Every time I visit Cynthia’s food blog at Tastes Like Home:  My Caribbean Cookbook, I become hungry.  I’m tempted to reach through the screen to grab some of that delicious Caribbean-inspired food she prepares.  One of the foods I immediately hungered for, at first sight, was her salt fish dish call Buljol.   In the month of January, I made Cynthia’s Buljol dish a lot – practically every other day (and will continue to do it).  I love how the flavor of this  salty cod fish (also known as Bacalhau), is balanced out by the way it’s cooked and then simply mixed with ingredients like tomatoes and sweet peppers. 

Cynthia has a cookbook available on Amazon.com.  The name of the book is the same as her food blog – Tastes Like Home:  My Caribbean Cookbook (by Cynthia Nelson).  It’s a wonderful book filled with recipes that she personally put together and beautifully photographed.   You can find the recipe for Buljol and other tasty Caribbean foods in her cookbook, which does not disappoint. 

Paz

Buljol — Salt Cod Fish

Buljol served with rice

I found this Tilapia with Fresh Basil recipe at the appropriately-named blog  Simple Recipes. True to its name, the dish was not only simple but the ingredients were inexpensive to buy.  Oh! I loved it even more.  All I needed to purchase was tilapia, the cheapest fish at the counter (about five bucks) and fresh basil (no more than two bucks).   After that, my grocery shopping was done and I actually had some change in my purse.  Normally, grocery shopping can be very expensive, especially when there’s a long ingredient list involved.

In this photo, I could have probably chopped or torn my basil leaves into smaller pieces but I was feeling a little lazy at the time. No matter, it still tasted good. I’ve made this wonderful recipe several times and when I didn’t have basil, I used my fave herb, cilantro.  Oh Heaven!   Loved it!

Another great thing about this recipe:  It was fast to prepare. Real fast. Thanks, Simple Recipes!  I’m so loving this tilapia recipe.

Paz

Tilapia with Fresh Basil
Simple Recipes

Ingredients:

2 fillets of Tilapia
1 teaspoon of paprika
Salt to taste
1 tablespoons of fresh basil chopped
1 tablespoon of olive oil

Preparation:

Coat a oven safe dish with olive oil, gently place the fillet of Tilapia and sprinkle with salt, paprika and top with basil. Place in a oven for approximately 15-20 minutes at 375F. Serve hot.

Oh!  When I saw Lululu’s paella the other day, I immediately had a hankering for some.  I hadn’t eaten paella in a very long time.  Her’s looked so appetizing and the best part of the recipe for me was that the ingredients were simple.   I’d made paella a long time ago (a recipe by Tyler Florence), the ingredients were many (chicken, chorizo, saffron, clams, shrimp, lobster tails…) and I’d spent a fortune buying the ingredients.  Although, the paella tasted really terrific and the recipe was tasty and definitely worth it, I was happy to see a simple, yet delicious-looking paella recipe.

Over the weekend, I went grocery shopping and bought my ingredients, mainly the shrimp and squid.  The recipe called for arborio rice.  However, despite going to three stores, I couldn’t find that rice.   There was one more store to try but by then, I was too tired.  It’s no fun lugging several grocery bags around the city.   I had long grain rice at home and planned to use it, even though I wasn’t sure how that would turn out.   Thankfully, Rosa’s Yummy Yums encouraged me to use what I had, although there’d be a difference in the recipe.

Feeling a bit tired lazy tired on the day I prepared this dish, I found that it wasn’t as labor intensive as expected.  The only part of the recipe that was a pain  in the neck was shelling and de-veining the shrimps.  Yikes!  Next time, I’ll consider paying a little extra for shrimps already de-veined.   De-veining more than five shrimps is NOT fun.   It took me FOR-EVAH to de-vein the darned things.

At the last minute, I realized that I didn’t have any white wine.  So, I used vermouth.  *shrugs*

To my delight, my paella with chorizo and seafood turned out really well.  I loved it.  My dog loved it, too.  We were the only two at home, which was okay.  More for us.  

Paz

Paella with Chorizo and Seafood
Lululu at Home

(serves 6 persons)
Ingredients:

My first Seafood Pancake with shrimp,  It’s a bit thick but still tasted really good.

I almost didn’t get a photo of my seafood pancakes.  That’s because everyone kept gobbling these special pancakes, as fast as I made them.  They wouldn’t give me a chance to take a photo. 

Thankfully, I was able to save one, in the end and take my photo.  Whew!

My friend Nancy in Madrid saw this tortillita recipe by Mark Bittman in the Times and sent it to me.  She thought I’d be interested in this recipe originally from Andalusia.  She was right.  I liked this no-egg pancake made from a mixture of chickpea flour, white flour, herbs,  and seafood.  Not only did I like the simple ingredients, I liked the fact that I could prepare this meal quickly.

This was my first time to use chickpea flour.  I’d never heard about this type of flour before.  See how I learn something new on my cooking adventures?  I love it!  Initially, I couldn’t find chickpea flour and then Dan of Salt Shaker gave me a tip.  Thanks, Dan.  The recipe calls for half chickpea flour and half white flour.  However, according to Bittman, you can use chickpea alone, which will make the pancake gluten-free, crisper and more flavorful.

You can use any kind of seafood.  I chose to stick with the recipe and used shrimps.   You also have wide choice of herbs to use in this pancake.  I love cilantro, so that’s what I used.

I ended up making this seafood pancake more than once during the week.  The first time I made the tortillita, it was too thick, although it tasted very good and turned out the way Bittman described — "crisp on the outside but still moist inside."  Delicious!  However, I wanted to get it as perfect as possible.  So, the second time I tried this recipe, I added a little more water to get a thinner pancake batter.  I didn’t have shrimps on hand, so I used smoked salmon and included more herbs — chives, parsley and cilantro.  Again, I enjoyed my seafood pancake.

Thanks, Nancy for sending me the recipe.

Besos desde New York,

Paz

Ed. Note:  By the way, Dan has another seafood pancake recipe on his blog.   It’s made completely with regular flour, mussels, shrimps, and cockles.  He prepares his pancakes on the stove and finishes it off in the broiler.   Check it out here!

The second time I made seafood pancakes, they came out much thinner, the way I believe they’re supposed to be.

 Seafood Pancakes (Tortillitas)

Mark Bittman

1/2 cup chickpea flour

1/2 cup white flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1/3 cup chopped onion or scallions

About 1/2 cup raw shrimp, chopped, or scallops or other shellfish or fish

2 to 3 tablespoons chopped chives, parsley, thyme or cilantro

Olive oil.

1. In a bowl, combine flours and baking powder with salt and pepper. Add a little more than a cup of water and stir to combine; consistency should resemble pancake batter (if batter is too thick, add more water, a little at a time). Stir in the onions, chopped seafood and herbs.

2. Put a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat and film its bottom generously with olive oil. When oil is hot, pour in half the batter until it fills center of pan; spread gently with a spoon to form a large pancake.

3. Cook about 3 minutes, or until pancake is set around edges; flip pancake and continue cooking for another 3 minutes, then flip it again and cook for another 30 seconds or so, until it is crisp on outside but still moist inside. Remove from pan and serve immediately, while remaining batter cooks.

Very simple Salt Cod Salad

Not long ago, I blogged about  a salt cod (Bacalhau) stew recipe that I got from a co worker.   She also gave me a salt cod salad recipe. 

Basically, she said to:

o  Soak the salt cod and throw out the water.

o  Boil the salt cod for 15 minutes.

o  Cut the fish into pieces.

o  Add Spanish onions, tomatoes, sliced hard boiled eggs.

o  Add extra virgin olive oil

o  Add vinegar

o  Mix the ingredients

o  Eat right away or refridgerate.

What an easy and tasty salad to make.  From the photos you can see that I didn’t even bother to slice the eggs.  Normally, one uses apple cider vinegar but I felt like using balsamic vinegar.  Tasted really good.  I made the salad several times and each time added something different like Bell peppers, lettuce, avocado and capers.

Below’s a more detailed Salt Cod Salad recipe from Stephen Cooks. 

 Serenata de Bacalao (Salt Cod Seranade Salad)

Ingredients

1lb salt cod

2 yellow onions, sliced in crescents

2 sweet peppers, red or green, sliced in crescents

2 tomatoes, sliced in crescents

2 Cups shredded lettuce (or cabbage)

2 ripe avocado, sliced

2 boiling potatoes, boiled, sliced

olive oil

red wine vienegar

salt and pepper to taste

(optional:  hard cooked eggs, sliced capers)

 Directions

Desalt the cod by soaking in water to cover, refrigerated, for 3 days, changing the water one to three times a day.  Cut the cod into chunks about 1" square and place in a pan with water to cover.  Bring to boil and cook for 3 minutes.  Drain and rinse.  When cooled, flake the fish.

Arrange the vegetables and fish on a bed of the lettuce and drizzle with oil and venegar to taste.  Season with salt and pepper.

Salt Cod Salad, a little bit fancier