One of the dishes I had the privilege of sampling at The Great Chefs Event was this one from Chef Joseph Manzare, chef & owner of a slew of restaurants in San Francisco including Zuppa, Globe, Tres Agaves, and Joey & Eddies. If you have not read my posts about this incredible event to raise money for Alex’s Lemonade Stand, I recommend you check them out.

The Great Chefs Event

The Great Chefs Event - A Huge Success

Chef Manzare started in the restaurant business at age 14 and later trained under Chef Jean-Francois Mettigner and Chef Wolfgang Puck before going to Italy and working at San Domenico in Imola. He was nominated “Rising Star Chef of the United States” for the James Bear Awards while working as executive chef at the Royalton in New York.

Maryland Blue Crab Chipachole

Chipachole is a traditional Mexican spicy soup made with crab meat. Chef Manzare’s recipe calls for fresh Maryland Blue Crab meat but I’m sure you can substitute pasteurized crab meat from companies like Phillips when fresh crab isn’t available but you will have to come up with some shellfish stock as a substitute.

This recipe uses Guajillo   [gwah-HEE-yoh]  chilies that are thick, reddish brown chiles that can be mild to moderately hot.  The guajillo is popular in Mexico and one of the most commonly grown. The Guajillo chili requires a longer soaking period than most due to its leathery skin.

Chef Manzare’s recipe makes 6 portions

Ingredients

2 pounds Maryland Blue Crabs
1 large onion
3 cloves of minced garlic
5 sprigs of fresh thyme
3 pounds tomatoes
5 Guajillo chilies, lightly toasted
2 tablespoons salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 bunch of green onions, diced

How to Prepare

Bring 1 1/2 gallons of water plus 1 tablespoon of salt to boil in a large pot. Add the crabs and cook for 20 minutes. Remove the crabs (saving the cooking liquid) and give them an ice bath.

Clean the crabs of their meat, saving all the bones (I’m guessing he means shells because crabs are invertebrates and do not have bones) and innards but discard the lungs. Mix the crab meat with the green onions and set aside.

In a low, wide pot, add 3 tablespoons of canola oil and saute onion, Guajillo chiles, garlic, thyme, black pepper, salt, tomatoes, bones (I think he means shells) and innards from the crab, for ten minutes at high heat. Add the cooking liquid from the crab and bring to a low boil. Cook for 15 minutes.

Puree everything in a blender or food processor and strain through a medium strainer. (I’m not sure I would puree the shells but I will try to find out.)

To serve, pour the soup into bowls and add crab meat with the green onions. Top with cilantro (optional), and serve with Tequila.

Kids Can Cook Fettuccine with Simple Lobster Sauce

My nine year old helped me throw this one together. We had some cooked Maine lobsters leftover from the weekend and  wanted to use them in a dish everyone would eat. I was thinking Lobster Fra Diablo but wasn’t sure my girls would enjoy it so I came up with this simple alternative.

My nine year old Maddie has Cerebral Palsy so I try to find jobs she can handle safely and still feel like she is contributing. It’s not difficult at all. She helped me get ingredients from the refrigerator, grab the necessary cookware from the cabinets, cut herbs from the herb garden, pick lobster meat from the shells, stir the pasta and set the table. All I had to do was cut and cook.

If you want to read more about how teaching your kids to cook is a good thing, check out my blog series starting with Kids Can Cook. I also built a Squidoo lens on the same topic called Teaching Your Kids To Cook.

Fettuccine with Simple Lobster Sauce

Ingredients

3/4 pounds of fettuccine
1 medium onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, chopped fine
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cups lobster stock*
2 cooked lobsters, meat from tail and legs removed and chopped into bite sized pieces
2 tablespoons fresh basil, finely chopped
2 tablespoons fresh parsley, finely chopped
2 tablespoons butter
salt and pepper, to taste

How to Make Fettuccine with Lobster Sauce

Start by bringing a big pot of water to boil. Add the pasta and cook until al dente.

Heat a medium sized saute (frying) pan until hot. Add oil and when it begins to shimmer, just before the smoking point, add the onions and cook for 3 minutes over medium high heat. Add the garlic and continue cooking until the onions become translucent. Do not let the garlic burn.

Add a quarter cup of the lobster stock to deglaze the pan. Add the lobster and the rest of the lobster stock. Continue cooking until the lobster stock is reduced by half or to your desired thickness.

Add the chopped basil and parsley. Mount the butter in pieces. Mounting is where you add butter to a sauce at the end to give it texture, flavor and a sheen. It is better to cut it up into smaller pieces and add one at a time while continuously stirring. You don’t want to add all the butter at once.

Taste the sauce and season with salt and pepper.

When the pasta is done, drain it and add it to the sauce, mix all together and serve.

*Lobster Stock - Not the easiest thing to find commercially and when in a hurry, not something you want to make. It is easy enough to make some decent stock with the shells and bodies of the lobster you are not using and here is a link to a lobster stock recipe but I used a product called Glace de Fruits de Mer Gold which is a fancy name for seafood stock but this stuff is more of a shellfish stock.  You can read more about it here at Lobster Stock.

Simple But Elegant Fish Course Ideas For Valentine’s Day

Ok guys, here’s a simple but elegant fish dish you can prepare that will really impress your mate. Easy to do, dramatic presentation, and you get to cut out heart shapes! That’s right. You heard me. Heart shapes. Figure you only have to do this once a year. Next time you make this could be for Superbowl Sunday and you could cut out football shapes.

What I’m talking about is fish en papillote. That is a fancy French term for “wrapped in parchment.” It’s a low-fat way to prepare moist and flavorful fish and impress your Valentine at the same time. The fish is enclosed in paper and steams in its own juices and the other tasty ingredients we’re going to include. Vegetables and fish will cook together, meaning you don’t have to cook a separate vegetable dish–less clean up for you!

This recipe calls for using parchment paper. You can substitute foil, but if you do, you won’t want to add anything acidic, such as citrus juice, wine or tomatoes because the acids can react with the foil and make your food taste bad. For this particular recipe, I suggest you stick with parchment paper. Parchment is paper that has been impregnated with silicone so that it is non-stick. It is available at the regular grocery store in rolls next to the foil and wax paper.

This recipe makes for a modest fish course. If you want this to be the main course, by all means, use larger fillets.

Fish en Papillote

2 - 12” squares of parchment paper
Extra virgin olive oil or olive oil spray
2 - 4-oz fillets of white fish (such as sole or snapper)
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
2 oz. dry white wine
2 lemon slices
Zest of one lemon
1 tablespoon butter (optional)
2 sprigs of dill, or about ½ teaspoon dried dill
About 16-20 thin asparagus spears

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees, F.

Fold each square of parchment in half and cut out a heart shape. You have all done this before—in school when you made Valentine cards.

Open each heart and brush lightly with extra virgin olive oil or spray with olive oil spray.

Sprinkle both sides of fish with salt and pepper. Set aside.

Wash asparagus and break off the woody ends. Just bend them; they will naturally break where they should. Discard the ends. Lightly spray olive oil on the asparagus and toss with a pinch of kosher salt and pepper and the lemon zest.

Divide the asparagus in half. Put half of the asparagus on each of the hearts, just to one side of the center of each heart.

Put one piece of fish on top of each bundle of asparagus. Top with one sprig of dill (or half of the dried dill), a slice of lemon and either ½ of the butter or a light drizzle of olive oil. Splash half the wine on top of each piece of fish.

Now, to wrap up these packets: fold the top of the heart over the fish and asparagus. At the top end of the heart, away from the point, fold up both edges (top and bottom) and crease well. Move down about ½ inch and fold up the edges, overlapping your first fold. Continue folding and creasing all around the parchment heart until you get to the point. Fold and crease the point twice. You now have successfully wrapped your fish en papillote.

Place the packets side by side on a baking sheet, making sure the packets aren’t touching.

Bake in the center of the oven until the packets are well puffed and the fish is cooked, about 10-12 minutes.

To serve, put a packet on your sweetheart’s plate, place in front of her, and with a dramatic flourish and a “watch out for the steam,” carefully slice the packet open with a sharp knife. You watch out, too—the steam will be very hot.

Alternative

For a more straightforward but just as tasty fish course, you can make a simple baked fish dish. As with all of these Valentine’s ideas, you do what you feel comfortable doing. Maybe go all out for the cheese course and the dessert and use my short cut ideas for the rest.

If you’re feeling very confident, go for each of the more involved presentations. No matter how you decide to mix and match the courses with your comfort level, your Valentine will be thrilled by your efforts, and after all, that is the whole point.

Mayonnaise Baked Fish

2 - 4 to 6 oz fish fillets (I suggest halibut or Chilian seabass)
1 tablespoon olive oil or melted butter
¼ cup mayonnaise
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Pinch of kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
¼ teaspoon dried dill
¼ teaspoon Old Bay seasoning
1 tablespoon grated parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons panko (Japanese bread crumbs)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees, F.

Spray a baking dish with non-stick cooking spray.

Lightly brush the fish with the olive oil or melted butter.

Mix together the rest of the ingredients, except the panko, to make a paste. Spread half on each fillet. Press half of the panko on evenly on top of each fillet.

Bake for about 10 minutes, just until fish is opaque. Turn on the broiler and finish for 2 minutes, until panko is golden brown and mayonnaise has puffed a little.

Baking fish is a relatively straightforward procedure. You can certainly forego the mayonnaise topping and just salt and pepper each fillet. Squeeze a little lemon over and bake at 400 degrees, F, until opaque and just beginning to flake.

Valentine’s Day Dinner For Her Series

Be sure to check out my other blog posts for making your loved one an incredible Valentine’s Day meal plus check out my new Squidoo A Romantic Valentine’s Day Dinner

Romantic Cheese Course

Lobster Bisque Recipe

How to Make A Great Salad For Valentine’s Day

Pork Medallions with Apricot Glaze Recipe

Steak with Wild Mushroom Sauce

Fish en Papillote or Fish in Parchment Paper

Chocolate Souffle

Chocolate Dipped Strawberries

My Squidoo - A Reluctant Valentine’s Day Dinner