For the grill

Jim Ryan is busy gearing for the annual Grillin’ on the Bay competition, but the Sheepshead Bay cook was willing to share with us the recipe for one of his favorites — marinated catfish. Fire up the grill!

Marinated catfish

Recipe courtesy of Jim Ryan

Serves eight

Ingredients

1/2 cup soy sauce

2 tbsp. sugar

2 tbsp. fresh lemon juice and zest of lemon

2 tsp. granulated garlic

2 tsp. ground pepper

1 tsp. salt

8 catfish fillets

Directions

Combine all ingredients in a nonreactive bowl and blend well. Rinse fish and pat dry. Put fish in a Ziploc bag and pour in marinade.  Mix it around to coat all over. Start your fire to medium hot and throw in a small handful of wood chips (soaked in water a half hour).

Remove fish from marinade. Put marinade in a small pot and boil for five minutes. Set aside this is your baste. Spray your cooking grate with cooking spray, place on grill and put the fish on it. 

Cover and cook until the fish flakes, basting with the marinade every two minutes or so.

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Quesadilla: Spanish for fast food

By Helen Klein

Quesadillas are a culinary standby in my home — they’re easy to make, and incredibly versatile.

Just put together a savory mixture of vegetables and beans, top with cheese, fold into a tortilla and broil for a couple of minutes, and you have a flavorful main course that’s ready for prime time.

For this recipe, I combined chopped onion, garlic, celery and red pepper and sautéed till they were limp and the onions were translucent and caramelized. Then, I added a can of black beans (drained) and small cubes of crookneck squash (you could easily substitute zucchini).

After the squash had softened a bit, I added about half a cup of homemade tomato sauce I had in the fridge, and flavored the mixture with cumin, a pinch of very spicy habañero chili powder and salt and pepper.

Black Bean Quesadillas

Serves four

Ingredients

1 small onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, chopped

1 stalk celery, chopped

1 colored pepper, seeded and chopped

2 tbl. olive oil

1 15-oz. can black beans, drained and rinsed

1 summer squash, cut into 1/4-inch cubes

1/2–3/4 cup favorite tomato sauce

1 tsp. cumin

Pinch habañero chili powder (substitute regular chili powder if you don’t like very spicy food)

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

5 oz. Monterey Jack with jalapeño peppers, coarsely grated

4 eight-inch wheat tortillas

Non-stick cooking spray

Extra virgin olive oil, for brushing quesadillas

Directions

Preheat oven to broil.

Sauté onion, garlic, celery and pepper till softened in olive oil over medium-high heat, stirring to prevent burning. When vegetables are soft, add squash and beans, and continue cooking till squash is tender, adding a splash of water, as necessary, to prevent burning.

Add tomato sauce and spices and continue cooking another 5-10 minutes to blend flavors and heat through.

While vegetable mixture is cooking, spray a baking sheet lightly with non-stick cooking spray.

When the mixture is done, place a tortilla on the baking sheet, and top with a generous scoop of vegetables and beans, all to one side. Top with a generous sprinkling of cheese and fold over. Brush top with a little extra virgin olive oil. Continue with remaining tortillas.

When all tortillas are stuffed, place baking sheet in broiler and cook till top is golden and crisp, 1-3 minutes. Keep a careful eye on the quesadillas, as the tortillas can go from golden to burnt in just a few seconds.

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A quick and easy tabouli - with couscous!

By Helen Klein

The ingredients to a mouth-watering Middle Eastern side dish may lie just in your cupboard. All you need is couscous, that highly versatile pasta.

Tossed with citrus juice, chopped herbs and a little olive oil, a pint container of the stuff is reinvented as tabouli, almost effortlessly morphing into a side dish for lunch or a light dinner that also adds a note of brightness to a cold winter day.

I used cilantro, cumin, lemon juice and scallions in my version because that’s what I had at hand, and the combination evoked the myriad delights of the Middle Eastern table. But, I could just as easily have used garlic in place or in addition to the scallions, ground coriander instead of the cumin, and dill or mint and parsley instead of the cilantro.

Couscous Tabouli

Serves 6 as a side dish

 

Ingredients

2 cups cooked couscous

3 scallions, chopped

1 loosely packed cup cilantro, chopped

2 tbl. freshly squeezed lemon juice

4 tbl. extra virgin olive oil

1 tsp. ground cumin

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Chopped tomatoes, for garnish

Directions

Toss the couscous with the scallions and cilantro, breaking up clumps of the couscous as you mix.

Combine lemon juice, olive oil, cumin, salt and pepper in a screw top jar and shake to combine. Dress couscous mixture and stir to blend, taste and correct seasoning, then turn out onto serving plate.

Distribute tomatoes around the edge of the couscous mixture to garnish.

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Get to the root of it all with this slaw

By Helen Klein

It’s in the frigid depths of winter that root vegetables can really come into their own.

When the kitchen becomes a refuge against howling winds, and summer produce — freshly picked tomatoes or crunchy cucumbers — is but a distant memory, cabbage, radishes and carrots shine. They are crisp and flavorful, and, when served cold in a salad, provide a balance to the warm, soft, spicy foods which fit the bill when the mercury dips.

I developed this slaw, for instance, as a counterpoint to curried butternut squash that I had mashed and fried up in spring roll skins. The cilantro and poppy seeds were chosen to provide a vaguely Eastern flavor, though the dish would have gone equally well with tacos, as a side dish for a quick lunch sandwich, or stuffed into a piece of pita bread on top of chunks of grilled chicken.

Like pretty much everything I make, the recipe lends itself to variation, as long as you keep in mind the general principle of contrasting flavors. Raw turnip could stand in for the radish. All red or green cabbage could be used (though you would lose the gorgeous color contrast). Instead of carrots, you could throw in a handful of raisins for sweetness.

Confetti Slaw

Serves six as a side dish

Ingredients

1/4 green cabbage

1/4 red cabbage

4-inch length daikon radish, peeled

2 carrots, peeled

1/4 sweet onion

Juice of 1/2 lemon

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1 clove of garlic, finely chopped

1/2 cup cilantro, chopped

1 tsp. poppy seeds

Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Directions

Shred cabbage, radish, carrots and onion. Set aside.

In small bowl, combine lemon juice, mayonnaise, garlic, cilantro, poppy seeds and salt and pepper. Add to vegetable mixture and stir thoroughly to combine.

Chill for at least 1 hour.

Adjust flavorings and serve.

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Burgers, burgers, burgers!

It's all about the burgers in this week's issue. We've got a rundown on the expensive burger trend that's running rampant in our fair borough, the latest edition being the $15 offer at Fatty 'Cue (pictured); a list of the best under-$10 burgers in the borough, as well as a recipe from Morton's chef Joe Raiola on how to make a killer burger at home. All that's missing is the bun!

What do you think? Are burgers becoming too expensive? Or are they priced fairly? And where do you go to grab a good burger for under $10?

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