthy pinch of spicy red chili pepper flakes. This was simmered for about 20 minutes until all the flavors were mingling together and the veggies were all well cooked. I wanted it to be on the creamy side so I added one can of evaporated nonfat milk. This is a good healthy alternative to adding cream. Of course cream would be over the top better, but this was pretty good. The soup was puréed with my hand blender. All I can say is YUM! The herbs and lemon along with the eggplant and onions. Delicious!
Last night started everything off with this Greek inspired salad. This was also very satisfying. I started with a bed of chopped romayne and green leaf lettuces. These were dressed with a lemon, oregano and olive oil dressing. On top are some sliced cucumber, sliced carrots, artichoke hearts, celery, sliced chicken breast, kalamata olives and lots of feta cheese. Another drizzle of the lemon dressing and a dusting of sumac and the salad was ready to go. It reminded me of the lemony greek salads from a local mom & pop shop I used to get when I was a graduate student.
Maki sushi
I do love sushi and maki sushi rolls. I haven’t made it in a long time. Tonight we feasted on Japanese cuisine. In my efforts to eat healthy I even used brown rice instead of the traditional white rice. I like the Thai brown rice I find in my local Asian market. It still has some stickiness that is important in Asian cuisine. Of course it’s not the same as a traditional Japanese sushi rice but it was a palatable alternative to white rice. I seasoned it with rice vinegar and a little bit of sugar.
The ingredients for my maki rolls were imitation crab meat, cucumber, carrots, and a wasabi seasoned canned tuna. I’d love to use fresh fish but we just can’t get anything here that I would eat raw.
Here is the nori with the rice and fillings all laid out.
All rolled up and ready for cutting.
I love wasabi and use a lot in my soy dipping sauce. I also prepared a soup this evening.
The soup was a very simple one. I made a simple broth with water, clam dashi powder, fish dashi powder and a splash of soy sauce. I simmered button mushrooms in the broth until they were good and tender. I then added a good amount of finely sliced leaf lettuces. I love cooked lettuce, especially in soup. It has a silky texture and a nice sweet flavor.
Stay tuned. I’ll post dessert tomorrow. It is definitely worth waiting for!
Light and Healthy Asian Inspiration
Talk about low fat, good carbs and lean proteins, tonight’s dinner really fit the bill. This is not really authentic Asian cuisine but it certainly has its inspiration from across the Pacific. I made a soup with onions, kale and konbu flavored with a clam dashi and poached tilapia filets in it. The only fat was a tiny splash of olive oil in the pot to sauté the onions. More on the soup in a minute. I really want to talk about this simple and delicious salad I threw together. There’s a legume event going on over at The Well Seasoned Cook and I blogged about cooking up some whole grains and legumes in my last post. Now these beans and grains were just fine by themselves seasoned with a little bit of salt and pepper, but I really love to eat them cold with fresh crunchy vegetables and a tangy dressing. What you see in the bowl below is a couple cups of those cooked grains, a cup or so offinely sliced romaine lettuce hearts, a half cup each of finely diced celery, carrots, and scallions, three cloves of garlic finely chopped and a good tablespoon of minced ginger. A little salt and pepper, a splash of soy sauce, a couple tablespoons of rice vinegar and the tiniest drizzle of sesame oil was mixed in with these. The result is shown below. I garnished it with sesame seeds.
All right. Let’s talk soup. I love soup and this one was pretty easy to make. I first sautéed one medium onion with a tiny bit of olive oil until it began to brown. Four or five cloves of chopped garlic were added and this was quickly cooked for about a minute to release the flavor. I added a few tablespoons of rice vinegar to deglaze the pan. In went a little bit of dried konbu seaweed and a couple cups of chopped up kale. Salt and pepper was added along with a couple tablespoons of a Korean clam dashi powder. About 8 cups of water was added and this was simmered covered for about 30 minutes until the kale was nicely softened and the flavors were all integrated.
Here in Fargo it is not that easy to get fresh fish so we have to rely on what we can find frozen much of the time. I am, after all, located in the geographical center of North America. There is no other place further from an ocean than North Dakota. Anyway, of the frozen fish I find the mild taste and nice texture of tilapia to work great in a soup. You certainly don’t want to overcook it though. So, I just slip in the thawed filets right before serving and let them simmer in the broth for just a couple of minutes. I only use as many filets as I’m going to serve. I find the fish does not keep that well in leftovers. So, we eat all the fish and any soup that is left can be used later. You can reheat and add more fish or even throw in some tofu. I like to serve the filet whole in the bowl. It makes for a nice presentation. However, you could break it up into pieces as well. It was delicious and the broth perfectly seasoned this time.
Asian Influenced
I ate a lot over the holidays. I ate too many sweet rich foods. It’s time to cut back on the carbohydrates and fat and fill in with flavor. There is no better way to do this than with Asian food. You’ll be seeing a lot if low fat low carb meals from me in the near future. Tonight I made a mushroom and seaweed soup served with a soy/mirin marinated grilled chicken served on a salad with a ginger soy dressing. It was delicious, low fat, low carb and absolutely satisfying.
I used two kinds of dried mushrooms. One was already shredded into thin strips and the package simply called it “dried black fungus”. The other is my favorite dried mushroom, a dried shitake. These were soaked in water for a good 4-5 hours before cooking. I like to soak my mushrooms in zip-lock bags. It’s easy and convenient.
If you haven’t had soup made with dried seaweed you are missing out. I am inspired by many of the Korean soups (masters of soup if I may add) that use seaweed as a base. The Japanese also use dried seaweed as a soup and flavor base. I have two kinds in my soup this evening. One is Japanese – dashi kombu. This comes in wide sheets and hydrates to give a chewy thick seaweed in the end. I broke this up into small pieces. The other is a shredded seaweed. This one is much thinner and opens up into sort of very thin seaweed leaves as it hydrates and cooks. Both have a wonderful salty sea-like taste. It really is wonderful.
Here are everything combined together. The seaweed has been broken up into small pieces. The shitakes were sliced thinly. The mushroom soaking water was added to add all that wonderful color and flavor. To this I added some salt, lots of fresh ground pepper, lots of chopped garlic, a splash of soy sauce, and about 4 cups more water. This was heated to boiling and then simmered for two hours. This picture was taken before adding the water and cooking.
I made a simple salad of finely shredded romaine lettuce, green cabbage and carrots. This was eventually tossed with a dressing made from grated ginger, a splash of soy sauce, rice vinegar, mirin, sesame oil and olive oil.
Here is the salad with the grilled chicken on top. The chicken was marinated for two hours with a mixture of sesame oil, mirin, and soy sauce. It was grilled and allowed to rest for a few minutes before slicing.
The soup! It was delicious! I could eat this every day. The flavor of the shitake was most pronounced and it mingled with the seaweed flavor. I enjoyed dinner tonight!
