Fish & Bean Stew

Way, way back BP (Before Pandemic), when entertaining and having friends over was a common occurrence, we hosted a dinner party for our friends on Monday night. I know what you are thinking… entertaining on a school night? Indeed we did. Since it was literally the only date we all could find available we threw caution to the wind and made it happen. It was late May and we had been experiencing cooler summer weather than normal so the menu included my Fish & Bean Soup. But as typical with Mother Nature, she rules. When she flipped the weather switch from unusually cool to suddenly warm, it was she who now dictated the menu. Soup did not seem like such a great idea anymore.

Problem was, I had already purchased all the seafood, (shrimp, calamari and monkfish), and I didn’t want them to go to waste. A tiny switch-aroo was in order. Take it from a soup to a stew. Sure, you’re saying ‘How is that different? It’s still warm.’ First, let me remind you that I did say ‘tiny’ switch-aroo. I, and our guests, can attest that that slight alteration made all the difference in a dish that was originally going to be too hot, to just right.

Monkfish, shrimp and calamari from the original stew dish.

Well, it’s now November and the reverse weather pattern has occurred. It’s unseasonably warm but it’s still Fall. We were again hosting with another set of friends at our upstate country house and this stew idea seemed perfect. Plus I’ve had this blog post in a holding pattern waiting to make its debut since 2019. It was high time that it graced our bowls again. I couldn’t find calamari or monkfish for some odd reason. But that is the beauty of this dish, you can use different combos of fish; shrimp, calamari, monkfish, scallops, cod, mussels, clams. They all work.

This recipe is similar to the soup with some revisions, mainly how you cook it.

Ingredients

Makes 4 generous servings as a first course or 8 appetizer bowls
*Note: you can adjust the amount fish you use, adding more if you want this to be a main dish

2 scallions, sliced (Use 1 for beans, 1 for fish marinade)
1 med onion, chopped (1 heaping cup)
1 large carrot, diced (1 cup)
2 stalks celery, diced (1 heaping cup)
2 garlic cloves, thin slice (beans)
2 garlic cloves, crushed (fish)
2 32 oz cans Cannellini beans
12 shrimp, cleaned & deveined (12-14 oz)
10-12 oz cod, cut into chunks
10-12 oz. Sea scallops
Red pepper flakes to your taste
Magic 3 (Olive Oil, Salt, Pepper)
1-2 T Butter
1/4c White wine
Parsley to finish

Instructions

1. Peel and devein shrimp. Wash and thoroughly dry all the fish. I cut the cod into bite size pieces but left the shrimp whole. You can chose to cut the shrimp as well.

It’s important to always wash and thoroughly dry the fish, or any protein for that matter.

2. Marinate the shrimp, cod, scallops with scallion slices, crushed garlic, 1/4 t red pepper flakes, 3/4 t salt, 1/2 t black pepper and 2-3 T oil. Refrigerator while you cook the bean portion.

Marinated Fish with scallions, crushed garlic, salt, pepper, red pepper flakes and olive oil.

3. Chop and dice all your vegetables.

Mise en place: everything ready and in its place Celery, carrots, onions, scallions and garlic

4. Sauté the onions, scallions, carrots, celery for 10 -12 minutes then add the garlic slices, season with 1/2 t salt, 1/2 t pepper, 1/4 t red pepper flakes and cook another 2-3 minutes until soft and tender.

Sauté until soft then add the garlic so it doesn’t burn

5. Add the beans with some of their aguafaba juice and let simmer for 10 minutes until flavors meld. Taste for seasonings and add accordingly.

Just a luscious pot of yum

6. While the beans are cooking, sauté the fish individually (shrimp, then cod, then scallops last) in a cast iron pan or skillet. Once each batch is cooked place them on a plate until you are ready to plate.

High heat develops a nice crust on the shrimp. You only need to cook them 1-2 minutes per side

Seared cod pieces

Seared scallops

7. In the same hot pan, sauté any remaining scallions and garlic from the marinade adding a bit more oil, a pat or two of butter. Once softened then add a few splashes of white wine to deglaze the pan. Reserve this au jus to drizzle over the finished plate.

Hearty Fish & Bean Stew

You can either plate it family style using one big platter with beans on the bottom and fish stacked on top. Or individually plate it as I did, spooning the beans then placing the fish on top of each bowl, sprinkle with chopped parsley and drizzle that delicious, concentrated jus over top.

We enjoyed a few appetizers first. Then had the Fish & Stew as a starter. Followed by Grilled Pluma (Iberico Pork), Paella Rice with roasted garlic oil, Oven Roasted Tomatoes, Salad and Sautéed Broccoli Rabe.

A scaled down cheese platter along with French Breakfast Radishes and Fennel with Coarse Sea Salt, Pepper, Olive Oil & Basil

We had such a lovely, leisurely afternoon lunch with our dear friends, Tecla and Scott. We feel blessed to have them in our lives, and willing to make the drive to see our Airbnb home.
(If you are interested in renting our home in upstate NY, check it out on Airbnb
The Cozy, Country Cape House

This is such a hearty and flavorful starter. If you don’t have any plans to host a small dinner party, use this dish as a main course and maybe add some roasted potatoes or rice as a side along with a salad and vegetable As I said, this might be a warm plate, and naturally perfect for winter weather but it’s not too hot for a cool summer’s night meal or warm November afternoon al fresco.

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Coconut Milk Poached Monkfish

My mind is always going. Thinking, racing and pondering.

And when it comes to food, I’m always making up new combinations with whatever items I have on hand. This approach provides a decent amount of recipes stockpiled in my arsenal.

Back in the day, I mean 2020BP aka Before Pandemic, when creating proposals for catering gigs I had an ample amount of food items from which to choose.  With a good range from hot to cold, from meat to fish to vegetarian.  Yet even with all those options, I found that each gig offered up opportunities to create new ones.  Before the virus hit and shut down all catering work, I had a client who wanted to add a few more fish options to her menu.  Since it was going to be a cocktail party with pass-around hors d'oeuvres, I needed to devise a small bite that I could easily execute as well as be easily consumed.  I started experimenting with bite sized medallions of cod poached in coconut milk served on a spoon.  It was quite tasty, fit all the prerequisites and was slated to part of the menu. However, I never did get to pull off that idea for the client as the party never took place.

Luckily with me, no idea is ever completely tossed aside. Most often, I just create new ideas but I do try to file through my mind catalog when faced with ‘what do I make with this?’ That’s exactly what happened when I had some leftover coconut milk and monk fish.  Why not try that same codfish recipe using monk fish?  I have poached monk fish before with great success so I felt confident that it would work out.

My hubby, JuanCarlos, wasn’t sure about the coconut milk.  He skews more heavily on garlic, wine and butter sauces. But I just wasn’t feeling the butter.  

I wanted to use shallots because I really like their subtle onion flavor and softer, more delicate texture, but lock down mode had made it difficult to procure certain items vs. others. There’s always an improvise, and this one came in the bigger sister of a shallot: deeper color, larger size and more intense sibling known as the red onion.

Poaching softens everything.  Including my husband’s opinion. Instead of getting a hard sear on the protein, which is his preferred method, poaching gently cooks the protein and provides a luscious finish.  There are times when you just need soft and comforting, and that’s just what this delivers, especially when served with rice.  If you do want to add some crispy elements to this dish, you can fry up some of the shallots or onions or basil to finish the dish.

The aromatics: red onion, garlic and ginger.

White wine adds some acidity as well as a sweet component to then lightly braise the aromatics.

Cut the fish into medallions, a hefty inch thick.

Add the coconut milk and nestle the fish into the liquid.

Over a medium low heat, cover and gently cook until the fish is tender. Then add basil to finish.

Ingredients

⅔ cup shallot or red onion, thinly sliced

2 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced

1 lb monk fish, cut to 1-½” thick slices

2 tbsp of olive oil

¼ cup sliced ginger

1 cup of dry white wine

¼ cup basil, chopped

1 cup of coconut milk

¼ cup of water

2 tbsp basil, chiffonade

Instructions

1. Sauté onions, garlic and ginger in oil over medium low heat to soften
2. Add white wine, and slowly let the alcohol burn off
3. Add the coconut milk and water, and place fish into liquid. Cover and cook over medium low heat.
4. After 10 minutes, turn fish pieces and add cut basil, cook for another 3-4 min.

Serve with rice:
Hopefully you remember when I shared some tips and tricks, with one of them making extra rice and freezing it. Well, here’s a perfect example of when previous work comes in handy. While you are prepping/cooking the monk, just pull out the bag of frozen rice and gently warm it on the stove top or if you have a microwave. Then spoon the poached monk fish and coconut milk sauce over top. Meal complete.

This dish is warm and comforting. The fish is tender swimming in a creamy sauce with only a slight hint of coconut. Besides the rice, I like serving it a side vegetable of bok choy or grilled asparagus.

Sure, there are certain aspects of catering I miss. Mostly, the creating of the menu and culling together foods that will work with the party’s theme, the client’s taste and guests. But, hey, that’s what I have all of you for; catering at home. So, all’s good.

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Celery Overload - The Star Ingredient

If you read my last post you know that we have been getting a good portion of our food supply delivered. Admittedly, a few of those were extravagant purchases; aka caviar and lobster, which we repeated for our New Year’s treat. So, now as I return from cloud 9 and settle back to the reality of creatively nourishing ourselves I offer up a solution for when you have an abundance of one item, and lack of others. The ongoing practice of: Use What You Got.

As I mentioned in that post, there are some items I get from Restaurant Depot and those come in amounts that are way more than what 2 people can easily consume. To be honest, it’s way more than a family of 10 can consume. I hate wasting food ever, but even more so in these times. And so I started using some items in ways I never have before.  Like celery.  I typically have only used this raw in salads or diced fine as part of a mirepoix (for soups, or sauces).  But since we had so much, and were lacking in some other produce areas, I starting sautéing it as the main vegetable.  i know this isn’t revoluntionary but how many of you only cut up celery as your side? Not me, but I must say I quite like it.

Given that I had so much I’ve used it before if you recall in my post entitled; 5 Ingredients- 4 Different Dishes.

But on two nights in a row I really went to town using celery for both meals. The first night I used celery stalks, plus whatever straggler veggies I had.  Then I sautéed some shrimp, made my Ba-Ba-Basil-ed Potatoes and had a complete meal.

After using up everything the night before, I only had celery and onion for the next meal, and so that truly made celery the star. I topped it with sautéd fish and a scallion basil sauce.

When celery is cut on long diagonal it make a more substantial base.

I am only listing ingredients, not amounts, because this is one of those times that calls for using what you have in the amounts you have. I encourage you to use all your senses to judge how much you want to incorporate. The more you use this skill the sharper it will become. And then there will be a time when you just know how much of an ingredient to add. i know that some of you are already quite skilled at this.

Ingredients 

Meal #1 Celery/Onion Sauté with Grilled Shrimp

Celery, sliced
Onions, thinly sliced
Bell Pepper, I had an orange one, use whatever you have
String Beans, sliced on diagonal
Shrimp
Basil-ed Potatoes

For this celery meal, I used a wok for a stir fry effect. Starting with the onions and celery first, then adding the string beans and orange pepper.
I removed those and used the same pan to stir fry the shrimp, which were salted, peppered first.
I had made my Basil-ed potatoes earlier, and then plated it all up.

Although I added a few extra items, celery was the main veg. Since neither the orange pepper or the string beans were enough to make a complete side dish, but enough to beef up the celery and round the whole dish out. Those were the straggler veggies I had. You can do this with a few asparagus, or an extra carrot, whatever you have.

Meal #2 Celery/Onion Saute with grilled Salmon & Halibut
Celery, sliced on the long diagonal
Onions, thinly sliced
Scallions, thinly sliced
Magic 3 (Olive Oil, Salt, Pepper)
Salmon
Halibut

For the Sauce
Scallions
Basil
Olive Oil, Salt & Pepper

Onion, celery and scallions sautéing.

Instructions

Simply slice the vegetables as mentioned above. I used a cast iron skillet for this version.
I sautéd the celery, onion and scallion in olive oil, salt and pepper until tender but still with a good firm texture. Then removed the vegetables and used the same pan to grill the fish.

Salt and pepper the fish on both sides and get a good sear before flipping.

I made a simple salsa for the fish using scallions, basil, salt, pepper and olive oil and buzzing it in a mini processor.

The second meal was pretty similar, minus the orange pepper and string beans. But cutting the celery on that extra long diagonal made them a heartier vegetable able to stand on its own.

I quite enjoyed the large amounts of celery. I think the celery also enjoyed stepping out from behind the curtains of its usual supporting player and taking on the leading role in this movie of the week.  Who knew celery could be more that a filler.  Now I do.