Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Seafood Fishcakes with Lobster Cream Sauce






I have an abundant amount of seafood  that my Husband caught in Alaska so I have been trying to come up with some new recipes. We both love fishcakes, so, I came up with a fishcake  that would use a combination of the  fresh frozen (  fresh- frozen , that sounds like an oxy moron) Alsakan seafood we have.  I have also used something from another seafood mecca - Prince Edward Island, famous for it's Malpeque Oysters, Blue Mussels and Lobster. I have several tins of Lobster paste from P.E.I. and  thought this would make an awesome sauce , and it did.- It's delicious.

Ingredients

1 cup crab - I used Dungeness, broken, sorted
1 cup Halibut, rough chop
1 cup smoked salmon, broken up pieces

1 TB olive oil
1/4 cup  red onion, fine chopped
1/4 cup red bell pepper, fine chopped
1/4 celery, fine chopped
1 TB chives, chopped
2 TB  fresh parlsey, chopped
1 TB basil, fine chopped
3 TB bread crumbs
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
zest of one lemon

Mix all ingredients, for into a ball about the size of a peach, form into a patty and coat with panko bread crumbs.   Fry until golden on both sides.  Finish off in the oven , 375 degrees for about 15 minutes until heated through and cooked.

*  about 1 cup of panko bread crumbs for  coating the fishcakes before frying
    oil for frying

This will make 4-5 big , thick fishcakes

Lobster Cream Sauce

1- 1 1/2 cups cream
3-4 TB lobster paste
1TB of  Blackened Seasoning, Cajun seasoning or Jerk seasoning - Blackened is best I think.
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
2 TB Paprika - sweet
3 TB Butter

Heat cream in a pan, then add lobster paste, whisk until blended. Add remaining ingredients.  Keep on medium heat and let is reduce and thicken some.  Taste test the sauce for spiciness.. add a little more blackened season if you want more spice.

Drizzle sauce on plate, sprinkle with slices green onion.  Place fishcakes.

Lobster Paste from Prince Edward Island

ENJOY EVERY BITE !

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Paris' Moulin Rouge... The Famous, The Legendary, The... What the Hell is on My Plate !?

I wish I had some photos from my evening at the Moulin Rouge in Paris, but I don't. Cameras were absolutely forbidden in the showroom and I can honestly say I didn't see one camera flash throughout the evening. Normally I would have sneaked in my camera and took  photos but I didn't want to get my camera taken away from me... I was imagining me in an argument with a French waiter, in broken Francais... pleading with him to give me the SD card from my camera back to me. I didn't bring back photos but I did bring back memories.....and post traumactic stress syndrome...OK, not that bad but it was an experience.

The Moulin Rouge is world famous and expensive ! We paid €245 each for the evenings entertainment, which included dinner and a show. Wow... this is a lot of money. Going in I knew the Moulin Rouge was not famous for it's dining experience but rather the cabaret show. The Moulin Rouge (French for red windmill) has been around since 1889. The cabaret show in the beginning was a seductive show put on by the courtesans for "male" clients, it was after all a high class brothel back then. The show was deemed indecent and vulgar in those days which caused outrage – what prudes - but, today it's more tasteful. Parts of the show the women are topless. Each women had the exact same size breasts and looked as though each woman's breasts were from the same mold. Perfect.

I was impressed with the ambiance of the theater... aged but still  romantic. Red table lamps, small bowls with candles, red drapery adorn the room, small intimate tables on the upper levels and an over all red glow through the hall. The waiters looked dapper dressed in tuxedos. Vintage french poster paintings and Toulouse-Lautrec art work.

Before I get into the entertainment let me tell you about the meal. Mon Dieu ! I have to label this meal as the worse meal I have ever had. We had some red wine...not great at all, water down and also were told that we would have a half bottle of champagne each, not so but not disappointed by this  because the champagne lacked flavour ... and bubbles. The first course was a broth with three little bits of something resembling a vegetable. Tasteless, I don't even know what kind of soup it was. Then the entree... oh dear. Pomme frite that were cold, rubbery and the oil they were fried in probably hasn't been changed since the Formidable show in 1999. The fries were accompanied by  a chunk of dry, over cooked cold piece of meat that had no resemblance of beef. Keeping an open mind, I sliced off a small piece to try but had to get rid of it in an napkin because it just wasn't breaking down. We joked at the table that it was probably horse meat. The chunk of dry animal came with a bearnaise sauce that tasted as though it had been sitting in a burnt-on-grease-pot-that-hasn't-been-washed-for-years taste to it. If I were the chef, I would have been embarrassed to serve this.

The dessert... an icy vanilla ice cream with chopped strawberries which tasted like vinegar, above all things. Needless to say I didn't finish that either. I hadn't eaten much during the day as we were touring the Louvre and the Eiffel tower and was famished at this point. I asked the waiter, no pleaded with the waiter “Can I please have something with chocolate in it, anything?” he says, “Non ! zit does not come wis zee meal” I say, “I will pay for it, please, I didn't eat any of the meal, I'd just like anything with chocolate.” His reply “if I give you chocolat, zen everyone vill vwant zee chocolat” I say, “No, really , they won't, they want me to have the chocolat, really they do”.  The people at the table were insisting " We don't want any, give her the chocolate".  He was not amused and walked away and didn't return. Merde! No chocolate for me.

I looked around at other tables to see what their meals looked like and they looked OK, nothing like what we were served. According to the tour guide, she said we were on the lowest spectrum of the menu options...really?  I would not have guessed. !

Our table location was excellent, literally right in front of the stage. I had the front seat, my friend sat to my left. I thought the seat I was in was great until the stage slid out and moved directly infront of the table... it was so close to our table that I could not change position in my seat at all during the evening, my legs were locked into position and when the dancers were on stage I was rocked back and forth all evening. This also put me very close to the dancers, so close that I had a shoe inches from face from the girls doing the splits, feathers from their costumes slapped on my head ( no joke) beads were popping off the costumes and bounced off my forehead (I have the red feather two beads here at home now to prove it). It was also hot and stuffy in theater which was unpleasant, I could smell the musty costumes which probably were not washed from the night's before performance. The dancers had so much self tanner and make up on them you could see the color run down the front of their bodies from sweating. I was really disappointed with the condition of the costumes – their shoes were really scuffed and torn, costumes were frayed and strings were hanging, sequence was missing, holes in their panty hose... just worn out. Not just one or two wardrobes...most of them. You would think with the cost of the ticket, their costumes would be better taken care of or replaced.

The current show is called “FĂ©erie”...which means something to do with dancing fairies and a show. I was expecting just a bunch of topless girls doing the Cancan dance and yelling, which we did see but there were several different forms of entertainment throughout the evening. My favorite part of the show was the talking dog, a Bichon Frise. The Bichon had a remote controlled contraption attached around the front that covered it's mouth and when the man asked questions, the Bichon replied..very cute. An observation about the show... the audience wasn't overly generous with applause. I felt like they were claps of pity rather than praise. The contortionists, what can I say..they were good but it's really not my thing. The female of the twisting duo was so thin, like- bones- protruding- thin, I wanted to throw a greasy cheeseburger at her and plead, “Eat this ! Please, I beg you... it has extra cheese ”

Another act, the stage parted on both sides and a huge tanked filled with water came up to stage level and there were snakes pythons in there !! That was a surprise ... and interesting. One of the show girls jumped into the tank and had the snakes wrapped around her... ewww. I  could smell that some kind of barn animal was going to be involved and then out came the miniature ponies and the showgirls did an jockey style act with them. There were different dance routines and acts as well p entertaining, no less.

I get why someone would want to come see the Moulin Rouge - it's historical. Would I go see the show again... maybe, if I was sitting at one of the tables near the back. Would I eat the food... nope, I'd sneak the cheeseburger I wanted to throw at the skinny chick and some chocolate the waiter denied me !