{"id":16652,"date":"2018-04-20T01:47:52","date_gmt":"2018-04-20T01:47:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/?p=16652"},"modified":"2018-04-20T01:47:52","modified_gmt":"2018-04-20T01:47:52","slug":"stuffed-scallops-cod-baked-with-potatoes-rapini-gelato","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/?p=16652","title":{"rendered":"stuffed scallops; cod baked with potatoes; rapini; gelato"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-16682\" src=\"http:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/fish_sign.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"450\" height=\"600\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Our special guest, visiting from <em>overseas <\/em>(oh, magic word)\u00a0had never had dinner in our apartment, at least not while we were there, so I wanted the meal to be special as well. The most important thing was not to mess up; the second was that it would be delicious, but also reflect some of the rich local seafood bounty available in New York.<\/p>\n<p>Its success at the table depended partly on my not being too distracted by brilliant conversation in the kitchen, and the food choices I had were almost entirely dependent on what was available in the Greenmarket that afternoon. I&#8217;m pretty sure the meal passed muster, and the incredibly fresh local scallops, cod, and winter rapini filled the program I had in mind very well.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-16678\" src=\"http:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/sea_bounty.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"450\" height=\"600\" \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-16679\" src=\"http:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/rapini-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"450\" height=\"600\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The appetizer&#8217;s featured player has always been a popular favorite.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-16673\" src=\"http:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/scallops_tomato_bread.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" \/><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>nine sea scallops (10 ounces) from American Seafood Company,\u00a0rinsed, dried, slit horizontally with a very sharp knife almost all of the way through to accommodate small bits from a mixture of some fresh oregano leaves from Stokes Farm,\u00a0one medium-size clove of Rocambole garlic from\u00a0Keith\u2019s Farm, sea salt,\u00a0and black pepper, all having chopped\u00a0<em>together<\/em>\u00a0very finely and removed to a small bowl where just enough\u00a0olive oil was added to form a\u00a0paste, the scallops\u00a0then\u00a0rolled around on a plate with a little more\u00a0olive oil, drained, pan grilled in an enameled cast iron pan for about 2 minutes on each side, removed to 2 plates, finished with a squeeze of organic lemon from Whole Foods Market and a drizzle of olive oil<\/li>\n<li>six large, very ripe, very sweet Backyard Farms Maine \u2018cocktail tomatoes\u2019 from Whole Foods Market, washed, dried, halved, seasoned with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, heated for a minute in a small tin-lined copper skillet<\/li>\n<li>slices of a wonderfully-crusty\u00a0&#8216;polenta boule&#8217; from She Wolf Bakery<\/li>\n<li>the wine was a French (Loire\/Cheverny) white,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.vivino.com\/wineries\/pascal-bellier\/wines\/pascal-bellier-cheverny-blanc-2017\">Pascal Bellier Cheverny Blanc 2017<\/a>, from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vindesamis.com\/\">Vin Des Amis<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The central actor in the main course also came from the sea, although the extraordinary purple potatoes gave the wonderful fresh cod some earthy competition.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-16674\" src=\"http:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/cod_potatoes_rabe.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" \/><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">*<\/span>three 9-ounce cod fillets from American Seafood Company in\u00a0the Union Square greenmarket, halved, prepared more or less along the lines of a <a href=\"https:\/\/dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com\/2008\/12\/10\/recipe-of-the-day-ligurian-fish-and-potatoes\/\">recipe<\/a>\u00a0described by\u00a0Mark Bittman that I had originally come across 12 years ago: the cod washed and rinsed, placed in a platter on a bed of coarse sea salt, with more salt added on top until\u00a0the pieces\u00a0were completely covered, then set\u00a0aside\u00a0while a\u00a0bed of potatoes was prepared for them by slicing 20 ounces or so of Tamarack Hollow Farm Peter Wilcox purple-skinned, golden-fleshed potatoes (several, maybe interlopers, were purple all the way through) to a thickness of about a quarter inch, tossing them in a large bowl with olive oil, sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, and a large pinch of orange\/gold home-dried\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/?s=Habanada+pepper\">Habanada pepper<\/a>\u00a0(acquired fresh last fall from Norwich Meadows Farm), arranging the potatoes, overlapping, in a rectangular\u00a0enameled cast iron oven pan, cooking them for 25\u00a0minutes or so in a 400\u00ba oven, or until they were tender when pierced, and then, before the potatoes had fully cooked, the cod having already been thoroughly immersed in many changes of water to bring down the saltiness (incidentally, the soaking process somehow gives the fish more solidity, which can be easily felt while\u00a0it\u2019s being handled\u00a0it at this point, and it&#8217;s kinda sexy), draining and drying the 3 pieces\u00a0before placing them\u00a0inside the pan on top of the potatoes, drizzling\u00a0them with a little olive oil and scattering some\u00a0freshly-ground black pepper on top, returning the pan to the oven\u00a0for\u00a08 to 12 minutes (the exact time depends on the\u00a0thickness of the fillets), removing the\u00a0fish with a spatula (or, much better,\u00a0<em>two<\/em>\u00a0spatulas), along with as much of the potatoes as can be brought with each piece, and arranging everything as intact if possible onto 3 plates, returning to the pan for\u00a0the remainder of the potatoes, the servings each scattered with sunflower sprouts from Windfall Farms [Note: whether by luck or skill, maybe both, the cod was cooked perfectly]<\/li>\n<li>one bunch of\u00a0broccoli rabe (aka\u00a0<em>rapini<\/em>) from Migliorelli Farm, wilted in a little olive oil in which\u00a03 Rocambole garlic cloves from Keith\u2019s Farm had been heated until beginning to color, then seasoned with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, divided onto the plates and drizzled with more olive oil<\/li>\n<li>the wine with the main course was a Portuguese (Douro) white,\u00a0Folias de Baco Uivo Moscatel Galego Branco 2016, also from Vin Des Amis<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The dessert (wow, we rarely get that far through a meal, even when we have guests) was a first for all of us.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-16675\" src=\"http:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/gelato_lemon.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" \/><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wholefoodsmarket.com\/products\/whole-foods-market-limoncello-italian-gelato\">Limoncello &#8216;Naturally Flavored&#8217; Italian Gelato<\/a> from Whole Foods Market, served with\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/frankies457.com\/\">Frankies 457<\/a>\u00a0 Sicilian olive oil, the gift of\u00a0 a friend, a bit of Maldon Salt, and some zest from an organic Whole Foods Market lemon<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>the music throughout the meal was our conversation<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Our special guest, visiting from overseas (oh, magic word)\u00a0had never had dinner in our apartment, at least not while we were there, so I wanted the meal to be special as well. The most important thing was not to mess up; the second was that it would be delicious, but also reflect some of the &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-meals-at-home"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16652\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}