Fish & Tomatillos....

As in all of my posts, if you need to follow a recipe exactly, this blog will frustrate you.  Quit reading it now.  My recipe measurements are only suggestions - please modify the ingredients and amounts as you see fit.  If it works, Great!  If it sucks, that's not my fault - you've been warned....

So, a couple of days ago I was in Chicago at a business group meeting.  For lunch, we had several choices.  One of the choices was a mexican course with a tomatillo and avacado remulade, and an unrelated fish course.  I happened to pick the Tilapia course, and by accident instead of picking the intended sauce / malt vinegar, I got the tomatla saouce.  I put the tomatillo sauce on the Tilapia, and it was AWESOME!

I replicated it at home, and here's how I made it.  I started with butterfly-split Tilapia fillets, then I cut them in half again laterally (with a fillet knife - about 1/4" thick).  Then I put them in a plastic bag with a lot of Italian dressing, and let them marinate for a couple of hours.

While the fish is marinating, I prepare the tomatillo avacado sauce.  The tomatillo avacodo sauce is easy to make, as it only takes 3 or 4 ingredients.  Start with Tomatillos.  These look like green tomatoes with a tough shell, but are actually not tomatoes.  You can get fresh tomatillos,  but they need to be a little ripe - if you go with this option, you need to look for soft tomatillos, and blend them in a blender or food processor, addng a litte salt.  It's just as easy to use prepared tomatillo sauce in a jar, and you don't have to add any salt.  Next, cut up an avacado into small chunks - the avacado needs to be semi-ripe - not mushy like you'd use for quacamole.

Once you cut the avacado into small chunks, add a litte lime or lemon juice to keep it from turning brown, but not enough to affect the flavor.  Do not add salt at this point!  Mix the avacado and tomatillo sauce together.  I add a little cumin powder to the mix, and you could also add a little cilantro.

Now that the Tilapia has marinated, take it out of the bag and roll the fillets up like little volcanoes.  In the centers, add the melted butter and italian dressing.  Put in the oven for about 10 minutes.  Once the fish has cooked, add the butter and dressing to the middle of the fish "volcano". 

Great sides with this dish are green beans cooked in sessame seed oit with almonds, or any other bitter greens such as kale, snap peas, etc.   

As in all of my posts, if you need to follow a recipe exactly, this blog will frustrate you.  Quit reading it now.  My recipe measurements are only suggestions - please modify the ingredients and amounts as you see fit.  If it works, Great!  If it sucks, that's not my fault - you've been warned....

Sweet Sriracha Barbecue Sauce

I recently went to a barbecue joint in Tampa, Florida, and they had an item on the menu that included a sweet sriracha-honey barbecue glaze for chicken wings.  I'm not a big fan of chicken including their wings and other various parts (where the heck do "nuggets" come from?), but the sauce sounded intriguing.   I got the wings just to try the sauce, and it was amazing.  Note - the sauce is great on chicken, but not on beef or pork.

So, here is how to make the sauce (or at least a start).

Most barbecue sauces start with a base (such as ketchup, tomato sauce, vinegar, etc) then add ingredients and flavorings.  This type of sauce is tricky, because it doesn't really have a base - you have to create a base from several different ingredients.

Since this sauce includes raw brown sugar, honey, and molasses, you have to use a double boiler, otherwise you'll get a sticky mess of goo.  If you don't have a double boiler, you can use a large pot of water with a smaller pot floating on top of it.  The main idea is that you don't want the ingredients sitting directly over the heat source.

I start with soy sauce - not a huge amount, maybe a cup or so.  Then, add some honey and let it heat up so it's easy to stir.  You can add a few tablespoons of white vinegar to emulsify everything (make it all stick together) or not - the vinegar actually doesn't work as well in this recipe as the Sonny's Barbecue Sauce recipe (see earlier post).

Then add a little Sriracha sauce.  There are several different brands of Sriracha sauce.  Basically, Sriracha is a Korean hot sauce.  The actual Korean brand of Sriracha sauce can be identified by a rooster on the bottle, and is hot but a little bitter.  The American version (that I like better) is made by Texas Pete, and branded as "Cha" sauce.  It's a little sweeter, not bitter, but a little hotter than the Korean version.

Next, add a few tablespoons of brown sugar, and stir it until dissolved - this will take a while.  Don't use an immersion blender, although that is my favorite kitchen tool - using an immersion blender will make sriracha cool-whip - I already made that mistake for you.

Now, add a little molasses,  And by "little", I mean a little.  A little goes a long way - you just want to add enough to add some smokey flavor - like a teaspoon.  Molasses has a very distinct and strong flavor profile, so be very careful - add very small amounts until it tastes right.  You shouldn't be able to taste the molasses directly in the sauce.

Now you have a base for the sauce.  From here, you just adjust the ingredients.  If you want it a little hotter, add some more Texas Pete "Cha" sauce.  If you want it sweeter, add a little more brown sugar.  You don't want to add much honey, as that will create a thick sauce that will stick to the back of your throat - it's not very pleasant.  If you need to make it thicker, add sriracha sauce and brown sugar.  If you need to make in thinner, add white vinegar and a little sugar.

Keep stirring and adding ingredients until the mixture starts to bubble a little - definitely not a full boil though - the sugar will form a brick when it cools.  Also, be aware that as it slowly boils and cools, the molasses will become more prominent in the flavor profile, so another reason to not add too much molasses.  The sweetness will also become more concentrated, so be careful to not add too much brown sugar.

If you have a better recipe, please post back!

As in all of my posts, if you need to follow a recipe exactly, this blog will frustrate you.  Quit reading it now.  My recipe measurements are only suggestions - please modify the ingredients and amounts as you see fit.  If it works, Great!  If it sucks, that's not my fault - you've been warned....

Sonny's Hot Barbecue Sauce

Growing up in Florida, one of my favorite restaurants was Sonny's Barbecue.  My VERY favorite BBQ joint is BubbaLou's Bodacious BBQ in Orlando- the original one that operates out of an old gas station near John Young Parkway with cheap picnic tables outside (more on that in another post!).

Sonny's is in fact a chain restaurant, but it's a local chain.  They have consistently good hickory-wood smoked BBQ, whether it's chicken, beef, or pork (yeah pork!).  After moving to North Carolina, we found there is only one Sonny's restaurant in North Carolina, about 200 miles away from us. Whenever we drive home to Florida, our first stop is in Jacksonville at Sonny's, even if it's 2am.

Sonny's has some of the best sauces in the world, not the vinegar crap that passes for BBQ sauce in eastern NC - we're talking western NC, Kentucky, Memphis, or Texas BBQ sauce.  Now if you like the eastern NC vinegar crap, that's ok - but this recipe won't be for you.

Sonny's has three basic sauces - sweet, mild, and HOT.  This recipe is for the HOT variety.  Ok, so here is the recipe:

1 bottle of standard Kraft Barbecue Sauce

Put it in a bowl.

Add some white vinegar (yes I know I derated vinegar earlier, but just do it)

There's really not a specific amount of vinegar to add, I would start with 2 cups, you want to make it thin but not "watery" 

Lastly, you want to add the heat.  This can be either Tabasco sauce or Louisiana Hot Sauce,either works fine.

Add the hot sauce until it tastes good.  This may be the whole bottle.  

That's pretty much it.  If you screw up and make it too watery, you can either add more BBQ sauce or some shredded carrots if you feel adventurous