September 11, 2014 Lunch Steamed Flounder at East Ocean Dinner Sandwiches

 A big day for food in small quantities.

A rode to Montano and back at 6:30 a.m.

Breakfast  -  a bowl of fruit salad with granola and Chobani Greek yogurt

Lunch - I called Peter Eller and we agreed to meet around noon.  Peter wanted to eat fresh fish for lunch, so I suggested East Ocean, which is my favorite fish restaurant in Albuquerque.  We decided upon a large flounder for 14.95 and asked that it be prepared in onion, ginger and soy sauce, which like many of the best Chinese recipes is magically simple.

Here are two recipes from Epicurious.  The first is a Vietnamese recipe that substitutes cilantro for the ginger, but does use a steaming basket and the second one uses aluminum foil instead of a traditional Chinese steaming basket but uses the proper Chinese sauce that we had at East Ocean, so you may want to combine the two in a manner that pleases your palate:

Steamed Whole Fish with Ginger, Scallions, and Soy

Epicurious  | September 2012

by Charles Phan

Vietnamese Home Cooking

photo by Eric Wolfinger

yield
Serves 2 to 4 as part of a multicourse meal

This is a simple way to prepare whole fish, yet one that few Western cooks have mastered. In the Vietnamese culture, a properly steamed fish is a benchmark for chefs, and those who can't do it right are considered to be bad cooks. A perfectly steamed fish has flesh that is just cooked at the bone, never dry. Typically, whole fish are not served with the liquid in which it was steamed, which is too fishy tasting, and any sauce is added at the end, after the fish has been cooked. In this classic Chinese preparation, the fish is topped with scallions, cilantro and ginger, then doused with hot oil, which releases the flavor of the aromatics into the flesh of the fish.

Ingredients

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• 1 (1 1/2-pound) whole white fish (such as sea bass, branzino, or flounder), cleaned with head and tail intact
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 2 by 1/2-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and finely julienned
• 1/4 cup light soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon rice wine
• 1 scallion, white and light green parts only, julienned
• 4 cilantro sprigs
• 1/2 cup canola oil

Preparation

1. Rinse the fish in cold water and pat dry with paper towels. Season the fish inside and out with salt and pepper. Place the fish on a heatproof plate that is both large enough to accommodate it (a glass pie plate works well) and will also fit inside your steamer, bending the fish slightly if it is too long. Stuff half of the ginger inside the cavity of the fish and spread the remaining ginger on top of the fish.

2. Pour water into a wok or stockpot and set a steamer in the wok or on the rim of the stockpot. Make sure the water does not touch the bottom of the steamer. Bring the water to a boil over high heat.

3. Place the plate holding the fish in the steamer, cover, and steam for about 8 minutes, until the fish flakes easily when tested with the tip of a knife.

4. While the fish is steaming, in a small bowl, stir together the soy sauce, wine, and 1 tablespoon of water. Set aside.

5. When the fish is ready, carefully remove the plate from the steamer and pour off any accumulated liquid. Lay the scallion and cilantro along the top of the fish. In a small sauté pan, heat the oil over high heat until it is hot but not smoking. Remove the oil from the heat and pour it directly over the scallion and cilantro to "cook" them. Drizzle the soy mixture over the fish and serve immediately.

How to Prepare a Whole Fish Most markets sell fish that have already been scaled and gutted. If a fish has not been cleaned, you can ask the fishmonger to clean it for you. When we serve a whole fish at the restaurants, we also trim off the fins because the fish is easier to serve without them. With a pair of scissors, cut off the fins from both sides of the fish, from the belly, and then the dorsal fins (the ones running along the back). Finally, trim the tail by cutting it into a V shape and score the fish.

 Now the Chinese sauce recipe:

Ingredients

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• 2 whole fish (about 2 pounds each, such as black sea bass or wild salmon), scaled, gutted, and scored
• 1/2 cup sliced scallions (green part only)
• 2 tablespoons fresh julienned ginger
• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup peanut oil
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar

Preparation

Position oven racks in upper and lower thirds of oven. Heat oven to 450°. Place a long piece of aluminum foil on a large, shallow baking sheet (foil should be longer than sheet); repeat with another baking sheet; place 1 whole fish on each sheet. Season each fish on both sides with salt and pepper. Whisk remaining ingredients in a bowl; spoon over each fish. Seal foil loosely around each fish to create a somewhat roomy pocket. Bake 10 minutes per inch of thickness of fish at its thickest part (typically 20 to 25 minutes for a 2-inch-thick fish). Remove foil and serve with juices.

Bleh. The idea is a fine one, but the soy sauce is overpoweringly salty, even using a low sodium soy sauce. I had to throw out half of my dinner, and my husband did not finish his either. Perhaps substitute water for all but a tablespoon of the soy sauce? It seems like it should work, but this was one of my few failures with an Epicurious recipe.

by aleecia from Silicon Valley on 2014-07-30 flag if inappropriate

Peter wanted an egg roll, so we ordered an order of two hot greasy egg rolls ($2.00).  Then the fish came.  It was a medium sized flounder with roe and the black greasy sauce with ginger and scallions that I love so much.  Peter loved it also and wanted the recipe.

We had one of our usual interesting conversations, today I mentioned seeing a feature on Sunday Morning about a Brit who rescued children from Nazi controlled Europe and Peter mentioned the historic differences in migration that manifest themselves in the linguistic differences in German spoken in different regions of Germany before WWII and how those caused cultural/status differences in his family.

Peter spent his early years in Germany and attended school and lived in four countries by the time he was in the 10^th grade, so he noticed such things first hand.

Suzette was late leaving Santa Rosa, so I ate the PPI noodle soup I made yesterday around 5:30.

When Suzette came home, I said I wanted pizza for dinner and she said she had eaten pizza for lunch, so we decided we needed to eat some of the huge amount of food we had recently prepared.  We finally decided to eat sandwiches with chicken salad and tomatoes on mayonnaise and lettuce with a Modelo Negra beer.

I had shopped at Pro’s Ranch Market at 6:30 and bought Gala apples ($.69/lb.), bananas ($.33/lb.), sugar (4 lb./$1.50) and Dreyer’s ice cream ($2.50 for 1.5 Quarts). I selected my two favorite flavors, Spumoni and Mocha Almond fudge.

So after dinner we each ate a bowl of Mocha Almond Fudge Ice Cream.  I doused mine with Kahlua.

Bon Appétit