The four of us sitting at the same table, eating the same meal – on a school night! – is an elusive dream, so that made last night’s meal near-perfect, both food and family-wise.
I started off with the idea of spicy albacore kabobs with wild rice, inspired by the plate I’ve had for lunch at the Crow’s Nest, overlooking the Santa Cruz Yacht Harbor. LL instead suggested stir-fry, which gave me a chance to practice the techniques I recently learned from the book Hot Wok (Hot Books). It was a transcendent meal. Here is what I did:
- Prep was easy. Cut the albacore (1 pound for the 4 of us) into chunks and toss it with the juice of half a lemon. Chop a small red onion, asparagus, and yellow zucchini each into nickel and dime-sized bites and set aside. (about 1 cup of each veg) Mix together about 1 tbsp fish oil and 3 tbsp hoisin sauce and set aside. Crush a half-cup of cashews and set aside.
- Heat the wok, then toss about 2 tbsp sesame chile oil, 1 tbsp olive oil, a half-teaspoon curry powder, and a couple of dried garlic flakes in to heat.
- When the garlic starts cooking, add the albacore and cook through, then remove and set aside.
- Toss the cashews in next, then the red onion and saute until soft and almost caramelized. Add the asparagus next and, when bright green and a bit less crunchy, add the zucchini. Stir together, still over high heat, for a few minutes, then add the sauce mixture, stir again, and add back the albacore. Mix it up and serve immediately with rice. (I used a Lundberg brown rice blend that included a black Japonica grain; it was nutty and aromatic)
Visually, it was beautiful: brown and black rice, green, yellow, and red veg – the albacore was the only pale color on the plate – and I used my Annieglass to add a bit of elegance to our school night meal. Heat and flavor was strong but not overwhelming. Crunchy veg, the way I like them. No salt added, whole grains and fish, so high marks in the healthy meal category. Everyone ate everything on the plate. And although we started the meal with the TV on, we paused the show to talk. Feeling like an enormous success I asked for, and received, a round of applause for the meal.
Standing ovation from the East Coast!! There is nothing better than when something new works even better than you’d hoped – and on a weeknight to boot.
It reminds me of a special summer, meal years ago. Long before I met your mother, I was with friends driving down a dusty road between corn rows in rural Illinois. We suddenly came upon an intersection. Three corners contained more corn, but the fourth corner had a small tavern behind which was a grove of trees and picnic tables. In the air was the aroma of a hickory fire and cooked meat. We parked, choose a shaded table and ordered beer and barbequed ribs. on a hot day the beer was tasty and the ribs delicious. at the end of the meal sauce went from my left ear to my right. Sauce also had traveled from my finger tips, past my wrist, up my arm to my elbow. My friends decided, based upon my appearance, I had enjoyed the meal far more than they.