Something Fishy's Going On

My friend Eric went on a fishing trip in Cabo a couple weekends ago and brought back some yummy fish for a fish party that I helped out with. This year, instead of the Sea of Cortes the fishermen set their sights on the Pacific side of the Penninsula in hopes to catch some marlin, with little success (given the fact that marlin isn't so yummy to eat, it seems to me a better idea to stick in the bay where you're sure to catch lots of tuna and dorado, but I'm not a fisherman). But he was intent on bringing back fish for the party and chartered another boat and brought back some great tuna and dorado.

Saturday consisted of an early trip to the SF's Ferry Plaza farmer's market where we could pick up all the goodies to prepare a fab meal. Then we stopped off at Trader Joe's for the few items not available at the farmer market and and then we spent all afternoon cooking. We tried to keep a pseudo Mexican theme and had the salsa music when we served our friends with a great meal:

First Course
Chips with Tomatillo salsa and homemake guacamole (mashed avacado, diced garlic, jalapeno, onion, lime juice)
Seared Tuna encrusted in sesame seeds with a soy-based sauce with ginger, green onions, and garlic, and jalapeno
Dorado Ceviche - (Did you know that Dorado is the same thing as Mahi Mahi? I didn't). Got the perfect ceviche recipe from my friend James at Destino Restaurant, who knows all about making great cevice. James tells me you can make ceviche from any fish and there are 5 elements to ceviche and you can adorn is as fits your personal preference.
- fish (any kind you want, really, just be sure it's super fresh and cut up in small pieces)
- lime juice (the key is that you really don't want to marinate the fish for long - 5 minutes for light fish, 15 - 20 minutes for steakier fish, such as swordfish. A saw a recipe that says to marinate for 3 hours which I suppose you would do if you're not working with really fresh fish, but with the good stuff, James says a few minutes is perfecto!)
- heat (japapeno or other hot pepper, garlic)
- diced veggies (red onion, tomoato, avacado, etc.)
- herbs (typically cilantro, but others could work too)

Main Course
Sauteed dorado - just fish in some butter
Tuna belly baked with onions, lemon in tin foil
Caesar salad - key is to cover each piece of lettuce in olive oil that's been infused with garlic overnight. Then you'll boil one egg (or 2 depending on the size of the salad) for 1 minute and break it and mix it in with the lettuce; and then add chopped up anchovies (fresh ones are much preferable to canned) and lots of parmesian cheese and croutons (use some old french or sour dough bread fried in olive oil and diced garlic). Mmmmmm.
Baked eggplant and tomato with a vinagrette, parmasian cheese and bread crumbs. This was a bit of a complicated dish we got from the Alice Water's Chez Panisse Cookbook, but well worth the time and effort. My only change would be to reduce the amount of bread crumbs as the eggplant and tomatoes were so tasty on their own

Dessert
Creme Brulee - I actually had never made it before. It's basically egg yolks and heavy cream infused with vanilla bean. The key is to only cook half the cream with the vanilla bean and then cool it down with the 2nd half of the cream before you mix in the egg yolks and pour it in the ramakins. One of many techniques I got from my favorite cookbook The New Best Recipe Cookbook from America's Test Kitchen. It's quite weighty, but they clearly have done the research on how to perfect any recipe.

Definitely fun was had by all. The early Sunday morning flight to DC for the WineParty launch came way too soon (fortunately we turned the clocks back so I got an extra hour sleep).