Wednesday's Spanish Dinner
We used some cod from the freezer (good old TJ's frozen seafood) to make a dish with cod, chickpeas, onions, and sherry from BittmanWorld. To go along with this I also made a batch of yellow rice (saffron rice), also from BittmanWorld. And, of course, we had a green salad.
I enjoyed both dishes a lot, but I remain a bit skeptical about saffron. It certainly adds a beautiful color and a distinct flavor to food, I'm just not 100% certain that I *like* that flavor. It seems to be slowly growing on me though, so maybe it'll be like white pepper (which I used to think was questionable, but now is great).
I also think that the fish recipe would benefit from having the garlic go in a bit earlier (Bittman recommends adding it in the last minute or two of cooking). I like that heavy garlic punch as much as the next guy, but in this case I think it began to overwhelm the more subtle flavor of the sherry on the chickpeas. Next time I make this I'll probably add the majority of the garlic with the onions (early in the process) and save a smaller amount to add at the end.
While I'm picking on the cod recipe: I wasn't overly pleased with the way the coating on the fish turned out. Bittman's instructions have you dredge the fish in flour, brown one side in the pan, then put the fish, browned side up, in a 300 degree oven to finish cooking. This leads to a nice top coating on the fish, but the bottom side is a bit slimy since it never has a chance to crisp up. This is probably inevitable unless you either brown both sides of the fish and put it in the oven on a rack or only dredge one side of the fish.
2 comments:
Saffron is a tricky beast; it fits nicely in my head next to cilantro in the "some folks can't stand it, and that's okay" category.
I'll mention that good saffron makes a difference (insert old saw about quality ingredients here). I'm not sure it would make a difference in a direction that would help, but it might be worth a shot.
And, of course, you could always
grow your own.
Yeah, I can see the cilantro comparison. Of course genetics lies behind most peoples' dislike of cilantro. I wonder if there's something similar for saffron. Or marzipan (yick!).
I'm not sure about the quality ingredient thing in this case. My uneasiness with saffron has manifested whenever I've had it. It may just be an acquired taste for me.
I have a better idea than growing my own: how about *you* grow some and mail it to me. :-)
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