seafood salad

If I served this in a restaurant I'd charge twenty-five bucks just to make a point. OK, fine ! Fifteen bucks. It has so many ingredients they're not even all showing in the photograph.

The thing is, so many of its ingredients are treated separately then brought together at the end. Lots of chopping, dicing, rinsing, gently carefully braising, heating, chilling seasoning separately, picking, tearing, opening of jars, tossing and sprinkling. It makes use of strong conflicting flavors used in moderation resulting in a symphony that must be tightly controlled so not to overwhelm the individual flavors of shrimp, halibut and crab, each with their own unique but subtle flavors which must predominate. Every single forkful is a recombination of flavors so that no two mouthfuls are exactly the same but without ever confusing. Additionally, you could graze on this all day and still lose weight, confident that you're eating healthfully.

For the dressing.

* Lemon juice into a bowl with enough size to handle a whisk.
* Olive oil reserved for the end to whip together with the following.
* Cranberry relish, already a combination of sweet + tart
* Mustard, tang, an emulsifier
* Horseradish, either grated or creamed.
* Ginger, grated
* Salt + pepper
* Habanero sauce. Anything hot. Flakes, Tabasco™, Franks™, Cholula™, whatever.

See what what's happening here? Every taste receptor on your tongue is covered. The trick is to use only about 1/3 to 1/2 teaspoon each thing so nothing overwhelms but everything manages to contribute a spark of its own special magic. It's pink.

For the salad.

* Halibut is cooked separately. Incidentally, thank you, Friends, for the halibut. It's gently coddled in salted water with lemon juice added. Cut into squares and set aside. It's coated with dressing separately and added at the end so it's not tossed with the rest.

* Shrimp, pre-peeled and cleaned. Nothing was necessary except to thaw, coated along with the crab and halibut with dressing.

* Crab, pre-picked and packaged by the pound. Dressed with the shrimp and halibut

* Tomatoes, diced
* Avocado, diced, and seasoned with salt + pepper separately
* Fennel, shaved
* Pine nut heated to activate their oil and bring it to the surface.
* Artichoke hearts, marinated commercially
* Onion, sliced and rinsed to remove surface sulphur.
* Bell, pepper, cut and cleaned
* Celery, sliced
* Spinach, torn
* Romaine, cut
* Mint, fresh
* Cilantro, fresh

I considered adding apple but then I though, "What, are you CRAZY?"

If your impulse is to blurt, "Yeah, but I don't like seafood," then remind me to smack you.

shirred eggs

Sirred = baked.  

Yesterday somebody said, "My grandma used to make us shirred eggs." That caused me to look up the word shirred. Looked at pictures. Learned that apparently anything at all can go under the eggs. I'd prefer spinach and some kind of ham but I don't have any spinach. I do have Walla Walla onion and I'm long on sweet peppers, so I used that. Caramelized half an onion with mirepoix including garlic. Elaborated a veloute sauce from home-made broth and threw in frozen chicken bits.

But Bo, how did you manage to avoid the yolk from becoming cooked firm, a problem many people note on the photos you essayed in researching the word shirred? Easy. I separated them, and watched them like a hawk in the convection oven -- a hawk intent on perfect eggs. Bwaaa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

I took a fine set of photos of the final dish, all set up real purdy and well lit. Then, when I'm done and began eating my shirred eggs, my camera goes, "Memory card needs to be formatted." The pictures gone. Bastard! Eww, that makes me so mad I could pull out somebody else's hair.

So I blithly persisted and took a photo of the shirred eggs in progress of being consumed, which has the advantage of showing off the inside of the egg and the chicken and vegetable stew underneath, although it looks something of a mess. Hey! Old Dutch masters painted still life pictures like this. Well, not exactly like this, but they painted still life pictures of meals abandoned in progress. <--- 100% of historical fact. Sourdough from yesterday, oh my God that stuff is good, with olive oil and parmigiano cheese.