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Recipe: tequila-lime halibut tacos

Afternoon thunderstorm cycles, the buzz of hummingbirds zooming through the neighborhood, and near-record heat for this time of year… You’d think it was summer. Wasn’t I just griping about spring? I think all of the seasons are over-achievers. At this rate, I’ll be skiing again by next week (which would be absolutely fine by me). It is what it is.

okay, tulips are spring

we’ve traded skiing for mountain biking

cooling off with thai iced tea and taro boba tea slush

kaweah walks in the morning or the evening to avoid the heat

either way, there is always plenty of sniffing (i.e. reading pee-mail)

Good things are coming into the markets now: asparagus, strawberries, English peas, ramps, fiddleheads, and halibut (to name a few). [Hey FTC disclosure:] I received a comped shipment of frozen wild Alaskan sockeye salmon, wild Alaskan halibut, and wild Alaskan cod fillets from Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute (ASMI) a few weeks ago. They describe the fish as wild, natural, and completely sustainable. My preparation of fish relies heavily upon my experiences with various types of fish. It’s based on if I have had it prepared a certain way in a restaurant, saw a recipe for a specific type of fish, or grew up eating that species of fish. I puzzled over how to prepare the halibut when I recalled a book I had purchased last year that would surely give me guidance.

good fish (it sure is)

I bought a copy of this book for myself because I was sending one as a gift to my friends in Seattle (Becky Selengut, the author, is also based in Seattle). It’s just so easy to change that 1 to a 2 under the quantity field. I like fish and seafood very much, but my knowledge of how to prepare it well is just enough to be dangerous and not enough to be confident. I know people go through life all the time like that in far more important arenas, but it makes me uncomfortable. So Good Fish was going to fix that. Lo and behold, there was a recipe for tequila-lime halibut tacos with red cabbage slaw. Get out! It sounded dreamy.

first the slaw: red cabbage, cilantro, apple cider vinegar, olive oil, apple, mustard seeds, salt

shred the cabbage

toss the cabbage with kosher salt

Make the red cabbage slaw first, because that is the step that takes the most time. It’s all easy and straightforward, but squeezing the liquid out of cabbage is the rate-limiting step. At least it is for me. Becky explains that minimizing the liquid content of the cabbage concentrates the flavor. She sprinkles great tips and tidbits of information throughout this educational and highly entertaining book. The rest of the slaw is easy peasy. Put all of the ingredients in a bowl and toss together.

squeezing the liquid out

pour in the olive oil

add the cabbage

season to taste

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Recipe: thai shrimp salad

Oh hai! Yours truly popped up on the Scientific American blog last week in a little interview. Thank you, Claire Cusick, for the interview. It was great fun!

Okay, I’ll admit it. I’m utterly disgusted with Spring. It’s bad enough that we suffered the driest March on record (i.e. no awesome spring snowstorm tracks), but that April thinks it’s May, short-changing us another month of proper spring storms. Much in the way undergraduates are far too eager to bare all at the slightest sign of Spring, so too the flower blossoms down in Boulder.

lilacs

magnolia

crab apple (?) blossoms

We were supposed to get a big dump this weekend – an upslope event dropping up to a couple of feet on my head. I could hardly contain my excitement. Then Friday, the meteorologists were all “ix nay on the snowfall totals”. We went from expecting 2 feet to maybe getting 3 inches, if we were lucky. I guess we were lucky, because Saturday night the snow really started to come down, right around dinner time.

jeremy grillin’ and chillin’

But it wasn’t meant to be. We planned on a ski tour and wound up hiking instead. Familiar patches of dirt, mud, and forest understory looked like gaping holes in a ratty blanket of snow. I guess this is it. And even though I truly love all of the seasons, I’m a tad miffed at Summer for being such a pushy stupidhead. There, I said it.

snowing on us, but barely any snow underfoot

I can deal with summer, I just don’t want to deal with summer for half of the year. If that were the case, I’d still be living in Southern California with its seasons: hot and hotter. Before this itty bitty storm, we had a string of warm, sunny days. I know most people outside of Colorado think “snow” when they think of Colorado, but that’s only half of the awesome. Colorado gets 300 days of sunshine a year. That’s a lot. That’s why Colorado kicks your state in the ‘nads. Ha ha ha! I’m kidding! Okay, not really. But warm weather makes me crave fruit, slushies, sandwiches, sushi, and salads.

salad: shrimp, red onion, shallots, mint, cilantro, sprouts, lettuce, lemon grass, cucumber, carrots

dressing: lime, garlic, ginger, thai bird chiles, sugar, fish sauce

We recently revamped my office with some new IKEA furniture. [Hellooooo hip organization with cute Swedish names!] During my reorganization, I found an old recipe notebook and began flipping through the pages. Most of the recipes are archived here on use real butter, but this Thai shrimp salad never made it. I had to fix that…

pouring lime juice into the saucepan to make the dressing

chop the vegetables and herbs

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Recipe: california roll burger

You can’t fight the weather. The best thing you can do is roll with it. That’s what I’ve been telling myself anyway. Now that the crud in my chest is clearing and I no longer sound like Kathleen Turner, we’ve been getting outside to assess the snowpack. Total spring conditions: ice in the morning, corn snow in the afternoon. We noticed over the weekend that our front yard aspens are already forming buds a month early.

still getting nice color in the mornings and evenings

walking on hardpack

The spring equinox is a day away and all of this increased daylight prompts me to think of spring and summer cooking. Normally we’d be shoveling a few feet of Rocky Mountain powder from the driveway, but it looks like spring has come early for Colorado. My friends in Southern California, however, are always in perpetual spring-summer. Allison posted a photo of a California roll burger on her Facebook page a few weeks ago and I haven’t been able to shake the idea since. A little Google action brought me to 26 Beach Restaurant’s California burger roll. Oh. My. Freaking. Goodness.

a lot of components, but totally worth the trouble

It’s pretty much what you’d guess it to be – a hamburger with the components of the revered fusion California roll. How could this not be amazing? Throughout the week, my mind would wander to the California roll burger. What would I put on mine? It’s heavy enough with the beef patty and the bun, so I opted out of adding sushi rice. In addition to the traditional lettuce and tomato, I figured there would be crab salad, avocado, masago (capelin roe), pickled ginger (gari), toasted seaweed (nori), and wasabi mayonnaise. Instead of our standard potato roll buns, I picked up some challah rolls. And if we were going to do this right, why not some shredded king crab legs for the salad? You could use krab (surimi), but I find real crab to be beyond awesome.

shelling the crab

mix mayonnaise with shredded crab meat

make the wasabi mayonniase: stir some wasabi powder into the mayo

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