State-by-State Redux I of X: Alaska Revisited - Not-So-Deadliest Catch

The next (and final) ten State-by-State posts are rehashes of previous regions - and in the first two cases, states - that I want to go back and investigate just a little bit more.  This first post brings me back to Alaska, which I looked at ridiculously briefly way back in December of 2010 when I was trying to restrict myself to one, nay two, recipes per state.  We've seen how that worked out (hello, five recipes for Maryland).  Now I go back to explore some of Alaska's non-salmon-related seafood.

Snacking State-by-State Redux I of X: Alaska

Official Name: State of Alaska
State Nickname: The Last Frontier
Admission to the US: January 3, 1959 (#49)
Capital: Juneau (3rd largest city)
Other Important Cities: Anchorage (largest), Fairbanks (2nd largest), Sitka (4th largest)
Region: West (Northwest, Pacific); Pacific (US Census)
RAFT Nations: Salmon
Bordered by: Arctic Ocean (north); Yukon Territory (Canada) (east), British Columbia (Canada) (southeast); Gulf of Alaska (south); Bering Sea, Chukchi Sea & Chukchi Peninsula (Siberia, Russia) (west)
Official State Foods: King Salmon (fish)
Some Famous & Typical Foods: salmon, halibut, herring, Alaska king crab, queen crab, snow crab, Dungeness crab; moose, caribou, pemmican, northern Alaskan berries - and not Baked Alaska

When I investigated Alaska that one time, I also taught myself how to prepare a cedar plank for oven-roasting, and then I went and oven-roasted some Pacific sockeye salmon on said plank.  But Alaska seafood is not all salmon - and oh, the varieties of salmon there are!  Anyone who has seen that Deadliest Catch show knows that Alaska is crab country.  But not the sweet and small blues we have on this side of the continent.  Alaska crabs are big, hearty, friggin' huge.  The King crab, of course, comes clawing into one's mind first, but gives you nightmares.  This is not only because they are, again, friggin' huge, but also because they are so damn expensive: $26 per lb at Wegman's, with a 5 lb frozen box costing a hundred dollars.  I've spent enough on this blog.  I'm not slapping down $100 for this post. At all.

Fortunately there are other crabs off the coast of Alaska.  There are the Dungeness, Queen and snow crab.  It is this last one, at a mere $10 a pound at Harris Teeter, that I ultimately went for, for the following recipe.  This one is another one from Kim Severson's The New Alaska Cookbook: Recipes from the Last Frontier's Best Chefs.   Here I use a recipe from Jack Amon of the Marx Bros. Cafe in Anchorage, a crab and pasta recipe.  This one does not specifically demand King crab, though Amon definitely prefers it:

This recipe allows you to stretch the crabmeat.  If you can't get King crabmeat, other crab can be substituted, but it won't hold its shape as well as King crab. [Severson 2001: 69]

I did substitute snow crab for the King crab, and - Murliner that ah am, hon - I picked the whole damn thing myself.  The recipe also calls for a particularly expensive caviar - sevruga, which I probably will never get the chance to taste - which I had to substitute with a relatively inexpensive one off the shelf at the local supermarket.

This recipe is on page 69 of Severson's cookbook.

The Recipe: Pasta with Snow Crab and Caviar

To make this assemble the following.  Note, by the way, that I somehow deleted the original photo of the ingredients, so I reassembled most of them.  I did not buy a new crab to put in the photo.  Ten bucks for a photo?  Ummm, no.

Gather the following - note this is a reconstructed photo, as I said above):

* angel hair pasta (any box will do, this one was about $1.50 to $2)
* yellow and red bell peppers (about a dollar)
* butter (at the time I had nothing on hand but this delicious Kerrygold butter - about $6 a pop but soooooo worth it.)
* caviar (the recipe calls for sevruga caviar, which is ridiculously expensive.  So I just bought some black Romanoff caviar off the shelf at Harris Teeter for only $9.  I only found out later that the same caviar cost only $8 at Giant. Wah waah.)
* parsley (I used fresh, but only had the dried stuff on hand for the photo)
* salt and pepper (had on hand)
* lemon.  Note that I did not have a lemon on hand for the new photo.  I did, however, have an onion.  Please don't use an onion.)

And of course, you must also have...

* one snow crab (this one cost $11 at Harris Teeter - $10 a pound)

Snow crabs are bigger than either blues or Dungenesses, and so are much easier to pick.

A snow crab that is slightly over a pound yields you about 6 1/4 oz of crab meat.

Chop your bell peppers finely, and zest your lemon.

Prep your pasta for boiling...

While doing that, melt your butter in a skillet.

Boil your angel hair pasta according to box directions, and drain and rinse.

Next, add the pasta, peppers, lemon zest and crab meat to the butter.

Mix in the parsley and cook until hot.

Spoon onto plates, and put a dollop of caviar in the middle of the mound of pasta.

I can't even begin to describe how decadent Jack Amon's recipe is.  I tried to save this to snack on all week and it only lasted a few short days.  The crab and the butter mix so wonderfully with the pasta, and the caviar gives a surprising pop that I am not quite familiar with, since again I don't eat much caviar outside of a sushi-related context.

- - - - -

Just as I spent precious little time examining Alaska the last time around, I also spent so little time exploring Hawaii.  Coming up next week: a veritable Hawaiian feast, fit for a bento box.

Sources:

Severson, Kim, with Glenn Denkler. The New Alaska Cookbook: Recipes from the Last Frontier's Best Chefs. 2001 : Sasquatch Books, Seattle.

Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "Alaska" page and the Food Timeline State Foods webpage link to "Alaska".

Snacking State-by-State Mashup 1: Nopal and Cedar-Roasted Catfish Stir-Fry

One problem I have found with this Snacking State-by-State series I am doing is the plethora of leftovers. While some do store or freeze well (catfish AND sockeye salmon in the freezer), I only have so much room in my freezer, fridge and pantry. I mean, let's face it: that jar of nopal cactus is going to sit in my fridge for quite some time. I'll probably have it when I get to my New Mexico post sometime in early 2012.

So it behooves me to do something creative with these disparate ingredients. Inspired by the otherwise irritating show Chopped, I will take a bunch of ingredients that I have leftover from my first four State-by-State posts, and put them together in a recipe. Sort of a state by state mashup, minus the douchebag hotshot contestants. Or douchebag arrogant judges.

The first one seems best suited to a stir-fry.

The mash-up recipe: Nopal and Cedar-Roasted Catfish Stir-Fry

Serves 2 as a main or 4 as an appetizer


Ingredients (state flag indicates State-by-State post where ingredient was featured. Ingredients with no flag were not specially found for any one post):

1 catfish fillet

1/2 cup nopal cactus, minced

1/2 cup long grain white rice per person, cooked

meat from one ham hock (optional: skin & fat from ham hock)

1 tablespoon parsley-lemon compound butter

1 poblano chile, roasted, skinned and minced

1 cedar plank, seasoned

1 flour tortilla, cut into strips and fried until crisp (optional)

1 small onion, sliced
1 - 2 cloves garlic, smashed
1 Roma tomato, diced
1 small handful parsley, chopped
3 tablespoons olive or peanut oil

Prepare the cedar plank for baking in the oven, and lightly smear the compound butter on the catfish.

Like so.

Bake for 5 to 7 minutes at 350 degrees, taking care not to cook through (you will finish cooking it later). Remove and cut the catfish fillet bite-sized into pieces, and set aside.

This is not catfish.

Heat oil in wok or saute pan, then add the following in succession:


1) optional fat & skin from ham hock for 30 seconds. Then remove it if you use it.


2) onion and garlic for 30 seconds


3) meat from ham hock for 1 minute


4) nopales, tomato and poblano chile for 1 minute


5) catfish for three minutes or until cooked through

Serve with rice. As an optional garnish, add flour tortilla strips and parsley.


I found this stir fry to be a little on the goopy side, specifically due to the nopal. Again, the nopal flavor was more muted than I remembered from the last time I ate it, but it was a bit more distinct this time than in the recent egg dish I made when I looked at Arizona cooking. What I found with the catfish was the same with the salmon: the cedar flavor was extremely subtle, but still there, even though I only roasted the catfish for 7 minutes, and then stir-fried it with so many different ingredients. The one disappointing thing about this dish, for me, was that the cedar-flavored catfish didn't really blend in with the vegetables, or viceversa. They both fight for attention. I don't consider the dish a failure per se. Everything tasted good and at least the catfish had a very nice texture, if not the nopal (but that's more the fault of the ingredient). I probably wouldn't make this again, but if nothing else, it was a good way to use up some ingredients. Now the ham hocks, nopal and poblano chiles are all used up!

Snacking State-by-State: Alaska II - Salmon on Wood!

As Chef Glenn Denkler suggests in a prologue to Severson's book, you do not have to feel bad about not following the letter of the recipe. He insists

A recipe should be considered a starting point. A cook must learn to taste and not be a slave to a recipe... [T]reat these recipes with respect; respect the talent of the cooks who came up with the ideas, but have fun. If you don't like an ingredient or amount, be bold and experiment. If you can't get wild Alaska salmon or Kodiak scallops, find the best seafood you can, given the state of your local fish market... Let your heart and your taste buds rule. [Denkler, in Severson, xxiii]

I was already experimenting with the wood, so why not?

Snacking State-by-State: Alaska

Official Name: State of Alaska
State Nickname: The Last Frontier
Admission to the US: January 3, 1959 (#49)
Capital: Juneau (3rd largest city)
Other Important Cities: Anchorage (largest), Fairbanks (2nd largest), Sitka (4th largest)
Region: West (Northwest, Pacific); Pacific (US Census)
RAFT Nations: Salmon
Bordered by: Arctic Ocean (north); Yukon Territory & British Columbia (Canada) (east); Gulf of Alaska (south); Bering Sea, Chukchi Sea & Chukchi Peninsula (Siberia, Russia) (west)
Official State Foods: King Salmon (fish)
Some Famous & Typical Foods: salmon, halibut, herring, Alaska king crab, moose, caribou, pemmican, northern Alaskan berries - and not Baked Alaska

I did play around with some of the ingredients, but only a little: parsley instead of dill, leaving out the dried berries (alas, none in the pantry), an addition of a little bit of sea salt. But I did want to at least find Alaskan salmon, even if it couldn't be wild. Trader Joe's is probably the best place to find it without bankrupting yourself, and the fresh stuff was $16 a pound! Thankfully I was there when they were out, and it dawned on me to check amongst the frozen fish section.


There it was, wild Alaska sockeye salmon fillets, frozen, for only $8 per pound. Jackpot!

The recipe: Oven Roasted Cedar Plank Salmon

With the most important ingredients now in my possession (the salmon and the plank), I just had to look around the kitchen for the rest:

* butter (a pound to 1.5 pounds of fish - since I only had a pound of fish, I didn't need so much butter. I didn't have the good stuff, but the chef recommends you do)
* fresh parsley (instead of the dill - hey, I had it from the farmers' market for $2)
* lemon juice (from an actual lemon, or just use the bottled stuff)
* chopped berries (unfortunately I had none on me, so I omitted them)
* crushed pepper mélange (again, I only had black peppercorns)
* vegetable or olive oil for seasoning (check)


You can do the prep while the cedar plank is soaking. Note: you will need to anchor it down for that whole hour, otherwise it'll float right up to the top. It must be submerged, with at least a quarter inch of water completely covering the surface. This is to keep it from catching on fire in the oven. Also note that you must sterilize the plank in the oven for about 10 minutes at the cooking temperature, in this case 400°F.

First seared...

When you get close to when you need to use the salmon, scale it and make slits in the skin, then sear it in "shimmering" oil for 30 seconds on the skin side. Cut it into portion sizes, place it skin-side down on the plank, and smear it with the butter, whipped together with the remaining ingredients. Bake it for 8 minutes, and serve it off the plank.

...then smeared.

I have not eaten anything roasted on a plank before, so I was not sure what to expect. The cedar flavor ended up being especially subtle, delicately lingering in the background while the salmon was quite robust, more so than I am used to eating, since most of the salmon I eat is the cheaper Atlantic variety. I ate this with some cranberry sauce I had just made, and it was damn amazing.

Amazing what big plank o' wood can do for your food.

For my next post, I trade the Northwest for the Southwest, and head for the flavors of Arizona, a combination of flavors from Sonora, Spain, Navajo, Pueblo and the cowboys - ingredients and cooking styles that by and large don't involve a whole lot of sockeye salmon, or muktuk.

Sources:

Severson, Kim, with Glenn Denkler. The New Alaska Cookbook: Recipes from the Last Frontier's Best Chefs. 2001 : Sasquatch Books, Seattle.

Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "Alaska" page and the Food Timeline State Foods webpage link to "Alaska". It's a lot of info for the enterprising Lower 48'er to process.

Snacking State-by-State: Alaska I - From Home Depot to Your Table

When we think of Alaska, we usually think of salmon. True, it is much more than that: it's moose, it's king crab, it's halibut, it's herring, it's pemmican. But salmon really is one of the most important foods - if not the most important. Even the Alaska Department of Fish and Game has created a resource for teachers to instruct students on just how important salmon is to the culture and cuisine of the state. It is so quintessentially Alaskan that for this state's dish, I really had little choice.

Snacking State-by-State: Alaska

Official Name: State of Alaska
State Nickname: The Last Frontier
Admission to the US: January 3, 1959 (#49)
Capital: Juneau (3rd largest city)
Other Important Cities: Anchorage (largest), Fairbanks (2nd largest), Sitka (4th largest)
Region: West (Northwest, Pacific); Pacific (US Census)
RAFT Nations: Salmon
Bordered by: Arctic Ocean (north); Yukon Territory & British Columbia (Canada) (east); Gulf of Alaska (south); Bering Sea, Chukchi Sea & Chukchi Peninsula (Siberia, Russia) (west)
Official State Foods: King Salmon (fish)
Some Famous & Typical Foods: salmon, halibut, herring, Alaska king crab, moose, caribou, pemmican, northern Alaskan berries - and not Baked Alaska

Perhaps the biggest misconception - that I may unintentionally be helping to spread - is that Alaska is all salmon, all the time. Granted, salmon is important, but it is more than that. This isn't the only misconception. Journalist and author Kin Severson writes in her The New Alaska Cookbook about the reaction she got from her fellow San Franciscans when she talked about her many years reporting from Alaska:

Here in San Francisco, a place many argue is the epicenter of the American food scene, people find that funny. "Lots of whale blubber recipes?" they ask. [Severson, p. xi]

Whale blubber - that is, the Inuit dish muktuk - is, actually, something I used to think they ate a lot in Alaska. Of course, not many people eat it there anymore - no more than do many Californians eat things made out of acorns. As to Alaska's many culinary riches, Severson notes:

Nearly round-the-clock daylight in the summer produces an abundance of herbs, greens, and other vegetables, including cabbages so big a single one might easily keep a restaurant in cole slaw for weeks. In the state's interior, morel mushrooms can grow as big as your hand. Unusual game meats, such as caribou and moose, present themselves in the fall and winter... Any serious eater who has visited Alaska leaves pleasantly surprised by the quality of the cuisine served in both city restaurants and remote fishing lodges. [Severson, p. xii]

Long story short: it ain't all muktuk.

What Severson offers in her tome is what, to me, seems like a haute Alaskan cuisine, since the various contributors to The New Alaska Cookbook have many innovative takes on Alaska's native ingredients. They often prepare and plate their unique mixture of Northwestern and international ingredients and flavors in various ways that we in the Lower 48 would find familiar: Southwestern, Southern, New England, Tex-Mex, Creole, California-style, and so on. They even have mini-Baked Alaskas in there. By the way, just to get it out there: no, Baked Alaska is not from Alaska; it was made by chefs at Manhattan's Delmonico in the 1870's to celebrate the acquisition of Alaska from Russia. And yet, despite the innovations of many of Alaska's top chefs (now that is a show I'd like to see: Top Chef: Anchorage), I still wanted less haute Alaska and more traditional Alaska.

One recipe that seemed simple and easy (enough) comes to us from Chef Jens Hansen of Jens' Restaurant and Bodega in Anchorage. His recipe for alder plank-roasted salmon is similar to what Native Alaskans have been doing with either alder or cedar for thousands of years to prepare their salmon. As you probably know, grilling salmon, halibut or other seafood on the wood imparts a mid taste of the wood. And not only can you grill it, you can also bake it in the oven. This is Hansen's preferred method, and it was mine too. There were just three problems for me. One, I could only find cedar, not alder. Two, The cedar planks at the grocery stores were pretty damn pricey. And three, most people recommended that I not use it in my oven. The first was easily solved by buying cedar. The second was almost as easy: with some research I was able to find out how to make my own, much, much cheaper cedar roasting plank. The last one just took a little prep and some careful watching.

The prep work: How to prep a cedar plank for cooking


User "zoetical" from eHow.com gives some useful instructions for making your own cedar cooking plank. All you need is the cedar plank, a saw, sandpaper and a dab of olive or vegetable oil. And if you go to Home Depot or Lowe's, you can omit the saw because they will saw it for you! Just be persistent about finding cedar. One guy at the Home Depot I went to had no idea that they even sold cedar. In fact, he was fairly certain they did not. Thankfully his coworker led us both right to it.

One thing that is absolutely critical: the wood must be untreated. Think about it: if you're baking on grilling salmon on a piece of wood that's been coated with chemicals to help preserve it, the least of your worries is that the chemicals will get into the food. Beyond the flavor and the, um, toxicity, you also have to worry about the fumes and possibly the ensuing explosion, depending on what the wood was treating with. Please don't let this happen to you! Fortunately, the oils in the cedar act as a natural preservative, so cedar is by and large untreated anyway. The Home Depot guy was pretty certain of this. I imagine the same can be said for alder, but don't quote me on this.

Home Depot sells 8' x 1" cedar planks for about $6. Pretty sweet if you're using it for cooking, since a cedar plank in the stores will run you at least $15 to $20. That's for a whole foot of wood that you might get one use out of if you grill it, two or three if you bake it. I am able to get eight cedar planks out of mine - at $6 for 8 feet, that runs about 75¢ a foot. 1,500¢ vs 75¢. I think I know which one I'm going with.


The tough part was the sanding, which wasn't tough at all. You just need to get out all the splinters, lest you get one in your tongue (that almost happened to me with one of those cheap wooden chopsticks). So sand it, season it (one tablespoon per usable side), and soak it for an hour before using it. That's it.

Sources:

Severson, Kim, with Glenn Denkler. The New Alaska Cookbook: Recipes from the Last Frontier's Best Chefs. 2001 : Sasquatch Books, Seattle.

Zoetical (eHow user). How to Make Cedar Cooking Planks That Are Reusable. Posted date unknown.

Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "Alaska" page and the Food Timeline State Foods webpage link to "Alaska". It's a lot of info for the enterprising Lower 48'er to process.

Presidential Dinner II: The Side Dishes

Continuing my menu suggestions for a pan-US meal, I come to the Veep candidates. Yes, I'm only focusing on the two biggies, that guy from the Delmarva that rides the Acela back and forth to work every day, foot in mouth, and that lady from Wasilla who really dislikes her brother-in-law.

THE SIDE DISHES: VICE-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES (MAJOR PARTY)

JOSEPH BIDEN (Democrat - DE; born PA)

representing the Mid-Atlantic - oyster stew

Every time I write about Maryland and Chesapeake cuisine, I am writing about Mid-Atlantic food. But strangely enough, I never write about all the foods of the Mid-Atlantic. To be honest, I'm not quite sure just what "Mid-Atlantic" means. All I know is that we are in it, as are DC and, at least, parts of Virginia and, perhaps, Pennsylvania. Delaware also fits in there somewhere. The only state that is east of the Mason-Dixon Line, poor little Delaware often gets left out of any discussions of culinary prowess.

It's not difficult to see why: I did a search for "Delaware recipes", and really, I can't find a thing that we don't usually find in another state, only more famously so. Of course, Delaware has a rich bounty of seafood (just look at this brochure from the Delaware state government). But since Maryland also does, it seems like I'm just copping out and putting in a recipe from Maryland.

Photo linked from the Chesapeake Life Magazine website

So why not just grab some oysters and call it a day? I can find no reason why not. Oysters, like crabs, are prominent in and around the Delmarva area. There are a bunch of ways to eat oysters: raw on the half-shell, fried in fritter form, stewed, etc. I like this recipe for oyster stew from Chesapeake Life Magazine. For this you need a pint of oysters in their liquor, and various stew vegetables - celery, potatoes, onions, carrots, etc. Or you could just do the impatient thing and eat them raw, freshly shucked. Nothing wrong with that!

representing the Northeast - Scrapple canapés

Joe Biden also was not born in the state he represents, calling Scranton, PA, the home of his humble beginnings. Unlike Mid-Atlantic cuisine, I really have no clue what honest-to-goodness "Northeastern US cuisine" is supposed to be like (though Wikipedia does take a stab at figuring it out). Perhaps it's largely Amish? New England's is a cuisine unto itself, and the Mid-Atlantic, which often gets glommed onto the Northeast, isn't really "Northern" food-wise at all, more of a slightly Northern, slightly Southern entity all its own. New York is a food empire - 'nuff said. But Pennsylvania? No disrespect is at all intended here, but when I think "Pennsylvania" and "food" I think of cheesesteaks and I think of Amish food and that's it. I know there's more but I have no idea what that is. Since Biden comes from northeastern Pennsylvania I tried to find something from there. Not much luck. So I'm falling back on that German/Amish/Pennsylvanian staple: scrapple.

A pan of Scrapple, being fried up for breakfast. Photo linked from the WHYY-FM (NPR) website

I hate scrapple. It worked its way into Maryland and I wish it would go back to be perfectly honest. But enough people do like it (including my mother) that I feel compelled to include it here. Scrapple is a far different creature than Spam, including various parts of the pig (there's also beef scrapple) mixed up with corn meal to create a big block of pork-and-corn glop. A palatable way to prepare it might be to use it as the main ingredient in a Pennsylvania Dutch canapé. Just put little chunks of fried-up Scrapple on little crackers or crunchy toasts, add a grape tomato slice and a little sprig of parsley and Scrapple instantly becomes semi-edible!

I apologize, Scrapple fans. I know I am dripping with sarcasm but I just cannot stand the stuff.

SARAH PALIN (Republican - AK)

representing the Pacific Northwest - Salmon sliders

Far, far away on the other end of the continent lies Alaska, the biggest state land-wise and one of the smallest states population-wise of the US. Much of its culture is tied to the Pacific Northwest, which is why I'm lumping it in that region of the country, with Oregon and Washington. Governor and would-be VP Sarah Palin swears she can field-dress a moose lickety split, but Alaska is known for more than just its moose population. Since we are a seafood state, it comes as no surprise that when I think "Alaska" and "food" I think of its seafood: specifically, salmon and Alaskan king crab. There's a lot more, of course, but that's what pops into my mind. And Alaska salmon, crab and halibut are quite easy to find in Maryland.

Photo linked from Bon Appétit Magazine.

It's easy to find canned Alaska salmon in the supermarket, even the dollar store. There are good recipes out there, such as this one from What's Cooking America.net, that show you how to make a salmon burger using salmon from a can. For a change, you can take a recipe that forms six equal salmon burgers and transform it into twelve equal salmon sliders, and cook as normal. Use a steak roll or a mini-hamburger bun and top it with anything from mustard to onion to dill sauce to the lemon-sour cream sauce that WCA.net mentions in the above-linked recipe (Bon Appétit Magazine suggests a dill-tartar sauce for its salmon burgers). Or just leave it alone.

Image of Joe Biden linked from the Associated Content website, via Wikimedia Commons. Image of Sarah Palin linked from the Political Kudzu website.