Nostalgia Alert! Flounder stuffed with Crabmeat

When I was a kid, we went out once or twice a summer with my grandparents. Usually to Captain Tobey’s Chowder House or Cy’s Green Coffee Pot, two Nantucket fixtures. Both had early bird specials and featured local dishes (think: Clam Chowder, Shrimp Scampi, Littlenecks on the Half Shell, Brown Bread (baked in a coffee can), and Indian Pudding-a story in itself for another day). We always ordered one precious Shirley Temple, which was HUGE, as we were basically never allowed processed food or shitty, sugary, chemically drinks, like soda. My favorite food to order was any seafood with stuffing. Shrimp and flounder were the two most popular-super savory and usually a little greasy and over-cooked, but somehow they hit the sweet spot for me. Salty, starchy, and filling, I would seriously about this treat all summer. 

Those nights out were pretty rare and unusual, but I think what was more unusual is the way we ate at home with my grandparents during the summer. Looking back now, I know my grandmother’s take on food was out of the ordinary. The way she revered vegetables, growing them organically and making them the center attraction on a plate in the early 1970’s; her love of a great single piece of cheese; the maniacal cutting of recipes from the NYT food section each week; the excitement she shared when her first tomatoes ripened; the smells and sounds of coffee being ground and french-pressed every morning; I could keep writing for days...

I guess my point is that those couple of nights out had a glamour and appeal because they were foreign and rare. But the grounded, real and important eating in my life, the eating that has stuck with and inspired me the most, all happened right at home at her kitchen table. 

We never did eat any “fancy” stuffed seafood at home, but last summer while eating a beautiful meal at Nantucket's beloved Ventuno Restaurant, the chef sent me and my husband a dish from the kitchen. A gorgeous piece of fresh flounder, stuffed with crabmeat and topped with roasted red pepper crema and fresh herbs. A total throwback and also a revelation! I immediately went to work figuring out the technique and cooking it for my client. It has become part of my repertoire now, easy and quick to prep and finished in a hot oven in 10-20 minutes. And it still totally hits that perfect savory spot, all these years later. 

Crabmeat Stuffed Flounder with Red Pepper Crema
(Thank you for the inspiration, Ventuno!)

Makes 4 Stuffed Filets (two hungry people for dinner or four for lunch with salad and some good bread)

Ingredients

Stuffing

1/4 cup of very finely diced onion, scallion, or leek

1/4 cup of very finely diced bell pepper (any color)

1/4 cup of very finely diced celery

1 tablespoon of butter

1/4 teaspoon of dried thyme

1/4 cup of dry white wine

2 tablespoons of minced chives

1 tablespoon of minced parsley

1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

8 ounces of the best crabmeat you can afford (I like this brand)

1/3 cup of GF or regular panko breadcrumbs

1 egg

1 teaspoon of Dijon mustard

1 tablespoon of Mayonnaise

a generous pinch of salt and grinding of black pepper

4 filets of flounder, skin off (around 1/2 to 3/4 lb)

1 tablespoon of EVOO

Crema

1 large roasted red pepper (DIY or high quality from a jar)

1 small garlic clove, smashed with a little kosher salt

1/2 cup of EVOO

1 teaspoon sherry vinegar

salt and pepper

Method
Stuff the fish!

Oven to 400 degrees. Line a small baking tray with foil and grease it with some kind of oil or cooking spray.

Sauté the first three ingredients in butter over a medium low heat in a frying pan until they are soft-around 3-4 minutes. Add the thyme, stir, crank the heat to high and pour in the wine. The moment the liquid is evaporated, remove from the heat and stir in the chives, parsley and Worcestershire. In a large bowl, gently mix the crabmeat with the sautéed ingredients and panko. Beat the egg, mustard, mayo, salt and pepper and fold into the crabmeat mixture, trying not to break up the crabmeat too much. Gentle hands! (I actually use my hands to do this, as you may find a stray bit of cartilage and it really keeps from over-mixing). 

Lay the filet flat with the skinned side up. Divide the filling and place a quarter of it on the bottom edge of each fish and carefully roll it up, not too tightly. Place on your prepared tray and drizzle with a bit of EVOO. Bake in the oven for around 15-20 minutes, until the stuffing feels firm and a little springy when you poke it. The fish will cook faster than the stuffing, but it will stay moist (and you will cover it with delicious sauce!). 

Make the crema!

Sorry, but you need some sort of blender or food processor to do this. Puree the pepper with the garlic and slowly drizzle the oil in until the whole mess is emulsified. Add the vinegar and then taste for salt and pepper. Spoon over the fish to serve. Keep it super classy and chiffonade fresh basil to sprinkle on top. 

Curried Chicken Salad Circa 1986

  I have a confession to make. I own more than 500 hundred print cookbooks. There wasn’t enough space in my home and so my husband built a special giant bookcase for all of them. It’s hard, because I love them all and I also need to downsize pretty soon. I have a dream of going through them all and photographing the best recipes for my collection in Evernote. This will clearly never happen. I want to keep like 50 of them...well, maybe 100 tops...and Time Life Foods of the World counts as one, right? Oy vey. Please send help!

A couple of my favorites were released in the 80’s. Martha Stewart’s first book, The Silver Palate, and an old fish cookbook by Jasper White that has a killer recipe for gravlax made with bluefish (yes!). Something most of the books from that particular era have in common is a love of adding curry to dishes that don’t typically ask for it. I guess it was a thing back then? Curried chicken salad was definitely THE thing in those days. I have a nostalgic memory of my grandmother making it and loving every bite, except the ones with raisins. Raisins are my nemesis. Always were and always have been.

My chicken salad has pretty standard ingredients, but there is one that is new to me this year and I LOVE it! It is a curry paste in a tube from a company called Entube and it is fiery, fresh, and delightfully authentic. They also make harissa, molé, and umeboshi pastes. I highly recommend their products and at the moment, you can grab a tube at Bartlett’s Farm if you’re on island. If not, the internet is your bff.

If you need yet another chicken salad recipe (or tofu, if you’re into that sort of thing), then look no further. And be careful with that curry paste-it’s hot af and you might want to supplement it with some milder powder to keep the heat down. Okay! Ready, set, go!

Curried Chicken Salad

Ingredients

1 whole roasted chicken, torn and/or cut up into bite sized pieces. (Yes, it can be a rotisserie!)

Juice of two limes and the zest of one

2 stalks of celery, cut in fine dice

1 tiny red onion (or a quarter of a bigger one), minced finely

1/2 of a Granny Smith Apple, peeled, cored and finely diced

1 teaspoon of Entube Curry Paste (or less of you’re sensitive to heat)

1-2 teaspoons of less spicy curry powder (optional)

1/2-3/4 cup of mayonnaise, either Hellman’s or your own

1 tablespoon of Major Grey’s Chutney (avoiding the few super secret raisins hidden in the jar)

Salt to taste-about a teaspoon or so

A big handful of chopped cilantro

A big handful of toasted, slivered almonds

Method

Squeeze the lime juice onto the chicken in a large bowl. Fold in the zest and the rest of the ingredients, except the almonds. Serve in a pretty bowl with the nuts sprinkled on top.

Buy this now! Hi  

Last-Minute Chicken Pasta Salad

​Last minute is a key phrase that comes up frequently in the life of a private chef. You can be the most hyper-organized, vigilant list-making, pantry-stocking, backup-shopper and there will always be those days where you think you are all set and suddenly you are not. Well, yesterday was one of those days for me.

The summer on Nantucket is glorious. And it is also crowded as hell with the worst traffic you can imagine (think no traffic lights, historically small streets, touristy drivers and too many rotaries). Doing errands is a strategic undertaking, where you have to plan for time of day, route, and of course, delivery days for specialty (and non-specialty) items. Well, I tried to start early and didn’t have a 100% clear idea of what was needed for lunch, but I made an executive decision on the fly that I felt would be well-received. As I was leaving the store, I suddenly received a text asking for something completely different-"chicken and some sort of pasta”. Okay, deep breath and onward. Onward to the rotisserie chicken aisle, that is.

I recently made a delightful zucchini pasta dish by Yotum Ottolenghi, that was featured in NYT Cooking. Riffing on his idea of a room temp pasta, sauced with  an herby/capery/lemony combination and combined with grilled summer squash, I took a similar approach. I was able to get this on the table in 25 minutes, using an already cooked chicken and having some pesto in the fridge.

Here you go, kids.

Last Minute Chicken and Pasta Salad

Ingredients

1 store-bought rotisserie chicken, shredded into medium bite-sized pieces

1 cup of any kind of pesto (I had arugula on hand)

1 box of penne pasta (GF or regular)

3 T red wine vinegar

1 bunch of basil, whizzed in a blender or processor with a cup of EVOO

2 small-medium sized yellow and green summer squash, ends cut off and sliced lengthwise about 1/4” thick and grilled outside or on a grill pan, until browned and cooked through

1/2 roasted red pepper from a jar, diced

1/2 jar capers

Zest of one lemon

a few good squirts of white balsamic glaze

a large handful of minced parsley

Salt and Pepper to taste

Buratta-1 or two, depending on how decadent you are feeling

Method

Fold the pesto into the chicken. Cook the pasta till al dente, drain, and sprinkle it with the vinegar and about 1/2 cup of the basil oil. Chop the squash into 2-3 inch pieces and throw that in with the chicken, along with the red pepper and zest. Then combine the two mixtures, add the balsamic glaze, parsley, and taste for salt and pepper. Arrange this mess in a beauteous bowl and carefully tear your expensive Buratta and scatter it artfully over the top of the salad.