We eat lots of fish. When we lived in California many years ago, we really liked “Chilean sea bass” which is buttery moist yet flakey and very difficult to overcook and make dry. Then we learned the real name of this fish is ‘Patagonian toothfish” and, at that time, that the fish was frequently illegally poached. So we stopped buying it and forgot about it for a long time. Then, my wife found Chilean sea bass available at Vital Choice which came from MSC (Marine Stewardship Council) -certified sustainable fishery. We remembered how wonderful it was and ordered it, although it was a bit on the expensive side.
Digression alert: “Chilean sea bass” is said to be the most popular in US, and EU as well as in Japan. (Although when I was in Japan I did not know about this fish.) In Japan, this imported fish is reportedly called “mero” メロ or “ginmutsu” ギンムツ.
The fish was as wonderful as we remembered. Actually the first time I cooked this fish, I did not take a picture. So, I made the same dish a second time in an identical fashion. This was simply sautéed in butter with a caper lemon butter sauce. The sides were cauliflower purée and haricot vert (pre-blanched) and Campari tomato (skinned) sautéed in butter. Everything went well together but the combination of cauliflower puree and Chilean sea bass was sublime.
We used to subscribe New York Times Cooking. It was rather expensive for just the cooking section so we eventually cancelled the subscription. In any case, this is a recipe called ”Creamy Avocado-miso dressing” and it is from NYT Cooking. Since we had ripe avocado on hand and the recipe uses miso, we deemed this worth a try. This was supposedly “salad dressing” for “hearty” greens, a warm grain bowl or grilled vegetables. We tried it as a topping for the homemade cheese wife made and as a dip for blanched cauliflower. Both tasted good. When we thawed a sous-vide cooked chicken breast, in addition to my traditional shredded chicken dish using sesame dressing, as per my wife’s suggestion, I made half of the shredded chicken with the avocado miso dressing. In the picture below, the left is with sesame dressing and the right is with avacado-miso dressing.
My wife came up with this dish one day. A few days before I had made my usual Cauliflower puree. Beside eating it as an “adult baby” food, we have made Mac-and-cheese using the puree instead of Béchamel sauce. I am not sure how she came up with this dish but, it is essentially scalloped potatoes made with the Cauliflower puree, cheese, onion and jalapeño pepper. This was topped with several kinds of cheese and baked.
This is a very comforting dish with thin layers of potatoes between custard like layers of warm cheese. The jalapeño peppers and onion give a nice flash of flavor. You would never guess that cauliflower was one of the main ingredients. It heated up nicely in the microwave. This would the a staple for any menu.
My wife gave me some new plates and bowls for Christmas which required us to rearrange things to make a room for them. During these activities, we found spoons my wife got for me some time ago which were meant to serve a just one-swallow/bite appetizer. Since they newly resurfaced, I promptly tried a one-swallow/bite appetizer using the spoon. The handles of the spoons are bent so that they can sit on the plate without a handle sticking over the edge. I served this with the last of New Year’s salmon kelp roll and Russian marinaded salmon.
This was quite good. Although our initial cauliflower purée was made with cauliflower cooked in milk, recently I have been making in an abbreviated quick method.
