Roasted Tilapia and Sauteed Brussels Sprouts

Think Like a Chef came in today. Actually it came in YESTERDAY but my postal worker didn't put it in the unused parcel drops in my apartment because he's lazy and left it in my apartment's office which I annoyed at 9:58 this morning (they open at 10). That's besides the point.

After reading about Tom Colicchio's upbringing (Italian), restaurant experience (impressive), and mindset on cooking (inspiring), I was pretty stoked to try something I've never done with my new book and new cooking supplies.

This week's chapter is about roasting. I was feeling pretty ambitious and was planning on doing the oven roasted whole chicken, but my local grocery store only carries butcher's twine in November and December (or so says the manager). It was probably for the best, I learned a lot today and adding chicken-trussing to the list might have been disastrous. As it was I made pan-roasted tilapia with sauteed brussels sprouts and onions.

Brussels sprouts are already blanched. It's amazing how green they get.

New Ingredients Used: Fresh Thyme, Peanut Oil

I've never used fresh spices before. I've also never used thyme. It smelled around the same ballpark as the basil/rosemary/parsley group (all organized under "green Italian spices" in my current ignorance). It's an interesting experience, and I still need to learn exactly how to handle them. I'm unsure if there's anything I need to do with them other than thrown them in the pan. Also my kitchen knives need a good sharpening, because they can't cut those sprigs like they should be able to.

Peanut oil behaved almost entirely like olive oil. It tasted different for sure, but it had no surprises.

New Techniques Used: Pan Roasting, Blanching

I never realized you could roast in a pan. I always assumed that phrase meant "stick it in the oven." Apparently it actually refers to merely cooking over an open flame. The process should leave a browned, but soft, product. Delicate. Juicy. Delicious.

Here is the basic roasting technique as told by Mr. Colicchio:

Brown the food on top of the stove. Cook the meat in oil on medium to medium high heat to brown. Do not move it around, if the meat sticks to the pan during this process, it will release when it's properly browned.

Don't use high heat. This is against the roasting principle. The meat will be more tender and juicy if treated gently.

Add butter to the pan, about 3/4th's the way through. This will create a liquid with which to baste the meat and add more flavor.

Let the food rest. After roasting all the juices of the meat are in the center. If properly basted, the juices will be reabsorbed by the outside portions of the meat. However, if immediately carved it will merely bleed on the plate, leaving a dry crust and a juicy center. This doesn't apply to fish or vegetables (which is what I cooked today).

In addition to roasting, I added blanching to my known (but not proficient) techniques. I'd recently heard this term while watching the Food Network, and was excited to try it. It's a simple technique, used on vegetables, to quickly bring out nutrients and flavor. It consists of quickly boiling the vegetables (one to three minutes estimated, based on the thickness and consistency) and then plunging into an ice bath to stop the cooking process. I used it on my brussels sprouts since I couldn't saute them in a raw state and expect them to be done.

Here's what I made...

Sauteed Brussels Sprouts and Onions

This was my own creation, although I've made a variant of it before. I didn't want to try anything too new on the first week. Afterall, I had to eat this stuff! I used the fresh thyme, along with coarse sea salt and pepper, and blanched brussels sprouts to make sure they would be cooked through. Afterwards, I thew them into piping hot peanut oil, threw them around for a minute or two, and voila!

Overall it turned out well, but I didn't let the brussels sprouts boil long enough. Lesson learned. Won't have to eat many half done brussels sprouts stop making that mistake.

Roasted Tilapia

I pretty much explained the process in the roasting section, but I'll give the short version.

I took a tilapia filet, dried it with a paper towl, brushed it with sea salt and pepper, and put it on a pan with peanut oil at medium heat. Afterwards flipped it over and got the other side. My goal was to brown it on both sides immediately, but I didn't leave it on long enough initially.

Starting to get nice and brown

Either way I added the butter and continued on. Allowing another three minutes on both sides. It looked and smelled amazing. Unfortunately I flipped it a little roughly and it fell apart, but I don't think it ruined the flavor much. In the end it was nice and brown and tasted delicious.

And this is the finished product. Cant say I'm great at plating or photographing food yet, but it tasted significantly better than it looks. The fish fell apart in my mouth, sometimes on the plate, and had an herb taste that was neither faint or overpowering. I was worried about the caloric content of the butter, but more than half of it was in the pan when I was finished, so I don't think this was over the top considering the portion size.

Feel free to follow along as I continue cooking without a recipe. If less experienced cooks have any questions, or more experienced cooks have any tips, please feel free to leave them in the comment section. Adios!

Matt and Food's Excellent Adventure

I've been living on my own for a few years now and I haven't really learned to cook. I'm not bad enough where I subsist on Ramen Noodles and peanut butter sandwiches, but I don't know much.

Following a recipe is easy enough, so's watching the oven. But when something goes wrong I don't have the first clue how to fix it. In fact, I have no idea how I even got to where I was in the first place. Baking soda goes in cookies because the recipe says so, and if you're looking for another explanation then you're asking the wrong person. The terms "braise," "blanch," and "sweat,"mean nothing to me. I couldn't tell you the difference between parsley and basil if my life depended on it, and I didn't even know what a shallot was until last week.

I'm sick of all that. I'm sick of following recipes not know why I'm doing something. I'm tired of having to go the grocery store every time I want to cook because I'm missing one item on the all important list of ingredients. I'm fed up with only having a handful of dishes in my repertoire unless I peruse Google for hours searching for that one recipe that's different, but not too weird. From now on, I say screw the recipe.

My goal is to be able to walk into my pantry and say, "Oh look, I have this, this, and this. I'll make THIS." And then stun and amaze everyone around me. Fireworks will explode in our mouths, and the sun and moon will align into place and bring world peace and harmony. "Be excellent to one another..." No, seriously, I want to learn how to cook well (not passable) and I want to do it without a recipe.

In order to do this I've bought a couple of books that are along those lines. One is Tom Colicchio's Think Like a Chef and the other is Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg's The Flavor Bible. Other books are coming in from Amazon (I get carried away on that site), but I'm going to start on these two books. Think Like a Chef  breaks down techniques required to fly solo and book free, ordered from easiest to most difficult. It does have a few recipes in it, but they're for instructional purposes as they highlight the new technique. The Flavor Bible is a giant index full of all those fancy ingredients I've never heard of. In addition to explaining the ingredients basic taste and giving quick tips on preparation, it also lists the best ingredients with which to pair.

I'm going to post at least a cooking excursion once a week consisting of a new technique from Think Like a Chef, and an attempt of my own. Practically I won't be able to cook more than one meal a week. These recipes have a tendency to get expensive, and cooking for one means leftovers (and I don't waste food). I'll be posting blogs full of pictures of my dishes during and after completion. You'll get to watch me stumble around, fail, and (hopefully) grow as a cook, and if all goes to plan I may see George Carlin show up in a time traveling phone booth. Party on dudes.