Smoked Bluefish

One of the best things about living in New England is the ready availability of bluefish. A cold-water Atlantic predator fish, they are a common sport and food fish here and are especially popular along the Connecticut coastline during the annual run that goes from mid-July through August.

Blues have dark and somewhat purple-bluish flesh which is oily and tends to be on the "fishy" side, similar to mackerel. If it's handled properly - iced immediately after catching, and kept cold - the flavor is no stronger than other oily fish like salmon or swordfish. People who prefer very mild white fish often don't care much for blue, however.

Personally, I love bluefish. It's great baked or grilled or to add a richer flavor to a fish chowder, and I also like cutting fillets into small bites and making "bluefish nuggets." But most of all, I love it smoked.

Smoking bluefish isn't complicated, but it does take some time. The process is similar to making homemade bacon with the biggest difference (besides the brine itself) being that the fish doesn't have to sit in a cure for a week.

Preparing the fish:

Start by making a brine. You can make as much as you'll need to completely cover the fish - I usually make it by the quart:

1 quart water
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup kosher or pickling salt
1/4 cup sugar
3 or 4 bay leaves, crushed
2 tablespoons mustard seed
1 tablespoon whole peppercorns

Combine the water and soy sauce. Add the salt and sugar and stir or shake to dissolve completely. Pour over the bluefish to cover in a shallow pan and add the bay leaves, mustard seed, and peppercorns. Cover and refrigerate while brining - a minimum of four hours.

Brining the bluefish is important. It adds to and enhances the flavor, of course, but it also helps the fish to retain moisture during the smoking process. You should leave the fish in the brine for at least four hours, but it's okay to let it go longer (even a couple of days if you're not going to get to it right away - the brine is a great preservative also.) Just remember that the longer you leave it in the brine, the saltier it may be.

Getting ready for the smoker:

Smoke doesn't like to stick to wet surfaces, and the heat of the smoker can drive moisture out of the fish. And so, the next step is as important as the brine. When you take the fish out of the brine, place the fillets on a metal rack set above a few layers of newspapers. Allow the fish to dry for several hours, until the surface of the fish is dry and feels a bit tacky to the touch. It will take at least three hours, but if it's a damp day it can take five hours or more. If you're squeamish about leaving the fish out that long, make room in the refrigerator for the racks and dry them in there.

That dry, sticky surface is called a "pellicle," and it is formed by proteins on the surface of the fish as they are exposed to air. The pellicle will give the smoke a good surface to adhere to and protect the fish from giving up too much moisture while it's in your smoker.

Smoking the fish:

When the fish is dry, transfer it to the racks of your smoker. Bring the temperature of the smoker up to about 200 F for the first hour of smoking, then drop it to 150 F for another two hours or so.

At the end of that time, average-sized fillets will be done - moist but firm, flaky, and dry, perfect for snacking or using as an ingredient in a dip or paté.

Larger, thicker fillets may need more time. Just extend the time at 150 F for as long as needed to get the firm texture you're looking for.

The delicious finished product will look something like this - a rich chestnut brown color, slightly darker around the edges, tender and moist but firm enough to pick up without falling totally apart. The flavor will be amazing: one of my friends described it as "fish bacon."

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Smoke notes:

Bluefish has a strong flavor, so choose your smoking wood accordingly. You may want to go with an assertive smoke like mesquite, hickory, or even walnut or cherry to hold up to the taste of the fish rather than choosing a mild wood like maple or apple.

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Local Food: Our Small-Town Produce Store

Summertime often brings lower prices on fresh produce, thanks to farmers' markets and bountiful backyard gardens. But summer doesn't last forever, and even during the growing season, there are fruits and vegetables that just aren't available unless one goes to a traditional retail market.

Supermarket prices are steadily rising, but it's likely that your hometown has alternatives to the big supermarket chains and their cartel-like control over food pricing. In my town, for example, we have the Enfield Produce Market on US5.

Although I buy a lot of produce at roadside stands in my area (we're lucky to still have quite a bit of farm land in the Connecticut River valley) when I buy veggies and fruit at retail, Enfield Produce is where I go. Right now, the store is filled with native and regional vegetables - corn, tomatoes, peppers, beans, lettuce - as well as things like iceberg lettuce and celery that isn't normally grown right here, but which we still can't do without. I like shopping here. For one thing, this store is locally owned (something I can't say for the majority of the supermarkets here, which aren't even owned by American companies, let alone local ones.) And for another, the prices are generally half that charged by the supermarkets, and sometimes less. Those signs shown in the window in the photo above are current prices: Lettuce 99 cents a head; Asparagus $1.29 a pound; Cubanelle peppers 99 cents a pound; Celery 89 cents a bunch. Summer prices indeed, you may say, but those are also the prices at the market over the winter (with the exception of asparagus, which wasn't available.)

Enfield Produce Market also sells eggs and a limited selection of dairy items (yogurts, Eastern European fresh cheeses, etc.) and a good selection of Eastern European specialties (pickles, canned veg, candies, cookies, jams and jellies, etc.) Some of these imported items are pricey by their very nature and yet they still find a way to keep the prices lower than those charged by the "gourmet food stores" where you'd normally have to go to find them.

Shopping at the Produce Market is not an elegant experience. The store is clean but in an older storefront. The cashiers encourage shoppers to tote their purchases out in the corrugated cardboard boxes the veggies arrive in - both to recycle the boxes and to save the price of bags. In the winter, the store's heat is turned down to a minimum because chilly temperatures are better for keeping things fresh. The carriages and shopping totes are second-hand. But the prices are low, the quality is good, and the owner greets his customers with a smile, a handshake, and some small talk. He lives here in town, after all, and many of us have been shopping at his store since the day it opened.

Enfield Produce
565 Enfield Street (US 5)
Enfield, CT 06082
(860)745-7731

Butcher's Selects?

That juicy rare steak on the label of this dogfood sure does look delicious, doesn't it? But when you open the can, all you'll find is some spongy little chunks of "meat" in a thick brown gravy. The "gravy" is kind of bland, but the "meat" tastes like really cheap beef bouillon.

It's called "Butcher's Select, " but I can't say that I'd select this stuff if I were a butcher. My dog sure loves it though.

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Dunkin Donut's Flatbread Sandwiches

Dunkin' Donuts, in their latest bid to forget just exactly what it was they did right for so many years, has introduced yet another "menu item" to their stores: Flatbread Sandwiches. They're two triangular pieces of toasted flat bread (shaped to invoke a diagonally-cut sandwich I guess) with stuff of varying edibility placed between. They're toasted to order in a high-speed oven and served up hot. Unfortunately, it sounds a lot better than it actually is. I've tried four of these new sandwiches; only two of them were any good, and they weren't worth the price:

• Southwest Chicken - Disgusting, sponge-textured chicken patty (heavily adulterated with fillers, flavor enhancers, and other filth) with cheese and sauce. Dunkie's claims that it's "spicy," hence the use of the special buzzword "southwest." The chipotle sauce is made mostly of maple syrup, tomatoes, and water (chipotle peppers are the last ingredient on the list!) It took me three bites to get far enough into the sandwich to actually hit the so-called "chicken," and when I did it definitely wasn't worth the effort. I gave the rest of it to the dog.
• Turkey, Cheddar, and Bacon - The turkey was overenhanced with injected "broth," the cheddar is little more than bland American cheese, and it was pretty skimpy on the bacon. It was better than the Southwest Chicken, but trust me, that is faint praise.
• Ham and Swiss - Pretty standard ham with garden-variety Swiss cheese. If I were stuck in some kind of twisted culinary Hell where the only place to eat was a Dunkie's, I could order this without being disgusted at the contents.
• Three Cheese - It's a grilled cheese sandwich with Swiss, Monterey Jack, and mild cheddar cheeses.

This is the horror that awaits you when you open up the Southwest Chicken flatbread Those lines aren't really marks from a grill, BTW; they're painted on using some brown stuff called "grill flavor." No, I'm not kidding. Haven't you ever wondered why stuff like this has "grill lines" that aren't even straight or parallel? I've never seen an actual grill with wonky bars that would make lines like that, have you?

I suppose it's never occurred to Dunkin Donuts that if they went back to actually baking their donuts from scratch on site and serving excellent coffee, they'd maintain profits without having to cast around for half-assed ideas about being a sandwich shoppe.

Drop in Demand Lowers Lobster Prices

With the summer lobster catch stable but demand dropping, the price of lobster has drifted downward at both the wholesale and retail levels, according to a recent news story on newsday.com.

'At ShopRite in New London and Norwich, owner Ken Capano is selling live lobsters for $5.99 a pound, an "unprecedented" sale price that has lasted six weeks, he said. "The price has come down, but more important, what I'm hearing is, the supply side to supermarket retailers is better because tourist consumption is down in Maine," he said. "So there's been more consistent supply.

"I've never seen anything like it where I'm able to promote lobsters at a reasonable price," he said.'

Although this is good news for consumers, it's making it even tougher for lobster fisherman. The wholesale price of bugs is down more than a dollar a pound, diesel prices are double what they were last year and the price of bait has tripled, putting a tighter squeeze on lobstermen than ever.

News reports are saying that the dock prices for lobster are well under $5.00 a pound in Massachusetts and staying around $5.00 a pound in Connecticut and Rhode Island. When we were in southern Maine last weekend, the retail price at lobster shacks from York to Portland was around $5.50 for standard pound-and-a-halfers.

My guess is that lobster prices are going to remain soft for a little while yet - at least through Labor Day. The CBC reports that lobstermen on Prince Edward Island and southern New Brunswick are also getting lower prices for their bugs (C$8 - C$9.50 a kilo) thanks to a combination of great harvest, higher Canadian dollar, and sluggish American economy (lots of Canadian lobsters are sold in the US market.)

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...With a Silver Spoon In Your Mouth

There's something really nice about eating with silver utensils...something that makes a meal kind of special, even if the food is on styrofoam plates. That's why I set the table with good quality antique silverplate for every meal.

Now, I'm not wealthy, but my well-equipped kitchen has benefited greatly from auctions, estate sales, church rummage sales, and thrift stores. I've purchased wonderful, gently-used professional-grade kitchen equipment from such sources for over twenty-five years, and finding flatware from the same sources has enabled us to use silverplate and sterling for our "everyday" flatware at very little cost.

We have several sets, some complete, some not. Often, we mix and match sets the way we mix and match the colors and patterns of our Polish pottery dinner service. Of course, we have the Most Elegant China and the Heirloom Wedding Silver From Grandmother for formal dining occasions, but we've found ourselves taking all that stuff out less and less as we've relaxed and stopped caring so much about tight formality. Long before Martha decreed it acceptable, eccentrics like me with a sense of fun have set our tables with mirthful chaos.

It's easy to do, even if you're broke (like me) or cheap (ha! like me again!) Check your local paper and craigslist on line for rummage sale and estate sale listings in your area. Spend a few hours on a Saturday morning browsing through the sales for kitchen treasures, and you'll turn up lots of great deals. The photo above shows the gorgeous antique Rogers silverplate I picked up this past weekend at an estate sale: service for 12 for three dollars! And not a scratch or a worn-out bit on them! Can you believe it?

Dollar stores are great sources for accessories, like colorful cloth placemats, napkins and napkin rings, and even plates and cups. My daughter and I picked up some fabulous china at a Dollar General store last summer - Square plates with rounded corners and big, bold orange-and-pink flowers. Yes, I know, they sound hideous, but they're actually very retro-mid-sixties and look incredibly awesome when we set the table for lunch.

Healthy Snacks

I was browsing the selection in the vending machine at work when this tag on one of the snacks caught my eye:

Pretty impressive. This stuff isn't just any old source of a couple vitamins or minerals, but a good source. Of seven - count 'em - seven vitamins and minerals. Check it out:

Healthy stuff indeed, with all those B-vitamins and whatnot. Pity they couldn't have snuck some Vitamin C and calcium in there to round things out, eh?

So, what is this miracle food you ask?

Kellog's Brown Sugar Cinnamon Pop Tarts.

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Forbes Seafood and Take Out, Wells Beach, Maine

Forbes Seafood Restaurant and Take Out is a popular place to eat for beachgoers in Wells, Maine - the dining room is always busy, and there is usually a line at the takeout window regardless of the time of day. This situation is not, however, an indicator of their superior food or service; it's because they are the only restaurant within walking distance of the beach.

The family and I had spent the better part of the day roaming the Maine coast from Kittery to Portland, and had finished off the afternoon with a long walk down Wells beach. We were sitting on the seawall benches overlooking the water, and feeling a little hungry. Supper was only a few hours away, so we didn't really want a meal, but we wanted something to carry us over until the evening. Over our shoulder, Forbes beckoned.

I strolled over to the window and stood in line. My dog was with me, leashed, and the wait to place an order wasn't intolerable - orders were being taken promptly and everyone wanted to play with and pet the dog, so the time went by quickly. I placed my order - fish and chips, and fried chicken with fries - and stood aside to wait.

And wait.

And wait...

And wait some more.

Finally, after about 40 minutes, the cheerful girl at the window called my number and handed me two small greasy boxes of food, which I brought back to the benches to share with my wife and daughter.

I tasted some of the fries which had come with both the chicken and the fish. Eww. They were sufficiently cooked, if on the limp side. No matter, what really put us off was the taste. They reeked of rancid frying oil, as though the Fry-O-Lators hadn't been cleaned in months. We tossed most of them to the seagulls.

Surprisingly, the fish wasn't bad. There were two smallish fillets of flounder, firm and lightly breaded, though salty and insufficiently drained. We set them on paper napkins for a moment before divvying them up, and then went for the chicken.

The fried chicken was actually a rather fair deal for the money; there were two wings, a small thigh and small drumstick, and a sparrow-sized breast portion. There was no rancid oil taste, which was fortunate: it literally dripped with oil. Not a bite could be taken without rivulets of orange liquid fat running from the skin and coating. As if this wasn't strange enough, the coating was sugary sweet, like eating candy! None of us knew what to make of that, but we fixed both problems by simply peeling off the skin and breading and giving it to the gulls and the dog.

Forbes Restaurant
Wells Beach
Wells, Maine 04090
(207)646-7620

Link to their website.

Bread and Butter Pickles

With fresh garden cucumbers in full swing, now is the time to make bread and butter pickles! These sweet lovelies have long been a favorite of everyone in our family, and Maryanne and I make several batches every summer so we have plenty to give as gifts over the holidays.



I first posted the following recipe on the Fidonet National Cooking Echo back in 1997. Since then, it's been scraped and reposted on a number of recipe archive sites on the internet - sometimes leaving my name in the credits, sometimes not. Whether or not the credit line is in the recipe instructions, though, wherever you see this recipe on the 'net, it originated in our kitchen.





Maryanne's Bread And Butter Pickles
Yield: 1 Batch

Ingredients

4 qt medium cucumbers; sliced
-but unpared
6 md onions; sliced
2 lg green peppers; sliced in
-rings
3 cl garlic
1/3 c pickling salt; or kosher
-salt
5 c sugar
3 c cider vinegar
1 1/2 ts turmeric
1 1/2 ts celery seed
2 tb mustard seed

Instructions

Toss together cucumber, onion, green pepper, and garlic. Add salt; cover with cracked ice and mix thoroughly. Allow to stand for at least three hours.

Drain vegetable mixture well and set aside. In a large kettle, combine the remaining ingredients. Stir in the vegetables and bring them to a boil in the brine.

Fill hot jars to within half an inch from the top; adjust lids. Process in boiling water bath for five minutes (begin timing when the water returns to boiling) Makes about 8 pints.

Notes: This is Maryanne's original recipe. We usually add another pepper or two, both for flavor and because the onions, peppers, and garlic are almost as popular as the cucumbers once they've been pickled.

If you have the tool and the time, consider slicing the cucumbers with a zig-zag knife, to make "ridged" pickle chips. It's the soak in the supercooled ice that makes these pickles crispier even after they're cooked, and the increased surface area that the crinkle-cutter makes gives them an extra snap.

Recipe by Maryanne Sacerdote MM format by Dave Sacerdote

We usually set aside an afternoon for making a batch of pickles. Once we get everything sliced and iced, we wash some canning jars and get our "work station" in order, then kick back with some cold drinks and some TV until it's Canning Time.

Fisherman's Catch Restaurant, Wells, Maine

The Fisherman's Catch restaurant, on Harbor Road in Wells, Maine, is one of our favorite places to eat when we're visiting southern Maine. We love the casual atmosphere of the big screened-in pavillion that serves as their dining room, and the campy fun of having a roll of paper towels hanging from the rafters over each table, ready to mop up lobster juices or wipe melted butter off your fingers. And we love the views the dining room has of the Webhannet salt marshes.

Walking in the front door, there are lobster tanks on the right and the waitress station, cash register, and kitchen to the left. Fisherman's Catch is a popular place, so you'll need to place your name with the hostess until a table opens up. The waiting area is noisy and chaotic, but there is plenty of room to sit down and local "shoreline activity" newspapers to browse through. It won't be long before you're shown to a table.

The dining room is, as I mentioned, a large pavillion which has been screened in with storm windows. The pavillion is filled with picnic tables and benches, and each table has a roll of paper towels hanging over it for easy access as you tear into your lobster dinners. To help diners take advantage of the salt marsh views, the restaurant has also provided small binoculars at each table with a window view.

We've never had a bad meal at Fisherman's Choice, and our most recent visit was typical of our experiences. Because it was a busy Saturday night, we had to wait a little longer than usual for a table, but were still seated within a half hour. We used that time to check out the menu, so we were ready to order as soon as we were shown to our seats. Here's what we ordered:

The Platter for Two - Delicious locally-harvested whole belly clams were sweet and not gritty. Scallops were big, briny, and tender; their full flavor indicated that they were "dry" scallops and not pumped up with water the way some fish markets are selling them now. Fried fish was flaky white haddock, done just right. There were handfuls of delicious tiny coldwater shrimp from the Gulf of Maine as well. the breading on the seafood was Fisherman's Catch trademark light coating: thin, crispy, and tasty, not at all heavy or greasy. All of this was piled up high over a bed of standard shoestring fried potatoes. On the side, two cups of coleslaw (shredded cabbage and carrots, mayo, seasoning, and horseradish; not sweet, decent as restaurant coleslaw goes but my own homemade is better) and two white-bread dinner rolls and butter. At $29.99 this was a bargain.

Fish and Chips - A generous portion of delicious, lightly breaded and fried haddock with shoestring fries, dinner rolls and butter, and a cup of coleslaw.

Lobster Roll - Fairly typical for a Maine lobster roll; big meaty chunks of lobster, dressed with melted butter and piled high in a New-England-style hot dog bun with a leaf or two of lettuce underneath to keep the butter from soaking through the bun. Quite good. Served with a garlic dill pickle spear and kettle-cooked potato chips.

For dessert, we had Blueberry Pie (no picture, sorry) made with wild Maine lowbush blueberries and the most delicious flaky crust you can imagine. It was served along with a double scoop of very good vanilla ice cream, and it really hit the spot.

Fisherman's Catch Restaurant
134 Harbor Road
Wells, Maine 04090
(207) 646-8780

Reservations accepted for parties of 7 or more.

Click here for their website. You might want to turn your speakers off first, some of the pages on the site have obnoxious and unwelcome music and/or sounds.