What's Cooking (Take Four)

[Jenise]

So suddenly I have company coming tonight. Am going to do a low-and-slow 30 minute roast on an impressively large side of fresh steelhead trout. Will probably make a bearnaise sauce to top it with, and a shallot-herb rice pilaf. A starter salad will occur, of course, though I'm not sure yet how I'll embellish the lettuce.

Btw, Karen, I found a little lump of ground chicken in the freezer. For lunch I threw that in a small pan, still frozen, then quickly gave up on browining it and just added a slice of onion, chopped, fresh shitake mushrooms and chicken broth. Once the ground chicken broke apart I crumbled two wads of vermicelli into the broth and let it steep for five minutes. Topped with black pepper and a short drizzle of white truffle oil, it made a great 15-minute lunch and my jones for chicken and rice has been satiated.

I'm gearing-up for another bash at making mostarda. Like this viewtopic.php?f=5&t=56896&p=506684&hilit=mostarda#p506684 only this time with cherries/nectarines instead of cherries/pears.

Still looking to make the spicy flavor element pop more. I suppose I can add more mustard powder or seed, but I've seen occasional mentions of folks using a little wasabi paste or ginger root. I wonder about using Sichuan peppercorns?

So many ideas and so _tedious_ to try them out!

[Jenise]

Sichuan peppercorns is exactly what popped into mind as I started reading your post. Wasabi doesn't sound appealing.

[Jenise]

60F and raining outside. What a change from earlier in the week! I think I'm going to take advantage of this and make my first pot of clam chowder in like 40 years. (Bob was allergic to clams.)

I like clam chowder, but I'm really nuts about steamed clams. Could eat a barrel of 'em.

[Jenise]

Made the chowder. Seawatch brand surf clams--quart sized can from The Chef Store. Mostly small frilly pieces, none of the big chewy meats that I like, and they were full of sand. I mean like every other bite had an invisible grain in it. I accept that there will always be a grain or two in any can of clams, but this was ridiculous. I don't even think they'd have rinsed out.