I’ve been patiently waiting to get my hands on some blood oranges so I can play around with some recipes. You know…something like a blood orange, molasses peppercorn sauce for a nice fillet. But alas, my grocer hasn’t produced and so here I am, filling my curiosities with some other fruits. I made a fruit salad a few weeks back that had white peaches, plums and heirloom tomatoes. It was good and had an interesting mix of flavors…hmmm…where’s the post for it? It’s in draft mode, I’ll get to it soon. With no blood oranges in basket, I stocked up on a couple of grapefruits, a cotton candy melon and some enormous shrimp.

My sister and C were coming over for our usual Sunday dinner. I knew that when I told my sis what was for dinner, she’d pass on it. Her comfort zone for food is rather…”selective.” Well, after we started plating, she had changed her mind and ended up loving the salad.

Serves: 3

Ingredients

9 jumbo sized raw shrimp
2 pink grapefruits
4 TBs. of extra virgin olive oil
1 cotton candy melon, a.k.a. sweetie melon
1 avocado
1 tsp. jalapeno, deseeded and minced
1 tsp. of togarashi
black sesame seeds for garnish

Preparation

For the grapefruit dressing
1. Juice 1/2 a grapefruit into a glass bowl.
2. Add the minced jalapeno and togarashi.
3. While whisking the grapefruit juice, stream in the olive oil and continue whisking til emulsified.
4. Season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Set aside to let the flavors mingle.

For the salad
1. Boil the shrimp with their shells intact, 3 minutes in salted water.
2. Remove the shrimp from the water, and toss with some of the grapefruit vinaigrette. Season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Set aside.
3. Peel the grapefruits and section the slices from their skins. Making sure that all you have left are fruit slices.
4. Peel and slice the avocados into thin slices.
5. Half the cotton candy melon, deseed, cut into slices and remove the skin.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!. Rather get email notification?

I’ve had a lot of Spanish influence in the past few years. I created this dish as an expression of those influences. It’s drop dead simple and quick to prepare.

One of the things that the Spanish enjoy doing is sopping up sauces and broths with great bread. For this recipe, I love using a Ciabatta or Sourdough bread. You also mix the amount of seafood to your tastes.

Serves: 4

Ingredients

2 lbs. of Mussels
16 little neck clams
.5 lb. of peeled deveined shrimp
6 oz. of shiitake mushrooms
2 links of chorizo sausage - approx. 2 cups sliced.
4-6 Scallions
3 cloves of garlic
2.5 - 3 cups of chicken stock - amount varies depending on how many soppers you have
1 pinch of red pepper flakes
1 TBs of olive oil

Preparation

Heat a large 10-12 inch wide pan, with high sides, on med-high heat. Cut the chorizo into .5 inch thick slices, destem the shiitake mushrooms. I love biting into larger pieces of mushrooms so I don’t chop the caps into halves but you can do so. Chop the scallions into 2.5 inch pieces. Chop the garlic.

Pour the olive oil into the heated pan and swirl to coat the bottom. Saute the chorizo until both sides begin to brown, approx. 4 mins. Toss in the scallions and saute for 1 min. Add the mushrooms and saute til. for approx. 4 mins. til they begin to soften. Add the garlic and pinch of red pepper and saute for an additional minute. If you happen to have some dry white wine available, deglaze the pan and cook off the wine before adding the stock

Add the chicken stock and bring the pan to a boil. Add the clams, cover the pan for 1 min. Add the mussels. Cover and cook til they open, approx. 3 mins. Add the shrimp and try to nestle them down a bit. Cover and cook til. the shrimp curl and turn opaque.

Season with salt and pepper and serve immediately.

Enjoy!

Here are the pics. I made this the day after the birthday dinner. You won’t see any chorizo in the pictures because…well, let’s say there was wine involved.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!. Rather get email notification?