A study on Ginger and Saffron

My family recently went to the "molecular" restaurant Beaumé, and one dish there that particularly interested me was the turbot with turmeric cream, chanterelles, and pickled kohlrabi. Beaumé cooked the turbot "sous-vide" and placed it in the bright yellow sauce. The pickled kohlrabi added a nice bright touch to the soft dish.

Beaumé's turbot

Inspired by this dish and by the saffron my family received as a gift, I decided to make a variation on this recipe. I was curious about the combination of ginger and saffron, so I put together a menu using both spices.

The Menu:

• Cod poached in ginger, kefir lime leaves, and lemongrass
• Colorful vegetables in dashi and ginger broth
• Saffron rice pilaf
• Saffron and Ginger bechamel

The cod and vegetables turned out well. For the vegetables, I found a bundle of heirloom carrots (purple, red, and yellow) to which I added leeks and celery. I boiled some water with dashi granules, ginger, lemon grass, and kefir limes leaves to make a flavored broth for both the vegetables and fish, and I added more ginger to the vegetables as they cooked. 

The carrots

The vegetables

The rice did not go as smoothly. I bloomed the saffron in boiling water to try to get the flavor and color out of it, but the rice did not end up becoming yellow. My mother says that I should have have ground up the saffron with a mortar before blooming it. Well, now I know! And even though the rice was not yellow, it still tasted of saffron.
To make the pilaf, I sautéed some leeks in a tbsp of butter, then added the riced and sautéed it for a couple minutes as well. I made a broth of saffron juice (saffron + boiling water + kefir lime leaf + time) and a cube of vegetable bouillon. Per traditional pilaf method, I added enough broth to cover the rice, brought it to a simmer, and then stirred/added more broth as needed until the rice cooked through.

The Bechamel was tricky. I heated some milk with saffron and ginger to get flavor. In a saucepan I cooked 1 tbsp flour in 1 tbsp melted butter for a couple minutes and then added the milk a little bit at a time, stirring well after each addition, until the sauce was the desired thickness. Because I don't have much experience, my sauce ended up a bit curdled, so I strained it to remove the bits. Like for the rice, the sauce was not yellow because I had not ground the saffron before infusing the milk.

To replace the kohlrabi, I made some pickled ginger (this recipe, it was a bit too salty)

And here is the final plate.

Bento #1: Hoisin salmon, spinach, carrot kinpira, and sushi rice

Sooo I started my job this week, but my job does not have a physical location, so I work whereever I want to. Today I decided to work at the library, so I made myself a bento lunch. I had been wanting to try making bento for a while (I was especially inspired by justbento.com; I even bought her cookbook!)
In today's bento I put some leftover hoisin glazed salmon and vietnamese spinach that I had frozen last week. I also had about 3/4 cup of "sushi rice" (read more to learn why I put quotations there) and some carrot kinpira, blanched bean sprouts, and "pickled" cucumber from the Just Bento cookbook. I had prepared the carrots and bean sprouts last friday, and they were fine today, although not as delicious as they were fresh on Friday. Especially the carrots, those were really darn good. The salmon was a tad dry, but the spinach was good.

The rice, however, kinda failed. It was mushy and the flavor ratio was off. I think one issue is that I put too much water in the rice cooker because I was trying to cook only half a cup of rice but the rice cooker does not have half cup markings. I also was not sure how much vinegar mixture to put into the rice. Well, with practice I'll get the hang of it.

As a sidenote: this recipe looks delicious.

Le Marché de Suresnes

Last Saturday, my parents and I decided to go out to a boulangerie for breakfast and visit Suresnes's farmer's market.

The delicious croissants from the local boulangerie.

From the bakery we walked to the nearby market. We did not have any plans to buy anything, but we wanted to look around. The market had two sections, a giant indoor food market, and some clothes vendors outside. Being me, I only really paid attention to the indoor section.

Of course, there were several cheese vendors and many different types of cheese made locally or imported from other parts of France, Spain, Portugal, etc... The bottom cheese picture was of a vendor specialized in goat cheeses.

Calamari

Eel

A great thing about France is that you can easily buy whole fish. The market had several fishmongers and seafood stands, and all of them had splendid collections of fresh looking whole and not whole fish, including sardines! (Freshly grilled sardines are way above canned sardines on the tastiness scale)

In addition to the usual beef, pork, and chicken, french markets have meats that are not very common in the US. The top picture is of a skinned rabbit, and the bottom one is a sign for a horse meat butcher.

Ravioli

Freshly made pasta.

Spices

And, yes, the market does also have fruits and vegetables (a plurality of the stands had fruit and/or vegetables)

There were also a couple bakeries with tasty looking cakes and breads.

We had not planned on buying anything, but everything looked so good that we ended up getting some chorizo, wine, and a lebanese crêpe-like appetizer to bring to my grandfather's house.

Claypot Catfish in an Ironpot using Red Snapper

Last November I gave my mother a small iron pot for her birthday. I then used it to try to make claypot catfish following this recipe, but using tilapia instead of catfish (I couldn't find any catfish). It was tasty, but it was different from the kind you find in restaurants. It was soup-like, perhaps caused by the fact that the small pot was filled to the brim with fish and liquid.
Anyways, I tried making some again, but without a recipe. I used red snapper because, once again, our local supermarket did not carry catfish. The first time, I noticed the fish was still white and soft, so this time I decided to first pan fry (pot fry) the fish. I put the fish away in a bowl and replaced it with three cloves of garlic and the same amount of ginger chopped into "chips". I cooked the garlic and ginger with some fish sauce, soy sauce and a spoonful of sugar taking care to scrape the small bits of fish stuck on the bottom of the pot into the sauce. Next I I placed the fish back into the pot and mixed it as one would mix a salad to get dressing on every leaf. It continued to cook for about five minutes, and then it was time to eat!
My dad and I decided to serve it with chinese wheat noodles and a cucumber-carrot-lettuce salad. It was tasty, but a bit on the salty side. Next time I will omit the soy sauce.