What I Ate For Dinner

Clams casino: it ain't much, but it's good. Really it's just clams with bacon. But I suppose the marketing powers that be figured foregrounding a gamble would do their brand best. And so we have it: Clams Casino on top of the deck tonight.

All y'er dealin' with on this one are clams and casino butter. Step one: Buy the biggest clams you can find. I mean big'uns. Then you want to separate the meaty goodness from the two muscles attached to the shell. That sloppy booger-with-a-brain should be swingin' free now. If yuh need'uh point'r on clam schukin', consult this'un.

Now for the butter. Start by crispin' up some diced bacon. Once they're gettin' bronzed, throw some chopped shallots in to tan. Some folks throw in bell pepper, too, but the baron resists. No flavuh. After the shallots have a cinnamon tan, add enough cognac to coat the bottom of the pan. It'll love you better than bell peppers. Be sure to kill the heat beforehand, though, 'er yu'll be ablaze. Let the hooch cook off. I mean off. Finish with a few knobs of butter.

So, you've got y'er butt'r. Slather a spoonful on the clam. Top 'er with a slab of bacon, perhaps about the same size as the clam meat itself. Then all yuh gotta do is throw 'em under the broil'r. Once the top slab bacon is crisp, the whole kit and caboodle is ready for primetime.

You'll nudge this toothsome nugget closer to a meal by servin it up with a baguette slathered with tapenade au style du baron, some spinach and coppa. That'll hold 'em. Hold 'em good.

Bisque is something of a beautiful liar, which is probably why I adore it so much. Sashaying smooth and hearty, a well-tended bisque transcends the homely profile of its constituent parts to become a most toothsome morsel on par with any of the bistro all-stars. But like so many sexy beasts, its graceful appearance camouflages a truly desperate, brutal and violent past. Screaming crustaceans. Crunching skeletons. Sharp whirling blades. Gelatinous magma. These are the steps along the way, classically, to one of the titans of polite cuisine. And what with high-priced lobster and a boiling column of tornadic puree, the opportunity for calamity and ruin has always followed closely those daring enough to attempt this most noble of soups. Tonight, I offer a small adjustment that I hope will make bisque, so deserving of affection, a bit easier to dance with at home. Instead of lobster, shrimp or crayfish bisque (classics, all), I announce instead: clam bisque.

Clams rarely appear in bisque, a scene dominated instead by shrimp and lobster. There may be industrial reasons. After all, if you owned a restaurant that served shrimp cocktails and surf 'n turf entrees on Saturday night, then you might wonder if you could make a buck or two (or 13) at Sunday brunch with all those unsightly shells you had to trash in the name of a pristine primetime plate. It follows that, classically, shrimp and lobster bisques metabolize kitchen waste. The base of bisque is the flavor extracted from pounds of shrimp or lobster shells that would otherwise be discarded. Then, one adds a few whole pieces (that is, shell-on) of the crustacean, purees the whole deal, strains it through cheesecloth, and brings it back up to temperature with a touch of cream. Only then is shrimp or lobster bisque served to a gleeful diner with studs of the eponymous seafood.

There are at least two obvious problems with this method for the at-home chef. First, who'd ever pay for a whole lobster with bisque in mind? You're probably not swimming in lobster at home, which means you've gotta buy fresh ones destined for bisque. Such would be counter to the spirit of things, for, clearly, lobster bisque grew out of the need to somehow make saleable "stiffs" (recently deceased lobs). Restaurateurs would never dream of droppin' a high-dollar lobster in soup, so why should you? Second, unless you have an industrial-grade food processor, you might have some trouble pureeing whole lobster, shell 'n all. Traditionally, mind you, the whole shebang gets ground up. So, I'd say that the restaurant method is fine--for them. But I've got a cheaper, easier, more sensible method for the rest of us.

Use clams! Sure, you won't be able to steep their shells for flavor extraction as per traditional bisque protocol, but your soup will be blessed with the wonderful flavor of the clam liquor that accrues in the shells. This will more than compensate for skipping the usual shell steeping step, and render an otherwise unwieldy preparation much simpler. And clams are almost always cheaper than lobster, and sometimes cheaper than shrimp. The following is sort of based on a recipe for shrimp bisque in The Professional Chef.

Start by sautéing chopped shallot and carrot in butter until the shallots are blonde-brown. Then add a chopped clove or two of garlic, and continue sautéing for a minute or so on medium heat. Once the garlic gets some color, add in some tomato paste--a few good spoonfuls. Stir that up and, as with the demi and stock, allow the vegetables to turn a rusty brown color as the tomato paste cooks. Deglaze with enough cognac/brandy to put a good coat on the bottom of the pan. Once the cognac has mostly reduced down, throw a few handfuls of flour over the veggies to make a simple roux. Stir the thick, pasty result over medium heat for a minute or two.

Now deglaze with fish stock and add the clams (along with their all-important liquor). For four portions, I used a quart of fish stock and one pound (before shucking) of clams. Check this page if you need a few pointers on clam shucking. Add fresh herbs at this point, too, if you feel like it. Season and reseason with salt and pepper. Bring to a boil and then adjust the heat so that you just have a slow, even and relatively gentle simmer. Allow the bisque to simmer like so for about 30 minutes. Then cool until lukewarm-ish.

Transfer the (at least mostly) cooled bisque to a food processor or blender. Get the lid on there. Good. I mean real good. Put your big paw on it, too. You do not want bisque going everywhere when you flick the switch. Puree until smooth.

Put the pureed bisque back in the pan on the stove. Whisk in some cream--perhaps a half-pint 'er so for four portions? I dunno, I guess I used a little less than a half-pint. Anyway, it doesn't take that much. Bring the bisque up to temperature slowly, on low heat, while whisking occasionally. If it's not thick enough, whisk in a simple uncooked roux (made from mixing equal parts oil and flour) until you get 'er where you want 'er.

If you'd like a handsome escort for your bisque, you might consider an olive tapenade spread over a toasted baguette. The tapenade can be made in a food processor or by hand. In either event, start with black olives, capers and sardines. Chop--either with a trusty shank or in the food processor. Mix that with olive oil, fresh chopped herbs (sage is great) and fresh cracked pepper. Hold back on the salt--sardines are usually salty, as are capers and sometimes olives, too. Finish 'er off with some fresh lime juice, and mix it up caveman style. Then spread over the baguette.

Mussels are one of the easiest and most delicious summer foods to prepare. The home chef, in particular, is well positioned to knock them out with quality on par with most of the professional big boys. They're cheap, widely available, and require little time, special equipment or knowledge to handle properly. Perhaps the biggest pitfall comes down the line before anything even goes in the pan, for housing mussels in the 'fridge at home requires almost as much attention (though still not too much) as actually cooking them.

Mussels are sold alive, which means you want to avoid suffocating them. A fresh mussel is a closed mussel. That plastic bag your seafood guy sent you home with is a veritable body bag, unless you intervene. First thing you want to do when you get home with the mollusks is remove them from the bag and place them in a bowl. Then nestle the bowl containing the mussels into a larger bowl that contains ice water. Then cover the bowls with a damp kitchen or paper towel and store in the 'fridge. These, I've heard, can remain in storage for up to 48 hours, but I would recommend that you purchase your mussels on the same day you plan to prepare them. Freshness is a key here.

Once you're ready to put 'em on the dance floor, give 'em the once over to make sure their tuxes are on straight. You might find shaggy hairs hanging out of some of them that look like frayed string (or a mullet). Yank these beards out. Also go through them to make sure none have opened. If you find some that have, give them a sharp rap and see if they close. If they do? Still good. If they don't? They're unusable. Then, give them a scrub to remove any debris, mud, gunk, etc.

Now for the preparation of today's entrée, Moules à la Basquaise, based on Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook recipe. Start by roasting bell peppers (red look great but any color will work) in a 500 degree oven until blistered on most surfaces and charred on some. This can take 20-30 minutes. Once they're out of the oven, you'll need to get the skins off. Bourdain has a good trick: let them cool a bit (but not completely), and then place them in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap for ten or so minutes. This, I found, makes removing the skins quite simple once they've cooled enough for you to do so. Chop the roasted and skinned peppers into strips, julienne style.

Now to the stove. In a large pot, sauté chopped shallots in olive oil until slightly colored and translucent. Add garlic and the sliced roasted bell peppers, season with salt and pepper, and sauté briefly--probably only about another minute or so. Now add enough white wine to thickly coat the bottom of the pot. This is the liquid in which the mussels will cook, and which will also be the savory broth in which they're served--so don't skimp on the booze.

On medium-high heat, bring the wine up to a simmer and dump in the mussels. A restaurant (read: generous) portion would be one pound of mussels per person, although I go with three-quarters of a pound per person. Cover and allow to simmer on medium high heat until the mussels open--about five to eight minutes. As you simmer the mussels, be sure to SHAKE SHAKE SHAKE the pot while covered every minute or so. Shaking the pot bastes the mussels. Once the mussels open, finish with some butter and chopped fresh herbs (sage, basil, parsley, you name it).

For service, dump out the mussels with some broth into a bowl. You'll want something to mop up the broth, so this dish is usually served with crusty bread. To add intrigue to the bread, just puree tomatoes in a blender with white wine and salt, then transfer to the stove and let some of the liquid boil off. The idea is that you wind up with a moist paste. Add herbs to finish, and slather the tomato paste onto a crusty baguette cut lengthwise.

I've been in Japan for the past few weeks, and on a recent morning, I decided to check out Tokyo's famed Tsukiji Fish Market. The largest seafood wholesale market in the world, and one of the globe's largest markets of any sort, Tsukiji traffics thousands of metric tons of seafood each day, and more than 60,000 people work here. The market's early morning auctions have recently attracted huge numbers of tourists, prompting market managers to sometimes limit access, citing hygiene and safety concerns. In other cases, they have closed the auctions to all but licensed bidders. Japan is often criticized for overfishing, but whether that has anything to do with restricting access to Tsukiji--where much of the controversial catch is sold--is unknown (at least to me).

I showed up around 9am, which means that I missed most of the action. Fish roll in from all corners of the globe from late evening of the previous day through the early morning hours. Between 4am and 5am, the auctions begin and licensed bidders representing wholesalers, retailers and restaurants make their best offers. By 7 or 8, the auctions are finished, and the winners make off with their purchase. Many of the fish won in the early morning auctions wind up in the inner market wholesale stalls that I visited. By 1pm, the day is done, and the market closes for cleaning.

The scene of the wholesale stalls is sort of like a choreographed stampede. In each stall, coolers, freezers and ice chests cradle the day's catch as vendors slice huge steaks into more manageable--and saleable--morsels. In between these sellers' cells, small alleyways organize the web of fishy commerce into an orderly, if cozy, grid. The black bricks atop which this all sits slicken with water, ice and (probably) some fish guts, but there really isn't a "fishy" smell exactly. Sure, you wouldn't mistake the joint for a florist, but for the quantity of highly perishable stock available, it all seemed pretty well taken care of. That's the choreographed part.

The stampede comes with the throngs of people: wholesalers, retailers, butchers, restaurateurs, slack-jawed tourists, forklift operators, market managers, guys pulling some sort of conveyance that sort of looks like a rickshaw (really--apparently they're good for local fish transport), et al. flood the market. Barreling down the alleyways come small buggies with flatbeds and a standing operator, shuttling about the day's sale. Blue cigarette smoke wafts out of the stalls as rubber-booted vendors try to entice buyers. Band saws chop up man-size frozen fish. Ice, ice, more ice. The place is buzzing. And everywhere. Once you're in the market, you never stop moving--you just try to keep up with the rest of the surge. You feel like you're in a school of fish moving in the same direction without ever really communicating. Really, it's almost like the fish have us in their net, and the net is called Tsukiji. That's the stampede part.

Outside the market you'll find all sorts of kitchen supply stores, restaurants, dishware vendors and the like. Not surprisingly, sushi is the specialty in these parts.

I have an instinctual attraction to calamari. I feel like, even before the bright lights, the glitz and the glamour of the blogosphere, I shared quite a bit with the steadfast generalissimo of the appetizer menu: although chunky and not too much to look at, we've earned our keep with style, flavah, and panache. And we're both heart-stoppers; Calamari, in the deep-fried goodness, cardiac arrest sense of the term, and I, the lady-killing compliment. As such, I am a calamarian. Since the "I don't know quoi" of Calamari is more easily achieved than Baronial grandeur, I'll limit my comments today to the famous fired squid.

Start with the tube and tentacles of a squid, cleaned and dried. You want to make sure you pat out whatever liquid is in the meat before frying, so as to avoid splatter. To bread the squid, slice into one inch segments and drench them in seasoned flour (which is just flour with salt and pepper). Then plunge them into peanut or canola oil at around 360-370 degrees. Give them the spa treatment for only about two minutes, until lightly colored, and then pull them out with a slotted spoon, tongs or wooden chopsticks. Let them adjust their tuxedoes on a paper towel before service.

Fried foods generally, and calamari in particular, scream out for some sort of condiment or sauce. The easiest is just some salt and lemon juice. Better yet, though, is cocktail sauce.

Start with a couple of chopped and seeded tomatoes in a food processor or blender. Add some white wine, balsamic, wasabi, and salt and pepper. Blend, then reduce the excess liquid on the stove. Garnish with lemon, serve with the calamari, and you're on your way to being a true calamarian.

The Baron and I took a little holiday in Carmel, California this weekend. Carmel is a wonderful, relaxing spot for a vacation, although the median age of visitors does seem to skew to the over 60 crowd it embraces. It also pretty much maxes out on the "how-bourgeois-can-you-be" index, so there's a bit of vacationland overkill to deal with. Not to mention that we've had a few problems in the past (insolent maitre d's, redonculous prices; mediocre food; unconscionable bar-tending shortcuts) in Carmel. That said, Carmel still has great weather, a great beach, and a beautiful downtown.

The goal this time was to strategize: instead of seeking out the "best-of," we tended toward the affordable (as inflated as that can be in a tourist town), meaning, for all practical purposes, places with lots of entrees under $15-20, good appetizers to share, and friendly and attentive service. Carmel seems at times to struggle in providing these, but I think we found some keepers.

Also, it bears mentioning that hotels come down in price quite a bit in the tourist off-season (roughly the winter months through April 1). We found a 30% off any night of the week promotion, and another that was 15% off for one night, 25% off two nights, and 30% off a three night stay. Another hotel had a stay two nights, get the third free deal. It seems that since vacation destinations are often close to B&B saturation, off-season accommodations can become nearly as affordable as anywhere.

Friday night, we went to A.W. Shucks, a seafood restaurant/oyster bar. It's a good value for the money, and the service is very friendly and attentive (not a given in Carmel, where service varies widely). We started with the clam chowder, and I have to say theirs wasn't as good as the Baron's. You can really tell the difference when you use fresh clams--but what can you do? We also had the fried calamari, which was excellent (so good, in fact, that we went back for a calamari snack again on our second night). Look for a post soon on a homemade Baronial edition.

Saturday morning, we had breakfast at the Village Corner, which we go to at least once on every trip to Carmel. The service is good and the prices are very reasonable. The patio seating is a plus, especially when the weather is as perfect as it was on this trip. I had the breakfast burrito and the Baron had the Eggs Benedict. Their coffee is better than you usually find in a breakfast place, too.

Saturday night, we decided to get some firewood and have a picnic on the beach. Patisserie Boissiere has a picnic lunch menu, which is quite good and downright cheap. The Baron had the cold roast beef and I had the Carmel Garden Sandwich. Their desserts looked very good, and their restaurant menu was quite nice, so I suspect we'll be going back on our next trip.

I've included some pictures of the sunset and the fire below. Carmel lets you have beach fires below 10th Avenue and until 10 p.m., and alcohol (and even glass) is allowed on the beach. Lessons learned from this trip: bring twice as much wood as you think you'll need and build the fire as far away from the ocean as you can, because high tide comes up higher than you'd think.

As for accommodations, we spent the first night at the Monte Verde Inn, where we've stayed before. Our favorite room is #11, which has a gas fireplace and a shared deck with a good view, especially at sunset. Room #12 also shares the deck, so it's a good second choice if #11 is taken.

The second night, we stayed in the Tree-Top Room at the Lamp Lighter Inn. A big nice room, although the private deck faces away from the ocean. The staff at was very friendly and attentive. They brought us a bottle of white wine and went out of their way to provide a towel and fire starters when they heard we were going down to the beach.

Clam Chowder is a simple soup, though often outrageously overpriced. I was in New York recently and stopped in on a brisk afternoon in Times Square for a bowl and it set me back half the price to see Plácido Domingo at the Met. Granted, I only paid $25 for a standing room ticket; but still: we're dealing with one of the cheapest shellfish, some root vegetables, a bit of stock, some milk and half and half. Needless to say, making it yourself will not only save some cash, but in all likelihood, will also yield something better than what's commercially available. Bon courage!

Now, dealing with the clams is no doubt the toughest part of this preparation. The best option is to buy fresh clams and shuck them yourself. This takes a bit of technique. The video I reference while cooking in my video has since been removed from Youtube. This is a shame, since it was quite informative, but rest assured that there are several different methods for opening and shucking a clam, many of which can still be found on Youtube or in cookbooks.

The basics of clam shucking are pretty straightforward. There are two muscles attached to the top and bottom shell, and these are what you need to sever to remove the clam. Ideally, you'll be able to get a shucking knife in the front of the clam (that is, the rounded side, not the flat area in the back where the joint is). You need not pry the whole clam open, and remember not to spill the the liquor. Once you've inserted the shucking knife into the front of the clam, scrape it along the top of the shell, cutting both muscles that attach the clam. Then open or twist the top shell, and run the knife along the bottom, again releasing the clam from the two muscles attaching it to the shell. This can take some practice, and as I mention, there are all sorts of methods of entry explained elsewhere online, in cookbooks and on Youtube.

But please be advised: you should use a folded towel in your non-shucking hand (that is, the hand holding the clam, not the knife) for safety until you get the hang of it (and maybe even after that). You can also open the clam from behind by inserting the knife near the joint, although this is less elegant than approaching from the front and can lead to more shell debris.

At any rate, I think you'll find it's pretty straightforward once you've knocked a few out. The important part is to avoid sand and shell debris, and conserve the wonderful liquor that accrues in the shell of the clam. That way, you'll have some great clam meat as well as some additional clam flavoring. You can, if you must, use those strange clams that grow in jars, too.

After that, it's about as easy as it can be. Here's the recipe, based on Mark Bittman's (How to Cook Everything, pp. 69-70):

1. Render the fat out of diced bacon. Remove bacon solids, leaving the rendered fat for the vegetables. Sauté shallots, sweet potatoes and corn in the fat until soft and colored.
2. Add a thick dusting of flour and chopped fresh herbs (rosemary, thyme, etc.) on top of the vegetables. Add enough stock--chicken, veggie, or fish--to submerge vegetables. Stir, allowing the stock to reduce and cook the potatoes until soft. At this point, turn off the heat and allow the pan to cool, so as not to scald the milk.
3. Add one part half/half and one part milk, as well as the clams with their liquor (I usually go with about a half pound per portion). Turn heat back on low or medium-low, allowing the soup to subtly simmer. Add balsamic if desired. Stir regularly.
4. The soup is at its thickest when it "boils." This doesn't mean a rolling boil, like water on high heat, but a few bubbles on the surface as the soup simmers.
5. If you would like a thicker soup, add a simple roux (equal parts olive oil and flour). Mix in roux and simmer until you achieve desired consistency.
6. Before service, reincorporate diced bacon. Garnish with herbs and diced bacon. Serve with a well-toasted baguette.

This is a simple dish with great taste and vivacity, but still light enough that it won't bog you down. Shrimp take on flavors in a marvelous way, so the acidity of tomatoes and the lime juice, not to mention the Serrano peppers, should you chose to use them, are provided with ample venue to strut their stuff. For best results, use the biggest shrimp you can find. Just about any pasta could be substituted for gnocchi: ravioli, tortellini, fettuccini, etc. would all go great.

1. Start with a tomato puree. Then add the juice of two or three limes, depending on size. If you wish, add minced Serrano peppers at this point. I reserve a small portion of the tomato puree for garnish at the end, but if you do this, be sure not to mix it with the raw shrimp (so as to avoid contamination hazard, since the reserved portion will not be cooked).
2. Add the shrimp to the marinade. Mix the shrimp in with the marinade until evenly coated. I use ¾ to a pound of shrimp for two portions. Refrigerate the shrimp in the marinade for at least 20 minutes, or one hour at the maximum.
3. While the shrimp is marinating, heat olive oil in a fry pan at medium-high heat. Add shallot, carrot, and corn and sauté until browned and soft. At the same time, boil water and then add gnocchi to the boiling water. The gnocchi is done when soft but still firm to the tooth.
4. Add the boiled gnocchi to the hot pan with the shallot, carrot, and corn. Allow the gnocchi to brown. While doing so, start to simmer shrimp in a fry pan with a small amount of olive oil. Pour more of the marinade over the shrimp as they cook. Drain off excess liquid if necessary (as I do in the video).
5. After the gnocchi brown, deglaze the pan with white wine and finish with Parmigiano Reggiano. The shrimp are done when white, pink, and firm, but take care not to overcook. Rubbery shrimp are to be avoided.

Pour the reserved marinade on the shrimp as a garnish after plating up the shrimp. Serve with salad.

It's my turn to cook tonight. I'm planning to do something simple, tuna steaks with roasted veggies. The key is buying fresh, high-quality ahi tuna. I usually get a half pound for two people. Golden Natural Foods has excellent seafood at a reasonable price. Ahi tuna is expensive, though, so even though this meal is simple, it's also a bit of an indulgence.

The veggies take longer to cook, so it's a good idea to start them early. Tonight, I'm using sweet potatoes, shallots, and corn cut right off the cob. Chop up all the veggies and put them in a shallow roasting pan. Add in some olive oil, some white wine, and salt and pepper. The white wine has a great flavor, but it also helps the veggies cook faster. You don't need to spend much money on wine for cooking--the cheapest Chardonnay you can find will do. We don't even refrigerate our white wine for cooking. Put them in the oven at 350. It will probably take at least a half an hour. Stir occasionally.

When the veggies are almost done, take the tuna out of the fridge. Cut it in half. Add a bit of olive oil to a saute pan--I always make the mistake of adding too much oil. Heat up the pan and add the two tuna steaks. Sprinkle a little salt on the tuna. The goal here is to sear the tuna, so it's cooked just a little on the outside but very rare in the middle. The great thing about using high quality fish is that you can cook it very rare. Cook the tuna on each side for just about 30-45 seconds per side.

Plate it up, maybe with a green salad with a simple vinaigrette. I like to also make a dipping sauce for the tuna with some soy sauce with wasabi mixed in to taste. Right now, we're still using the packaged wasabi from the tube, but we're looking out for some fresh wasabi root. I'll let you know when and where we find the fresh root. The picture is of fresh wasabi root. Note the outrageously high price.