Recipes 07.26.12
Danny and Barbara’s Best Trout Recipe
This recipe is an example of the marinade being added after the food is cooked. The original recipe, from my friend Daniel Zwerdling, suggests letting the fish sit at room temperature for four to six hours, then refrigerating for three to four days. I do neither. I serve the fish a few hours after preparation. It is a lovely first course.
Serves six.
6 trout fillets
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup flour
2 Tbsp. yellow onion, chopped
1 cup dry white Vermouth
1/2 cup orange juice
2 Tbsp. grated orange zest
Juice of one lemon
1 tsp. salt
6 twists of black pepper
2 Tbsp. chopped parsley
Orange slices for garnish
Heat oil over medium heat. Dredge trout in flour. Brown well on each side, cooking about three minutes per side.
Put fish in deep dish in single layer. With leftover oil in skillet, sauté onion until golden. Add Vermouth and zest, boil for about 20 seconds. Add orange juice, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. Let bubble and boil about another 30 seconds. Add parsley, then pour over fish. Let marinate a few hours before serving, or serve the next day.
Molasses Pepper Tenderloin
This is my favorite way to prepare (splurge!) beef tenderloin.
Serves six.
1 beef tenderloin, about 3 lbs.
2 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar
1 cup molasses
3 Tbsp. minced garlic
1 tsp. coarsely ground black pepper
Combine beef with marinade ingredients and keep in refrigerator overnight. When ready to grill, take meat out of refrigerator one hour before cooking.
Prepare grill. Sear meat on all sides over hot coals, then move to cooler side, open vents, and close grill lid. Be careful during the searing part, as the sugary molasses will want to burn, burn, burn. Continue to cook about 15 to 20 minutes for rare meat (120 degrees) or about 20 to 25 minutes for medium rare (125 degrees).
Sticky Orange and Chipotle Glazed Sweet Potatoes
This recipe is adapted from one of my favorites, Douglas Rodriguez’s “Latin Flavors on the Grill.”
He recommends this with barbecued chicken.
Serves six.
3 sweet potatoes, peeled and sliced 1/2 inch thick
1 tsp. salt
1 5-oz. can frozen orange juice concentrate
1/4 cup unsalted butter
3 Tbsp. adobo sauce (from canned chipotles in adobo)
1 Tbsp. chopped cilantro
Boil sweet potato slices in salted water for four to five minutes, until partially cooked. Immediately drain and plunge into ice water to stop cooking. Drain again.
In small sauce pan over low heat, combine orange juice concentrate, butter, chipotle sauce, and one teaspoon salt and stir until butter is melted. Remove from heat and stir in cilantro.
Spread some glaze on each potato slice.
Prepare medium fire in the grill with coals piled on one side, or with only one side of gas grill fired up.
Arrange the slices on the hot grate opposite the heat source. Grill the slices for two to three minutes on each side, occasionally brushing with more glaze. With tongs or spatula, carefully transfer to a serving dish. Serve warm or at room temperature.
Drumm’s Garlic Ginger Soy Marinade
Rusty, The Star’s fishing columnist, among other things, relies on soy sauce as a base ingredient in fish marinades because of its salt content “and the flavor that seems to bring out, but not hide the inherent flavor of the fish in question, whether it’s baked on the bone, filleted, or grilled,” he said.
This marinade is especially good with black sea bass, porgies, and bluefish. With striped bass, which Mr. Drumm describes as “a pretty fish with white flaky flesh” that’s “not much in the flavor department,” he recommends adding “a bit of fire in the form of a half-teaspoon of hot sauce or a dash of cayenne.”
Marinates a couple of six to eight-inch long fillets.
3/4 cup soy sauce
1 minced garlic clove
1 Tbsp. lemon or orange juice or 1/2 tsp. zest
1 tsp. shredded ginger