Cook quinoa as instructed on the package or:

Combine 1 cup red quinoa & 2 cups water, bring to boil, turn down heat and simmer for 15 minutes or until water absorbs.

Ingredients:

Black beans ¼ can

3 springs of freshly chopped mint

½ cup of feta cheese

¼ cup of chopped green or kalamata olives

1 - 2 tbsp toasted pine nuts

1 tbsp of freshly chopped dill or green fennel

½ tsp salt

Pepper to taste

Let the quinoa cool for just a few minutes. Toss all the ingredients together with quinoa and season well with salt, pepper or a squeeze of lemon juice. Serve with flaky white fish like cod or halibut, chicken or a vegetarian course.

Tips & Tricks:

Watch out for salt and add it slowly - both olives and feta cheese are salty and will add flavor to quinoa salad once they are mixed in.

Add a splash of olive oil or balsamic vinegar or both to the salad - experiment with flavors and herbs you like.

I met a fellow foodie Carl Mindling at our favorite wedding networking event - Martini Madness - that a friend and a great San Francisco wedding coordinator Duncan Reyes puts together. My wife Lisa Whalen is a San Francisco wedding photographer and we frequently go to wedding professionals networking events together, and through these events have met a number of individuals who truly appreciate the “art” of entertaining, and share my love of all things food & wine related.

I was immediately intrigued when Carl Mindling approached me a few months ago about an idea of creating dinner parties together. I love cooking and I love collaborating with others and immediately saw so much creative potential in this idea.

So after we picked our dinner date (May 15^th) and invited some of our friends we shortly started brainstorming ideas about what to cook and the theme of the dinner. I volunteered to cook fish and host the party at my place (which later I decided to move to my great friend Robin’s house - THANK YOU,  Robin!!)

I love cooking fish - as most of my close friends know I am a huge sushi fan, and some of my favorite meals have centered around yummy slabs of salmon or tuna… But for this dinner I wanted to cook a less fatty, sleeker white fish. First I thought I would make a sea bass with beurre blanc, but once I got to the store I realized that wild halibut was fresh and in season. So I picked out eight great fillets for eight great friends whose company I really enjoy.

I shortly realized that I never really cooked halibut the way I envisioned it done for this dinner party. I’ve  made a few good recipes before including Halibut with Cabbage and Shitake Mushrooms and Halibut crusted with herbs and nuts, but I really wanted to make something new - something that would be exciting for me as well as for my guests. So a few days before our dinner I experimented and just took a few of my favorite flavors and tried to imagine what would put a Mediterranean twist to cooking this fish. And here we are:

Pan Roasted Halibut

Ingredients:

Combine in a bowl:

3 tbsp Olive Oil

Juice of 1 Lemon

1 tsp of Capers

Chopped Mint

½ Thin sliced Jalapeno

2 Rosemary twigs

2 tsp of white balsamic vinegar

½ tsp honey

Salt & pepper to taste

To Do’s

I marinated the fish in this dressing for a few hours.

First time I made this fish I enclosed it in parchment paper and baked it to perfection for 12 minutes. But for our dinner, I wanted more of a classic presentation, so I first seared the fish in a dash of oil on one side to get a golden crust, then finished it in the oven on a bed of fresh fennel. I enjoyed the more tangy flavors of jalapeno and capers working together with the earthy rosemary and the bright and fresh mint. Carl made perfect cous-cous to go along the fish, which we put on a bed of simply boiled (about five minutes) swiss-chard.

Here are a few more pictures from our dinner:

Cous Cous by Carl Mindling

Zucchini with olives and mint

Tomato, Olives and Mozzarella Skewers by Carl Mindling

Tips & Tricks:

Before searing the fish, make sure to remove it from the sauce and pat it dry. Fish must be dry when it hits the pan, otherwise it won’t sear.

Make sure the pan is perfectly preheated; otherwise the fish will stick to the pan. I used my All-Clad copper-core saute pan to really control the temperature, and not overcook the fish so I could get a crispier edge. Cast iron skillets will give a slightly moister but equally great feel to the fish. Please spare the fish and your guests the torture of non-stick pans!

Sear on just one side for 3-5 minutes and bake at 450 for 7-8 minutes, its better to undercook, then overcook the fish.

I use grape seed oil for searing because it has least flavor of all oils, has one of highest heat indexes and doesn’t flavor the fish too much (as it will occur with olive oil)

Swiss-Chard: Boil water, add teaspoon on salt and add chard. Boil for 5 minutes, remove, drain access water and season with a splash of fresh squeezed lemon juice, a dash of olive oil, salt pepper.

Zucchini Fritters

Method: Sauté, pan fry

Ingredients:

2 eggs

½ cup flour

½ cup breadcrumbs (panko or Japanese breadcrumbs seem to work best)

1-2 Tbsp Parsley

2 Tbsp Parmesan cheese

3 Tbsp fresh Ricotta cheese

2 Medium Zucchini

Salt and pepper

Sauce:

2 Tbsp Mayo

1 ½ Tbsp Sour Cream (you can skip that and add more mayo instead)

2 tsp light mustard

1 tsp curry

½ tsp cumin

½ tsp paprika

1 tsp capers

Dash of hot sauce

Few teaspoons of cream or milk to make a sauce thinner (if needed)

Beat the eggs in a large bowl, add flour, parsley and breadcrumbs and mix well. Add cheeses and mix. Then shred zucchini (with a hand shredder) and keep mixing until your batter is smooth and well integrated. Add a dash of baking powder (optional) and let rest for about 15 - 20 minutes or longer.

Preheat a sauté pan or a fry pan on medium or medium high heat until hot and add some Canola oil to it. You want a decent amount (2 -3 tbsp or so) enough to cover the pan. Using a tablespoon shape fritter dough into small round portions and lower into the hot pan and sauté on one side for 3-4 minutes, then 2-3 minutes on the other side. You should have a nice dark golden sear on each side. Serve hot with the sauce as an appetizer or just finger food.

Tips & Tricks:

I use Trader Joe’s sweet and sour mustard - it seems perfect because it’s light, flavorful and doesn’t overpower the sauce. Don’t add strong mustard here: skip completely if needed.

For crying-out-loud, don’t flip these back and forth - I hate to see people do that to food. When you sear something you let it develop a crust (a sear) by leaving it alone and letting brown in the pan. If you fear burning, lift up one side lightly to check and flip if done.

Cookware: Cast iron skillet for moister fritters or heavy gauge stainless steel for a crisper seared edge. Both are good just a slightly different result.

I always add a little cream / milk to delude the thickness of the sauce. But you definitely don’t want to add too much. Play around with it to see what works best for you.

Variations: For a sharper, stronger taste add some blue cheese or Gorgonzola instead of ricotta. Feta cheese will work beautifully as well. I recently made these with a mixture of Gruyere and cheddar and really liked the chewier and “cheesier” feel of those cheeses. Play around with herbs and other ingredients. Adding sautéed jalapenos (you have to sauté those first, otherwise they will be too crunchy) yielded a really good result. Try coriander, curry, paprika and other spices.

I will say it right off the bat –  the original dish is from the menu of one of my favorite hang-out spots in Carmel, CA, called Flying Fish Grill. If you live on the west coast – get your ass there NOW (make a reservation before you go – this ain’t Olive Garden) It is a spectacularly unique seafood place with an Asian twist, an interior and décor as unique as the menu and a fabulous local wine list. Flying Fish cooks this a bit differently than I do (sauce, etc)  – so try their fish if you can, as it is simply outstanding!  (my recipe is an interpretation of the original, so if you have an opportunity to try the real deal, go for it)

The reason I decided to play around with their recipe in the first place is because I had never cooked halibut before. For over 30 years I thought I was allergic to white fish and recently discovered I actually no longer am. So, in short, I needed to test a few things out about halibut before experimenting with my own recipes: cooking time, temperature, texture, sauce ideas and oiliness of the fish. I wanted to work off of a recipe I knew I liked and that “worked” before plunging into my own improvisations. In fact, my  #1 piece of advice for entertaining guests is this: never cook something for guests you’ve never cooked before. It’s a sure way to make an ass out of yourself.

Halibut is a very firm, lean, large flake fish with practically no specific scent other than the freshness of the sea (provided you know how to buy fish!) It is in fact ideal for any sauce you can imagine, since it easily absorbs flavor. Since trying this out, I’ve experimented with many more variations of roasted or broiled halibut with pesto, preserved lemon, simple soy, ginger and chilly or just nuts and herbs.  

  

Halibut Cooked in Parchment Paper

 

Ingredients: 

 2 lb Pacific Halibut, cut into 1/2lb filets

¼ head of cabbage

shitake mushrooms (2 per filet)

Soy sauce, dash or rice vinegar

Fresh Ginger minced

Sesame oil

Salt, Pepper

Few chilly flakes or Japanese pepper

Parchment Paper

Method: Bake / Broil

Cookware: Oven, Pizza Stone or Cookie sheet

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees.

Sauce: Combine 3 tbsp soy sauce, a ¼ tsp of minced ginger, dash of vinegar and a dash of sesame oil & chilly flakes, season with pepper.

Wash filets, pat dry and salt generously with salt. Set aside in  fridge for up to 3 hours, pull out about 30 minutes before you start cooking. First thing you gotta do is get the parchment paper ready: Take a large square of paper and cut a heart shape about 3 times larger than the fish filets. Fold the sheet in half. Take a teaspoon of sauce and smear a small amount (about the size of the filet) on one side of the folded parchment paper. Cut cabbage into 2 inch slices & slice the shitake mushrooms. Arrange cabbage in a square, mimicking the shape of the filet, then add shitakes and finally the fish. Top with a few dashes of sauce. Fold second half of the parchment paper over the cabbage, mushroom and fish stacks and roll up the edges around the heart, (starting at the bottom of the “heart”) until you have a semi-circular looking shape to the parchment. Repeat with the rest of your fish and place parchment packages on a pizza stone or cookie sheet. Cook the fish for 10 minutes at 500 degrees for a perfectly cooked filet. Do not overcook; texture of the fish must be soft and creamy inside.

Serve with Asian style cole slaw, wild rice or noodles, or just a simple vegetable stir fry.

Tips & Tricks:

The most important thing about fish is avoiding overcooking: simply cook less time than you estimate. In my experience,  10-12 minutes for a 2” thick filet of halibut or salmon yields the best results.

Selecting fish: I buy my fish on farmers markets (my #1 preference) or Whole Foods (my #2 preference), unless I detour to Half Moon Bay or a real fish market. My experience with conventional supermarkets is: you just can’t trust them. Sometimes the fish is good, sometimes it’s not. If you decide to go via the Safeway route ask to smell the halibut – it should smell like ‘nothing.’

Cornbread

Ingredients:

1 & ¼ cups of all-purpose flour

1 & ¼ cups of polenta or cornmeal

Pinch of salt

3 large tablespoons of sugar

4 teaspoons baking powder

2 eggs beaten

2 teaspoons of melted butter

1 & ¼ cups milk

1 cup of shredded cheddar cheese

2-3 medium or 1 super large zucchini

1 or ½ cup Jalapeno (depending on how spicy you prefer)

¼ cup of roasted pine nuts

Method: Bake

Cookware: Cast Iron Skillet (10 in)

Cut zucchini into small cubes and sauté with a pinch of salt and pepper in cast-iron skillet until golden brown. Set aside.

In large metal bowl combine flour, cornmeal, salt, sugar, baking powder and mix well. Slowly add milk, beaten eggs and butter and keep mixing with a wooden spoon until the mixture is smooth and elastic looking. Add ¾ cups of cheese and cooked zucchini and mix it up.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Preheat lightly oiled cast-iron skillet and pour in the mixture. Bake for 20 minutes. Sprinkle cheese on top and return to oven for another 5 minutes. Cool and serve. And there you have it - cornbread. Yep, it’s THAT easy.

Cornbread

If you can’t find pike, you can try substituting it with catfish or other flaky, low-fat, lean-meat white fish.

This dish itself embodies central European approach to making food  - simplicity of ingredients and preparation methods, including the sour-cream sauce, widely used for cooking throughout eastern and Central Europe.

Ingredients:

4-5 pike fillets

4-5 potatoes cut into ½ inch round slices

1 large onion thinly sliced

white mushrooms -  around ½ pound

¼ cup chicken or vegetable broth

6 ounces sour cream

bay leaf

salt & pepper, nutmeg

white wine

The Prep:

1. Cut potatoes into ½ inch slices and fry in olive oil or butter for about 10 minutes until half-done.

2. Sauté onions for a few minutes until translucent in a heavy sauté pan, then add mushrooms and cook together until mushrooms turn golden brown. Set aside.

Sour Cream Sauce:

Mix ¼ cup of any stock (vegetable or chicken broth) with 6 ounces of sour cream and simmer it until it gets thicker.  Add nutmeg, bay leaf, pepper and pour a splash of dry white wine into the sauce.

The Fish:

An average-sized pike (5-6 pounds) should be cut into filleted pieces.  Add salt and pepper, then fry the fish in vegetable oil until it gets a brown gold crust.  Put the fish in the center of the baking pan (you can use ceramic or earthenware) and surround it with slightly fried potatoes cut in circular slices. Cover the fish with fried mushrooms and onions, and then drown the stuff with sour cream sauce with nutmeg.  Bake the fish in the oven for 25 minute at 375-400 decrees.

Risotto

1 ½ cup of Arborio Rice
4 cups of vegetable or chicken stock or shrimp fume, or water or mushroom infused liquid *
1 cup of cheap light white wine (Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, etc)
¼ cup of toasted pine nuts
1 cup of diced fennel root
1/3 cup of Parmesan cheese
Trumpet Mushrooms
Butter, Salt, Olive Oil, Truffle oil (optional)

Methods: Sauté, Simmer, Fry
Cookware: Heavy Stainless Steel or Copper Sauté Pan.

Preheat a large Sauté Pan, Rondeau or a cast iron braiser pan. Sauté fennel on medium heat in butter and oil for around 5 minutes, adding a pinch of salt, making sure fennel is translucent and tender but not browned. Add a bit more butter and stir in rice. Coat rice in butter and sauté, stirring constantly, until rice turns translucent and absorbs the fat. This process should take 2-3 minutes or so. Make sure not to brown or burn the rice. Slowly add the wine and keep stirring risotto until wine is almost completely absorbed.

The trick with making risotto is to never let the pan get quite dry and never drown the rice in liquid. Start slowly adding warmed up stock a ladleful at a time to your risotto, stirring constantly, making sure (whatever you do – please make sure of that!!!) that you do not let the liquid dry out completely. Your rice should always be covered with a little liquid. Keep repeating these steps, stirring constantly and watching risotto until all stock is absorbed. (25-30 minutes, depending on choice of cookware) Right before the stock is all absorbed, preheat a copper or cast iron skillet to med-high heat.

Slice a few trumpet mushroom in half and slice some more in thinner 1 ½ - 2 inch slices. Sprinkle with salt and sauté in butter and oil, turning the large mushrooms only once on the side, thus browning them well. Meanwhile finish risotto, by adding a little bit more butter and Parmesan cheese. Let the butter melt, stir in all the cheese and make sure all liquid is “almost all” absorbed. I always leave a little liquid in and take risotto off heat – it will absorb completely in the next 5-10 minutes as it stands. Finish the mushrooms, making sure they are golden brown on both sides. Stir in the thinner mushroom into risotto, and add the thicker pieces on the top, to garnish the dish. Stir in freshly toasted pine nuts. This is the time to add a few drops of truffle oil. I recommend you taste your risotto as is prior to doing it, as you might not like the strong flavor of truffles.

In any case, if you choose to use truffle oil, add just a dash and maybe only to half of risotto. You should serve it immediately, don’t let it wait too long.

Tips & Tricks:

I use, and only suggest using, heavy cookware made of cast iron, copper or tri/ 5 ply steel. (sauté pan is my choice, although I also use a enamel coated cast iron rondeau – shallow sides, wide shape)

Non-stick pans are bullshit: they are too light, burn your food and are not healthy for you. If you use something that is too thin and light, odds are it will burn your risotto or your liquid will evaporate too quickly, leaving risotto too al-dente (not fully cooked, in plain English)

If you let your pan get dry the starch of rice will burn, causing it to get clumpy and sticky.
If you drown the pan in liquid, rice will get mushy. You gotta keep the perfect balance, always adding liquid slowly, warm and never letting the rice dry out completely.


Stock is important – care to make your own, homemade, good tasting stock. Store bought stocks are usually an over-salted, dried out cubes or sodium-ridden powders not worth cooking with. I don’t salt stock when I make it.

Salting rice is important – it does something to make it taste better.  I usually add around a teaspoon for the proportions above.

* Take dried mushrooms (porcini, etc, be careful with shittake as they are highly flavorful) pour a cup of hot water over them and let stand for an hour. Use water as part of stock.

My most important tricks to making a rich, thick and flavorful tomato sauce that is as old-world Italian as it gets are very simple:

1. Superb Tomatoes, like San Marzano, or other good Italian brand plum tomatoes in their own juice, unsalted, nothing else added to them. Please check to see that there is nothing added: stores these days love adding all kinds of shit to canned food.

2. Few other ingredients / spices. I actually make different combination practically every time I cook my sauce, but here is my classic recipe.

My Tomato Sauce

Ingredients:

San Marzano tomatoes (1 large can)

Fresh basil leaves (8-10) or a tsp of dried basil, or tsp of dried oregano, or both.

A decent amount of olive oil (2-3 tablespoons)

1 tsp salt + 2 tsp of sugar (adjust that to your own taste)

2 tsp of tomato paste dissolved in ½ cup of water

¼ cup of red wine

(If, and only if I want to make it spicy for shrimp and other seafood dishes, I will add 1 - 2 dried chilies)

3. Process tomatoes using a food processor. Do not dice, cut, chop, whip or blend your tomatoes. Just use a good old-fashioned food mill!

4. Stew it for around 6 hours on low heat.

5. Use the right saucepan. I use 2.5 mm thick copper 2.5 qt saucepan - there’s something about copper pots - they just make sauces creamier. Cast iron saucepan, like Le Creuset will do quite well also, along with maybe a very heavy-duty stainless steel pot. DO NOT use light cookware to make this: it will most likely burn the sauce.

Process:

I heat the oil first, making sure it’s hot but not smoking. If I choose to use a chilly I will add it now and leave it for a few minutes on lower heat to infuse the oil. If not, I will add processed tomatoes and bring them to a light simmer, add basil /oregano, salt and sugar. Add tomato paste & wine, close the lid with a slight crack to it to allow some evaporation and stew for 5-6 hours, stirring at hour intervals or so.

This sauce is great on:

Pasta, gnocchi, polenta, toasted baguette, pork or chicken.

Important things to understand about this dish are: it’s a spicy dish – it needs chilies! It’s a flavorful dish. It will need basil, ginger, galangal and lemongrass – all of which are flavorings associated with Thai food. It MUST have fresh seafood! Fresh seafood is the key – always buy the best seafood you can find. I get mine in Whole Foods or my local Chinese market. I do not recommend buying seafood in standard supermarkets – no matter what tricks you use it is still frozen, cheap seafood. Your dish will need rice or pasta and a few nice vegetable selections: I use baby corns, bamboo shoots or water chestnuts.

Spicy Thai Seafood

Ingredients:

Shrimp ½ -1 lb

Scallops ½ - 1 pound

Calamari (cut into rings)

Ginger (1 large clove)

Red Thai Chillie peppers (crushed, or fresh, or whole) a teaspoon, or 4-5 small pieces, or 1 fresh pepper

6-8 basil leaves

Soy sauce (2 table spoons)

Coconut Milk ½ can

Sesame oil – 1 tsp

Turmeric ½ tsp

Method: Pan fry, sauté

Cookware: Wok or Saute Pan

Cook linguini pasta or rice in advance, as directed on the package. If cooking linguini, (which is what I do) cook it 5 minutes in advance.

Combine seafood in a colander, peel shrimp, pour a ½ cup of salt on seafood and run cold water over seafood for 10-20 minutes. Make sure to wash all salt out. This method gets rid of all impurities in seafood – a cleaning method. Wash out carefully and pat dry. Mix ginger, chillie flakes, basil, turmeric paste (see tips & tricks below), soy sauce and sesame oil. Whisk in and add seafood to it. Marinate for 30 minutes or more.

Heat oil in a wok or a large sauté pan, lift up seafood from marinade with a slotted spoon and brown your seafood on very high heat, just until well browned. Add your choice of vegetables at the same time. Add marinade and coconut milk and steep for a minute or two and take off heat. Pour over seafood and serve immediately.

Tips & Tricks:

I do use pasta, not rice noodles. Why? Linguini works best for me. It just gives the right taste and texture. My second choice is brown rice or a mixture of brown and wild rice.

Salt out you seafood for at least 10 –20 minutes: it’s the key to making great seafood. Not only does it make seafood taste better, but the texture improves as well. It’s an ancient Chinese method. You might as well use it. I do, and it works.

My personal trick is this: I find there is a difference in how you make your curry. I take basil leaves, turmeric, chilies and ginger and using pestle and mortar create a paste or curry that will be the base for this dish. Its different from using a grinder, blender, chopping etc – you gotta use pestle and mortar.

Flash fry seafood first in hot oil and brown, then add sauce and lower heat to steep seafood in your marinate. I brown scallops first, and then add shrimp & squid. I find that scallops need to cook a few minutes longer. Good luck – this dish is really good when its got a kick to it – have fun with that chilly!