Skate (ahem.. cod) with Traditional flavours powdered for Daring Kitchen

My sincere apologies... I know this is outrageously late. Blame the swine flu. I have been so sick since Monday that I haven't even been able to look at a computer, a TV, even a book. I have had just enough energy to lay in bed and drift in and out of consciousness, usually arising to cough up a lung. Yum! This is exactly what you want to read on a food blog....

Anyways I did complete this months daring kitchen challenge. It was a lot easier then it looked and took a lot less time then I imagined, but to be totally honest I wasn't overly wowed with the results. This may have been due to some dulled taste buds as I was just starting to become ill (unknown to me... I thought the sore throat came from 5 days of hooting and hollering at ska fest!). My man-friend wasn't very into it either - hes a man food man, and this was definitely veering towards lady food. I'm sure the recipe is all over but due to my current condition, which has improved but not all that much so I thought I would go easy on this post. Here was my final result:


And here are some other pictures during the process:


My powders consisted of Red and Green Onion, Mango Jalapeno, Cilantro and Sun dried Tomato, which I found really helped to round out the flavours with a little sweet earthiness.


These were my green beans, which were actually my favourite part.

And last but not least, cod (which was supposed to be skate) swimming in a warm bath of butter!

Smoked Trout and Corn Pot Stickers for Daring Cooks

I was so excited to see that this was the challenge. I was not part of the group last month but have signed up for both the daring cooks and daring bakers... I will post my next one on time, but as I tried to find rules on there about posting late and couldn't here are my scrumptious morsels:


To be honest I wasn't very impressed with my photography, well I wasn't impressed with the light nature had provided me. But. You know what nature did provide? A beautiful, fresh little trout on my father in laws line. So brined it with some soy sauce, brown sugar, garlic, ginger salt and pepper like this:


Then I gently smoked it in the BBQ... this is tricky but after a while of tinkering totally worth it. You just need to create a sealed tent with tin foil in the BBQ, put a sack of wood chips in and get them going, then put in the fish when it is really going. How long you leave it going will depend on how thick the cut of your fish. Mine only needed a few minutes. I charred the corn on the BBQ next, husks fully removed so that the kernels could carmalize. We haven't even gotten to the good stuff yet and it already drool-worthy.

After it cools, I put it in the food processor with a few other friends, green onions, sesame seeds, soy sauce and Chinese red pepper.


The dough came together easily enough, I used the food processor again. Ahh food processor my new best friend.. Just 2 ups of flour and slowing add 1/2 cup of water, until the dough pulls away, I used that amount the first time, but need a little more the second. It all depends on the humidity and what not. Pour it out, kneed it and let it rest. Here's a glamour shot of mine:


After some beauty rest, I just cut off little knobs and flattened them with my hand... maybe a secret fairy will drop off a roiling pin one day but for now I just used my hand, then added a little filling, just a little less then you think you should add, you need to make sure you can seal these babies up.


Which brings me to sealing, that was a little tricky, getting those pretty little crimps right, but it really only took a few to practice and then you got the hang of it.

After that I popped them into a frying pan with some oil and fried them part way, added some water and steamed them, then let them fry a little to make sure they kept their crispy little bottoms, like the picture above. And then:

So tasty!