Fish & Shrimps
So many things happened in our kitchen on Sunday. [get mind out of gutter] There was yeast that was actually active and caused bread to rise, there was yogurt cooking, there was deep-frying, and there was also one obscene mess of dirty dishes; the kind of mess where you come home and you smell the kitchen before you even walk through the door and your hang your head in anticipated exhaustion of cleaning the mess and ask your partner if maybe you could just go out for dinner forever. Messy.
Instead, we opened a beer and that made it easier to clean. Then we started cooking again. This time, it was Halibut with Sambal Vinaigrette and Wasabi Cream, Celeriac Mash, Herb Salad Spring Rolls with Spicy Peanut Sauce and Monday Night Football: Colts vs. Steelers. And more beer, duh.
This was kind of an odd meal to prepare because each part on its own took only minutes to prepare but trying to do them all at once was more confusing than I would’ve guessed. I started the celeriac boiling while Marc prepped the shrimp for the salad rolls. Then I julienned the salad roll vegetables while M. measured ingredients for the peanut sauce; I de-boned the halibut while Marc softened the rice noodles. I made the sauces then seared the fish. Marc mashed the celeriac and started assembling the salad rolls. Miraculously, and with no planning, we managed to get everything completed at precisely the right time. Genius! (or accident, whatever.)
The first bite yielded tender, perfectly seared and roasted fish though it didn’t deliver quite the wasabi-bang I was expecting. Then another bite. And another, mixed with a little celeriac to ferry more sauce to mouth. If the first bite was pleasing, the second was delightful and the third was delicious. The rest of it was chair-dance delicious.
The salad rolls were curious. I know Marc initially wasn’t all that pleased with the consistency of the noodles and the first attempt at assembly yielded a somewhat “schlong” shaped roll (Marc’s choice of words). However, I thought they were marvelous, especially the peanut sauce which was a perfect blend of sweet and spicy. We ate copious amount of that sauce- too-firm noodles be damned!
The Colts won. We drank all the beer.