...now get in the kitchen and make some dinner out of it."  That's how I was greeted getting home from work yesterday.  Well, it was not presented quite so brusquely, but my mission was clear.  Having a recipe in mind and then shopping for the ingredients is really a completely different cooking experience for me from being presented a bunch of stuff, Iron Chef style and told to go at it.  The former generally leads to a better final result, but the latter is a great way to exercise a little bit of improvisational creativity and really think a bit about how flavours and textures are going to combine.  It's a challenge.  Especially when you're starting with problems like, "What's Hake".  Here's what I came up with:

Steamed Asian Spiced Hake
Over a Bed of Spicy Sauteed Swiss Chard with a Ginger Orange Sauce

I bashed up a paste of cumin, coriander, basil, thai chili, fish sauce, and orange zest in the mortar and pestle to make a paste, which I rubbed on one side of the fish.  I topped this with some sliced shallots and steamed the fish for about 12 minutes (until it was easilly flaking). 

For the sauce I sauteed some ginger, garlic, and shallots for a couple minutes and then squeezed in the juice of an orange and some chicken stock.  Reduced, strained, seasoned, thickened with some corn starch slurry. 

For the greens, I sauteed a chopped dried thai chili and some garlic briefly in a couple tablespoons of oil, and then added a big bunch of roughly chopped swiss chard and wilted it down.

Success.

I was really happy with the way the flavors in to paste penetrated into the fish as it steamed.   The sauce could have used a little more robustness to stand up to everything else.  I'm not sure how to get there.  Sauteed swiss chard is an old standby here.  Goes well with almost anything.

Two yummy things are presented here as your hit of food porn for today.  One, a super-flavourful (overpowering?) center-cut pork chop that was my first experiment with brining pork.  Two, an awesome and easy curried basmati rice recipe.  Basmati rice has been filling up an awful lot of my craving cycles lately, oddly enough.  This preparation, which I've made a couple times now definitely helps explain the cravings.

I've been a little apprehensive about the whole brining concept, especially after the salty shrimp fiasco.  But the concept has seemed to keep coming up on my radar lately, and it was in the back of my mind when I was shopping yesterday.   So, I bought a nice pork chop, brought it home, and threw it in this brine for 24 hours.  The short story is that it was everything advertised, juicier, more forgiving (I was not very meticulous with my grilling time and temp), and tastier than a non-brined pork chop.  What can I say, I'm a convert.  Unfortunately, it's so rare that I think 24 hours ahead in my cooking that my conversion will usually take on the form of:  "damn, I wish I would have brined this".

The rice, now that takes very little forethought.  Great for the craving driven chef.  The basic recipe's here.  Perfume scented basmati rice, apricots and apples, sweet and aromatic spices, ginger, and garlic.  Nothing to take umbrage at there.  The major alteration I make on the listed recipe involves the curry powder.  As I've learned in the last year, using the jar labeled "curry powder" from the spice section of the supermarket only leads to disappointment and despair.  For this recipe I've taken to toasting some cumin and coriander seeds and grinding them up in my good buddy mortar and pestle.  I add that to some "curry powder" and chili powder from an Indian market.  The quantities and additional spices will vary depending on my mood. 

Already craving tomorrow's leftovers...

Often, when working on these entries (ok, not so often lately) I end up chastising myself for launching my unfounded, misinformed, and/or misguided opinions on food and drink out into the ether when I've never even made a bloody apple pie!  Well, as of a couple hours ago, I'm proud to say I no longer have that encumbrance.  Making a good apple pie would have been preferable.  One battle at a time. 

Here's the recipe I basically followed.

What was good:

• Appearance - As always, the eye of the beholder comes into play with this quality.  This beholder likes it.  I think brushing some milk on the top before baking helped with the golden color.
• Crust - This is my most successful pie crust effort.  The others certainly haven't been bad, but this was just a bit flakier than any others I've made.  I think the difference was more technique than recipe.  I keep hearing that the more you work the crust the, less flaky and tougher it gets.  So I made a concerted effort to work this as little as possible.  Even the thick part along the edge easily cuts and flakes with light fork edge.  Great buttery flavor.
• Sugar Topping - A little sugar and cinnamon sprinkled on the top before baking.  I honestly have no idea why everyone doesn't do this with their pies.

Not so good:

• Mushy filling - The recipe I was using called for the pie to be baked for two hours.  Seemed a little long to me.  But who was I to judge.  In retrospect, two hours seems like almost enough time to make an applesauce pie.
• Runny filling - I'm not sure exactly what the culprit is here.  My guess is a combination of cooking too long, not adding enough flour (or other thickener) to the filling, and the pie still being warm.
• Filling flavor - I would have liked a little more cinnamon and nutmeg.
• Top Crust to Filling Gap - This one's a bit picky, but it detracts from the final product in my opinion.  A gap of about 3/4 inch between the crisply top crust and the top of the filling.  I think this is probably just another side effect of cooking too long.  Any suggestions?

One more thing.  I saw this referenced a few times while looking up recipes.  Cheese served on top of your apple pie!????  Anyone?  Origins of this mysterious practice?