Fall is coming, my friends, and I am feeling those yearnings for red wine, tweeds, and comfort food. (And a Trapper Keeper and a Partridge Family lunchbox, but I never could shake that back to school thing...)One of my father-in-law's favorite meals is...as we are New Englanders here...the traditional 'Saturday Night Supper' of - yep - franks and beans. When I've got the time, as I did last week, I like to make him a big pot of Boston Baked Beans from scratch. They're really easy to prep; you just need the time to leave them in a low oven all day long, but they smell delicious and, not surpisingly, are a far cry from those you get out of a can. (Which are really fine and will do in a pinch.) I swear by the recipe for baked beans from the good folks at Cooks Illustrated. Rinse the dried beans and bake them for hours with rendered salt pork and bacon (I had some chorizo left around this time and swapped that in for the bacon), some onion, water and (mandatory) molasses, whirling in a bit of mustard at the end of cooking. Really, try them sometime. You'll thank me.
Miss Kate and I are junkies for another traditional old New England supper: cod cakes or fish cakes. (Not the most romantic sounding of dishes, I know, but somewhat better than The Joy of Cooking's moniker: cod balls. Enough said.) We keep store-bought fish cakes on hand in the freezer for quick meals when we're not in a big mood to cook. They are usually very (very) affordable. Our dearly departed fishmonger, Greer's, in Belmont used to sell them three for a buck. Serve them with some baked beans, some coleslaw, and you'll feel like whipping out the yellow rain gear and speaking in your favorite (butchered) New England accent.
Really, these cakes are a simple and hearty example of the frugality New Englanders are (I hear) known for. Scraps of leftover fish, mashed pototoes, a bit of onion and seasoning bound together with some egg and bread or cracker crumbs...and (hello!) deep or pan fried. Now, the storebought kind are great in a pinch, but surely you've had crabcakes prepared for you in a restaurant and enjoyed them. Recently we had some 'real' fish cakes the Skipper's restaurant down the Cape (stellar), so I figured it was time to try some from scratch myself. Hunted around for a recipe and couldn't find any one that particularly fit the bill. Lots of variations in fish (reconstituted salt cod, for instance), the bread used for a binder and coating, seasonings. I cherry-picked to come up with something like this:
I cooked up a pound of fresh cod (we were on the Cape of Cod, after all) and flaked it into a bowl, boiled and mashed a few potatoes (about the same amount as the cod) and added those, hit them with a dash of Old Bay Seasoning, Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper, then mixed them together with 1-2 beaten eggs, some cream and crushed up Saltine (gourmet!) crackers until I had a mix that was not heavy and not too loose. I formed handfuls of the mixture into little cakes (about 3 inches in diameter and about 1 inch thick), dredged them in panko bread crumbs (ok, not so traditional) then - in an attempt to show SOME restraint - rather than frying the cakes, I put them on a lightly buttered cookie sheet and baked them in a 425 degree oven until they were puffed and starting to get good color.
Served 'em up with Ye Olde Baked Beans and - because I had them in from the CSA share - some quick pickled beets and their greens. You might want to give a squeeze of lemon juice over the cakes...but, if you are a tartar sauce maven like me, have at it because the fish cake screams out for that sauce. Hey, this isn't a light supper. It's hearty, stick-to-your ribs fare meant to send you to bed warm, happy and ready to get up at zero o'clock in the morning to go pull some lobster traps.
Ay-uh.
3 comments:
I've never tried to do the Crabcakes or Fishcakes things, but I want to. Especially because we are huge crabcakes fans...
Also, I'm embarassed to ask...I've never used Old Bay Seasoning. Can you give us a bit of explanation....?
J.
Jeff,
Don't be embarrassed. We all have awkward, painful questions to ask about seasoning at one time or another.
Old Bay Seasoning is a blend that cropped up mid-twentieth century, so kind of cool for its retro feel. I remember a tin of it sitting in the cluttered (and seldom used) spice cabinet when we were tykes. You may, now, notice that there has been a big marketing push behind it. I've seen billboards and subway signs up touting it lately.
Here's the history from their website:
"The legend of OLD BAY starts with the beloved blue crab. In 1939, German immigrant Gustav Brunn settled in Baltimore among the crab lovers of Maryland. With only a hand-held spice grinder and a dream of starting a spice business, he developed the secret recipe that would become the legendary OLD BAY seasoning.
Sixty years later, his original recipe is used worldwide by renowned chefs and seafood restaurants, as well as everyday folks."
From the ingredient label, they report: celery salt, mustard, red pepper, black pepper, bay leaves, cloves, allspice, giner, mace, cardamom, cinnamon and paprika.
I have generally only experimented with it in seafood dishes, but reading their packaging now for the first time, see they suggest sprinkling it on French fries, corn on the cob and 'even popcorn!'
There's also a rumor it cured my great uncle's gout.
Kidding.
Down here in Maryland, Old Bay is a way of life. We use it on lots of stuff and serving crabs down here w/o Old Bay could lead to overturned chairs and departed guests. It's great stuff.
(Neither I nor any family member works for Old Bay or owns any Old Bay stock if, in fact, one can own such a thing)
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