Oscar-Winning Performance
This was our last episode of cooking prior to departure for San Francisco. We expected to eat ourselves stupid in SF (a prophesy that was, indeed, fulfilled) and wanted one last light meal in preparation for the onslaught of gluttony. The word ‘steamed’ seemed to fit that bill and thus, the Steamed Red Snapper with Ginger, Chiles, and Sesame Oil.
I have to preface the rating of this recipe by saying that I love ginger. Given several choices of drinks, or desserts, etc, I will always pick the one with ginger in it. Ergo, I really liked this fish with ginger. The note on the recipe says that “the aromatics (ginger, scallions, chile) are easily absorbed by the fish” and I would have to agree. It was nice to taste these things steamed into the fish but not have them overpower the whole thing and make it impossible to taste anything else. Unfortunately, Marc’s piece was riddled with bones so I think that might have detracted from the good taste. But on the plus side, we got to use one of the chile peppers from our tiny, orange chile plant. Is there some rule that dictates ‘the smaller the chile, the hotter the taste’? If not, there should be.
With the red snapper, we made Baby Carrots with Tarragon. I have to preface the rating of this recipe by saying that I LOVE tarragon (if that wasn’t already obvious from the previous post and its reference to tarragon tasting of heaven*). It turns out that not only is Tarragon dazzling in its starring role in Bernaise sauce, it also puts on a brilliant performance with the Carrots. In fact, it won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for this performance and the Carrots, in their starring role, were extremely jealous and were later rumoured to have gotten drunk and made fools of themselves at the after-party. Probably, they will start dating Katie Holmes. But I digress- though we used adult carrots for this recipe, it was simple enough to be quick and easy but delicious enough to warrant a Would-Serve-To-Guests rating.
*According to Chris, that is a textbook example of sacrilicious.
To drink: It’s a bit of a blur in my memory. Because we were leaving the next day, chances are good that we drank some sad, little, neglected red in the back of the fridge. It couldn’t have been that bad, because I don’t remember it. ‘Course, it couldn’t have been that good…
Meanwhile, Sammy (pictured below), earned the Oscar for Best Choreography in a Drama Series which was no small feat, as he was up against Shirley MacLaine for Not Without My Daughter Sophie’s Choice.
