Tastes like victory

I've been cursing a lot lately. Why? Is it because I want my baby's first word to be @&#$@!? Or because I'm trying on a new, meaner, cruder personality? No... It's just because I'm frustrated. Here's how things go: 1)I find a recipe I want to make. 2) I think "Oooh, I just need to go get ____ and then I'll make this for dinner! 3) I go to the store, where I know they should carry ____, because it's not something totally crazy and unheard of, and sure enough they don't have it. 4) I then try every possible grocery store and come up empty-handed every time. 5) I curse.

This has happened with various ingredients - Panko crumbs, tahini, spring roll wrappers, peppermint extract. And now, the most recent, spinach. Yes, spinach. Most of the time this only happens with ingredients that I don't buy regularly, but that I know I could find pretty easily if we lived in Minneapolis. Spinach, though? We live on spinach. We buy it all the time, just to have it around. Just in case we need a salad or something. So when I found a recipe for a spinach and chickpea curry, I thought my real problem would be finding the garam masala (it was a problem, by the way. Stupid stores had 8 million Indian food spices, pastes, etc etc etc, but no garam masala. This makes no sense to me. I found it eventually, though, at the same place I find my spring roll wrappers), and that I could just pick up some spinach whenever. What a joke. No spinach at the commissary for about a week straight. No spinach at various Dutch grocery stores. Something labeled as spinach at the market, but it really looked like no spinach I had ever seen before. Hmph.

Imagine my delight as I went in to a local grocery store on Friday to look for garam masala and saw huuuuge bags of spinach as I passed through the produce department! Victory! On to the "Ethnic foods" aisle to concur Indian spices! Err, or not. They had no garam masala, of course, so I stood clutching my basket full of spinach, scanning the shelves, wavering between my feelings of triumphant victory and crushing defeat. And then... delight! They had no garam masala, but they had my favorite stir fry sauce! And a new section of spices in the Thai foods section! Spices that I've been wanting badly but hadn't even bothered looking for! Thai basil! Kaffir lime leaves! Lemongrass! I gleefully put them in my basket and headed off to curse their lack of greek yogurt in the refrigerated section.

When I got back out to the car, Ben was waiting for me. While I had been in the store, he and Wes had been circling the parking lot (it was busy, and full, and costs money to park) where I had left him with an assignment. I had told him to think about what he wanted to do for dinner the following night since he would be leaving for a business trip this week and we would only have one dinner together until he got back. So after I got back in the car and we started to head to the commissary to finish our shopping, I asked if he thought of anything. "Well," he said, "I thought maybe we could cook something together".

Yay! Another episode of Cooking with Ben and Ellen! "Ooooh! Maybe we can find a recipe that uses THESE!" I said, brandishing my shiny new containers. We agreed, and when got home, Wesley and I settled on the couch for a nice bottle of formula and some internet food searching. And we came up with this: Cod with Coconut, Lime, and Lemongrass Curry Sauce. Mmmm, and it required lemongrass AND kaffir lime leaves! Also, it calls for cilantro, but I hate cilantro with a passion, so I decided could sub my new thai basil for cilantro. Three for three! This was definitely taking the sting out of my lack of garam masala.

So last night, armed with fresh and delicious cod from the market, we set to work.

This doesn't look very pretty, but can I just tell you how incredibly amazing it smelled? Shallots, garlic, ginger, lime, curry... amazingly good smells were happening in our kitchen.


We added some coconut milk and let that sauce simmer and tried not to eat it with a spoon as it cooking, and then strained it. And promptly decided that the shallots, garlic, etc that we strained out shouldn't go to waste and that we would eat those too.

And then it was time for the cod. Fish is easy usually, but not very exciting.


The recipe called for baby bok choy, but we only could find very large bok choy, so Ben had an interesting time fitting it in the pot o' boiling water.


The finished product might not look terribly exciting, but it was really really delicious. We had some sauce and bok choy left over, so we ate a couple bowls of bok choy with curry sauce too. Yum. Yum. Yum.


Cod with Coconut, Lime, and Lemongrass Curry Sauce

Epicurious | 2005

yield: Makes 4 servings

Ingredients
The Sauce:

* 1 tablespoon butter
* 2 shallots, thinly sliced
* 3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
* 1 lemongrass stalk, thinly sliced
* 1-inch knob ginger, thinly sliced
* 3 kaffir lime leaves
* 1 tablespoon Madras curry
* 3 cups chicken stock
* 3/4 cup fresh coconut milk, or canned
* 4 cilantro sprigs
* Fine sea salt to taste
* Freshly ground white pepper to taste
* 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice


The Cod:

* 2 tablespoons canola oil
* 4 7-ounce cod fillets, 1 1/2-inches thick
* Fine sea salt to taste
* Freshly ground white pepper to taste


The Garnish:

* 1/2 pound butter
* Fine sea salt
* 9 heads baby bok choy, divided in half (quartered if large)
* 1/4 cup kosher salt


Special equipment:

* 2 10-inch nonstick ovenproof skillets

Preparation

Preheat the oven to 400°F.

To make the broth, melt the butter in a small sauté pan or wok over medium heat. Add the shallots, garlic, lemongrass, ginger, kaffir lime leaves and curry and sweat until tender and with no color, about 5 to 6 minutes. Add the chicken stock and bring to a boil. Lower the heat simmer for 15 minutes. Add the coconut milk and cilantro, and simmer for 5 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Strain through a fine chinois and set aside.

Divide the 2 tablespoons of canola oil between the skillets. Place over high heat until oil is just smoking. Season the cod on both sides with salt and pepper. Put 2 pieces of cod in each skillet and sauté until golden brown and crusted on the bottom, about 2 1/2 minutes. Turn and sear on the other side for 30 seconds. Put the pans in the oven and roast until a metal skewer can be easily inserted into the fish and, when left in the fish for 5 seconds, feels hot when touched to your lip, about 6 to 7 minutes.

In a large pot, heat 4 quarts of water, the butter, and the kosher salt. Bring to a boil over high heat. Add the bok choy and cook until crisp tender, about 4 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside on a sheet pan in the refrigerator to cool quickly so they retain their bright green color.

To serve, reheat the sauce and finish with the lime juice. In each of 4 bowls, place a piece of cod. Place 3 to 4 pieces of bok choy around the cod. Pour the sauce over the cod and serve immediately.