Last chance to win some Lupicia Lichee Tea
Today is the last chance for you to enter to win a 50g bag of Lupicia Lichee Tea. All you have to do is go to our Iced Lichee Tea post and leave a comment. All entries must be received by 11:59 PM, PST on 31 July. We will announce the winners in our next post.
Evolution of Dinner: Grilled Halibut
My previous post was about how the grilled pork tenderloin and nectarine-red onion chutney evolved over the course of the day. I started with the flavor profile I wanted first (Spanish, with lots of paprika) and moved to the ingredient list and finally cooking.
Annie had left me a couple of fillets of halibut that she wanted me to grill up after the pork was done. I wanted to continue with the Spanish flavor theme, so I did a lot of searching on Food Blog Search for "grilled halibut paprika". For the life of me, I can't remember which food blog post was the main inspiration for the recipe that eventually evolved. So I'll say that I developed this recipe myself, and if any food bloggers out there recognize it as something they published, I will gladly give you the credit.
Grilled Halibut Steaks
The steaks were marinated in olive oil, salt, fresh ground black pepper, lemon juice and lime juice. I don't have exact measurements and everything was pretty much "eyeballed." There was the juce of one whole lime in there, I can tell you that much. And half a lemon.
The halibut steaks marinated for about 1 hour, but I think they could have gone for longer. They were grilled over medium heat, about 4-5 minutes per side. As soon as they started to flake, I pulled them from the grill.
Here's a quick tip for grilling fish: I like to lay a sheet of aluminum foil down onto the hot grates before putting the fish down. The foil protects the fish from sticking to the grates or breaking and falling through the grates. You don't get those picture perfect grill marks but you will get all the fish back onto your plate.
This fish was cooked perfectly. The nectarine-red onion chutney, which was meant to accompany the grilled pork tenderloins, went equally well with the fish. However, the tenderloins were more strongly flavored than the fish, so the fish took second fiddle to the pork in the overall dinner symphony.
Organic Corn vs. "Pesticide Corn"
"If organic farming is the natural way, shouldn't organic produce just be called "produce" and make the pesticide-laden stuff take the burden of an adjective?" ~Ymber Delecto
We had bought several ears of organic corn from the Palo Alto Farmer's Market, at 50 cents per ear. Later that day, Annie went and bought more, "pesticide" corn from Safeway at 40 cents per ear. Would there be a difference in flavor?
I husked and grilled the corn cobs and placed the organic and the pesticide corn on separate plates. Everyone agreed, the organic corn that day was not sweet, but the pesticide corn tasted just as sweet corn should. There was no contest. Pesticide corn won, hands down.
I know, this is not a scientific test, and the sample size was too small to be absolutely conclusive. But it is curious. Maybe Monsanto has figured out a way to genetically modify corn so that it takes pesticide and turns it into sugar?
What do you think? Does pesticide corn taste sweeter than organic? Leave me a comment!
Aloha, Nate
1 Comment:
Yummy-looking halibut! I should take the tip about the foil: you should see my ugly fish. LOL
Some "organic" produce really do not do well in flavour comparisons with conventional produce. I don't know if that is because we're just more used to the flavour of the conventional or they use different varieties. Or maybe they haven't succeeded in growing the plant well. It takes years of experience to know your plants. There's too many variables in farming that organic farmers have not yet learned to "control" (the question is what sorts of "controls" can they put before they start straying from the organic path). I'm rambling, sorry.
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