Salmon, Snapper, and Tuna Sushi

I have recently become inspired after watching Jiro Dreams of Sushi, my new favorite documentary film. I highly recommend this movie to everyone, especially if you are at all interested in food. It is about a 90-something year old sushi chef named Jiro who has been making sushi for 75 years. His restaurant is located in a subway station in Tokyo, Japan and has received three Michelin stars. Experimented with some sushi tonight. I bought salmon, tuna, and snapper at Whole Foods because they are good raw and arrived at Whole Foods this morning, so they were (probably) the freshest. The salmon actually tasted the best. I didn't do much thinking outside the box in terms of filling for the rolls mainly because I have only made sushi once before, and I remember having a frustrating time doing it, so I just stuck to simple stuff. With the help of my family, I used cucumber, carrot, avocado, and fish for the fillings.

It all tasted great and I am real excited to make it again.

NC Crab Cakes

I decided to catch some crabs and make some crab cakes after noticing the oddly high number of blue crabs in the surf at the beach this past week. I have never seen blue crabs in such numbers.
While catching the crabs was relatively easy, cleaning them was not. I have only "cleaned" crabs once before, and that was at least five years ago. Forming and cooking the crab cakes was actually quite easy once I finally extracted the crab meat.

Living crabs before being boiled

I was fairly pleased with the final product. They had lots of lump crab meat per cake and had a nice flavor. The texture is the main aspect I need to improve on. While there was a nice crispy outside layer from pan-frying, the inside of the cakes seemed a little bit mushy. Hopefully I can improve on this next time I make these things again. I think having a slight crunch throughout the inside of the cake would raise these to the next level. Anybody have any ideas for how to achieve this?

While I am not a regular crabber, it was awesome eating these cakes knowing exactly how and where they came from (I caught them that day!). I also do a lot of fishing at the beach, in fact I spend most of my beach time with rod and reel in hand, however I usually catch and release.

Triggerfish Meunière with Sautéd Green Beans on top of Roasted Vegetable Polenta

Triggerfish Meunière with Sautéd Green Beans on top of Roasted Vegetable Polenta. This was such a wonderful dish that required a very minimal number of ingredients. The individual flavors of each component of this dish (fish, green beans, and polenta) were able to shine on their own without a long list of distracting ingredients.
I cooked the triggerfish meunière style, which consists of lightly breaded (in flour) fish that is pan-fried in a combination of butter and oil (about 2 tablespoons vegetable oil with about 1 tablespoon butter) to form a nicely colored thin crust on the outside of the fish. I believe that this style of cooking allows the true flavors of the fish to stand out better than if it is heavily breaded and deep-fried.
I prepared the polenta by cooking it by itself (cornmeal, water, and butter, that is it!), then adding in some roasted vegetables at the end. The roasted vegetables I used were leeks, an orange bell pepper, a poblano pepper, half a purple onion, one clove garlic, and a yellow squash. I actually got the idea for roasted vegetable polenta from the main dining hall, Rastall, where I go to college (Colorado College The food there is outstanding, especially for college cafeteria food).
The green beans were simply sautéd with a little olive oil for about four minutes.
I also made a meunière sauce (brown butter sauce consisting of browned butter, lemon juice, and parsley) that I spooned over the fish during plating.

While I think the dish tasted wonderful, I will definitely need to work on presentation next time.

Cherry Tomato Salad with Farmers Cheese

While mozzarella cheese is often used in tomato salads, I decided to change things up tonight and use the tangier farmers cheese instead. I used farmers cheese from Chapel Hill Creamery in Chapel Hill. I had never had farmers cheese before I tried it on a tour of the creamery last spring and have been a big fan ever since. It reminds me of a combination of mozzarella, feta, and goat cheeses. The colorful cherry tomatoes are from the Durham Farmer's Market.

I simply sliced the tomatoes in half and arranged them on the serving platter with slices of cheese in the middle. I also added some thinly sliced red onions in there as well. I then splashed some extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar over everything, added kosher salt, ground black pepper, and oregano leaves from the garden as a garnish.

We ate the salad along with my dad's grouper fish tacos and corn salad which were also both delectable.

Old photos

Here are some miscellaneous photos of some food/dishes I have made over the past year:

First time cooking pizza on the Big Green Egg. Having grilled pizza on the BGE twice now, I have achieved maximum temperatures of around 675 F, more than 100 degrees hotter than my kitchen oven.

Hickory smoked salmon (on the BGE) with grilled vegetables (onion, red bell pepper and scallions) and romesco sauce (poblano pepper, tomato, garlic, parsley, cilantro, toasted almonds, toast, extra virgin olive oil, and red wine vinegar).

Red pepper parmesan risotto.

Pan-seared North Carolina flounder with a gazpacho garnish (red and yellow bell pepper, cucumber and blanched zucchini skin).

Sautéed asparagus.

Grilled bruschetta with homegrown heirloom tomatoes.

Kaiser rolls