Friday, July 15, 2022

Spicy Honey Baked Steelhead Trout

This spicy honey baked steelhead trout is topped with mustard, chili garlic sauce, sesame oil and, of course, honey, before baking in foil for a delightful, easy dish everyone will love, especially the clean up crew. 

Food Lust People Love: This spicy honey baked steelhead trout is topped with mustard, chili garlic sauce, sesame oil and, of course, honey, before baking in foil for a delightful, easy dish everyone will love, especially the clean up crew.

Occasionally I have a specific recipe in mind when I go to the grocery store but most often, I just let what is fresh and/or a good deal determine what goes in the shopping cart. 

In the case of this dish, I was actually hoping for decent salmon but the specimens on display were sad and old looking. Fortunately, the steelhead trout was not only bright and fresh looking; it was also a better price!

The flavors of the toppings complement the tender fish so nicely and since we are baking in foil, clean up could not be easier. I removed the fillets from the foil for photos but feel free to serve these just as they bake, allowing each person to carefully open a foil packet. Let the steam out first, then enjoy!

Spicy Honey Baked Steelhead Trout

Use farmed salmon or steelhead trout, whichever is available to you. You can also use wild salmon but keep in mind that it’s a much leaner fish and so it is easily overcooked. Adjust the baking time down accordingly. This recipe is easily scaled up or down to feed one or a crowd. 

Ingredients 
Steelhead trout fillets (each about 6 oz or 170g)
fine sea salt
freshly ground black pepper

For each foil packet:
1/2 teaspoon whole grain Dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon chili garlic sauce or sambal
1/2 teaspoon cider vinegar
1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
1 1/2 teaspoons honey

Optional to garnish: 
chopped parsley

Method
Preheat your oven to 400°F or 200°C and cut large rectangles of foil for each fillet.

Rinse the fillets with water and pat dry with paper towels. Transfer each fillet to a sheet of the foil. Season lightly with salt and freshly ground black pepper.


Spread the fillets with the whole grain mustard and the chili garlic sauce or sambal. Drizzle them each with the honey, vinegar and sesame oil. 


Crimp and fold the foil lightly around the fillets and place the packets on a baking pan.  


Bake in the oven for about 15-20 minutes (depending on the thickness of your fish). The internal temperature of cooked fish is ideally 145°F or 62.8°C.

Carefully open the foil packets so you don’t get burnt by the steam.


Garnish with parsley and serve immediately hot or cool the fillets and serve at room temperature. 

This lovely fish goes well with just about any vegetable or starch but we love it with green salad, dressed lightly with a complementary vinaigrette made with whole grain mustard, cider vinegar and a bit of honey. 

Enjoy! 

Food Lust People Love: This spicy honey baked steelhead trout is topped with mustard, chili garlic sauce, sesame oil and, of course, honey, before baking in foil for a delightful, easy dish everyone will love, especially the clean up crew.

It’s time for my Fish Friday Foodie friends to share seafood recipes. This month our theme is “seafood foil packets.” Many thanks to our host Sue of Palatable Pastime. Check out all the links below.




Would you like to join Fish Friday Foodies? We post and share new seafood/fish recipes on the third Friday of the month. To join our group please email Wendy at wendyklik1517 (at) gmail.com. Visit our Facebook page and Pinterest page for more wonderful fish and seafood recipe ideas.


Pin this Spicy Honey Baked Steelhead Trout!

Food Lust People Love: This spicy honey baked steelhead trout is topped with mustard, chili garlic sauce, sesame oil and, of course, honey, before baking in foil for a delightful, easy dish everyone will love, especially the clean up crew.
 .

Tuesday, July 12, 2022

Banana Split Quick Bread #BreadBakers

This banana split quick bread is baked with all the things you love about that special dessert, save the ice cream. Serve it with a scoop, if desired but it’s wonderful treat all on its own. 

Food Lust People Love: This banana split quick bread is baked with all the things you love about that special dessert, save the ice cream. Serve it with a scoop, if desired but it’s wonderful treat all on its own.

For this month’s Bread Bakers I’m the host so I decided to take ever-popular banana bread and ask my fellow bakers to put their own spin on it. I didn’t have a recipe in mind myself and then suddenly, the deadline to bake was upon me. 

Inspiration struck at my local grocery store where some clever person had put together the ingredients (sans ice cream since it wasn’t in the freezer section) for banana splits in the hope that shoppers would take the hint. 

Crushed pineapple, maraschino cherries, chocolate sauce, pecans and, of course, bananas. Like most independent ideas I seem to have, I discovered that this one has been done before. Deep sigh. 

Banana Split Quick Bread

This recipe is adapted from one on Taste of Home. Among other changes, and since it’s cherry season, I used fresh ones instead of maraschino cherries. If you like them, feel free to use them. They do make a brighter show when the bread is sliced. 

Ingredients
1/3 cup or 75g butter
2/3 cup or 132g sugar
2 large eggs
1 3/4 cups or 218g all-purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup or 185g mashed ripe bananas (about 1 1/2 medium)
1 can (8 oz or 227g) crushed pineapple, drained
1/2 cup or 90g semisweet chocolate chips
3 1/2 oz or 100g fresh cherries (weight after stemming and pitting – about 1/2 cup chopped)
1/2 cup or 60g chopped pecans

Method
Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and line a loaf pan with baking parchment. 

Chop the cherries with a sharp knife.

Chopped cherries on a cutting board, with a small knife

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the first egg and beat until incorporated.


Add the second egg and beat well. 


Beat in the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, bananas and pineapple. 


Fold in the chocolate chips, cherries and pecans.


Spoon your thick batter into the prepared loaf pan and smooth out the top. 


Bake at for 60-65 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, rotating the pan about three-quarters of the way through. If the top is brown before it’s cooked in the middle, cover the loaf lightly with some foil. 


Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pan to wire rack.


If you can resist, leave to cool completely before cutting. 

Food Lust People Love: This banana split quick bread is baked with all the things you love about that special dessert, save the ice cream. Serve it with a scoop, if desired but it’s wonderful treat all on its own.

I just couldn’t wait and so the bread knife kind of smeared the warm chocolate bits on the cut slices. No matter, still tasted delicious! 
 
Food Lust People Love: This banana split quick bread is baked with all the things you love about that special dessert, save the ice cream. Serve it with a scoop, if desired but it’s wonderful treat all on its own.

Enjoy!

Do you like banana bread? If so, this is your month for Bread Bakers! Check out all the creative recipes below. 


#BreadBakers is a group of bread loving bakers who get together once a month to bake bread with a common ingredient or theme. Follow our Pinterest board right here. Links are also updated each month on this home page. We take turns hosting each month and choosing the theme/ingredient.



Pin this Banana Split Quick Bread!

Food Lust People Love: This banana split quick bread is baked with all the things you love about that special dessert, save the ice cream. Serve it with a scoop, if desired but it’s wonderful treat all on its own.

 .

Sunday, July 10, 2022

Pilpelchuma - Libyan Chili Paste

Spicy, garlicky pilpelchuma may be my new favorite condiment. From the Libyan Jewish tradition, it’s made with dried peppers, Aleppo pepper flakes and plenty of fresh garlic. 

Food Lust People Love: Spicy, garlicky pilpelchuma may be my new favorite condiment. From the Libyan Jewish tradition, it’s made with dried peppers, Aleppo pepper flakes and plenty of fresh garlic.

Despite living right next door to Libya in Egypt, I must confess that I knew very little about its cuisine so when our Sunday FunDay host chose Libyan food as our theme this week, I had to resort to googling. 

I discovered that there is a lot of overlap in dishes from both countries, for example, hummus, shakshouka and couscous. Like Egyptians, Libyans are also fond of lamb, mutton and harissa. 

Discovering that pasta dishes were popular during my search also took me down the rabbit hole of Libyan history where I found out that Libya was an Italian colony for almost three decades starting in 1911, until the British took control during World War II. During that war the country was the center of various battles and control shifted between the allies and the axis forces several times, making it a very dangerous place for the local Jewish population. 

Jewish Libyans were persecuted, forced into labor, sent to concentration camps and killed outright. Those who could afford to emigrated. According to Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, the Jewish population fell from 25 percent to now zero in current day Libya. 

Pilpelchuma, also called filfel chuma or maseer, is a recipe from the Jewish Libyan diaspora, those who survived the war and managed to make a life elsewhere, so I decided to make this spicy paste for my post. 

Pilpelchuma  - Libyan Chili Paste

This recipe is adapted from one on Lin’s Food but a simple search turns up myriad renditions. They all seem to have dried peppers, garlic and caraway though. You'll need a small processor and a way to grind the spices into a powder but this delicious paste is really easy to make.

Ingredients - makes 1 cup or 240ml 
15 dried red chili peppers, any sort 
1 1/2 teaspoons whole caraway seeds
1 1/2  teaspoons whole cumin seeds
15 medium-sized garlic cloves
1/3 cup or 80ml olive oil plus extra for covering before storage
1 tablespoon Aleppo pepper flakes or sub regular paprika (not smoked)
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1/2  teaspoon salt
1/2  teaspoon white sugar

Method
Cut the dried chili peppers into 2-3 pieces and put them into a small heat resistant bowl. Cover them with boiling water then cover the bowl with a saucer and leave to soak for at least 30 minutes. I got distracted by another project and mine soaked for a couple of hours. 


Toast the cumin and caraway seeds in a dry pan over a low flame. Shake the pan occasionally so they don’t burn and remove them from the stove as soon as they look a little darker and smell fragrant. 


Leave the seeds to cool for a few minutes then grind them to a fine powder in a clean coffee grinder or with a mortar and pestle. 

Use tongs to remove the soaked chili peppers from the water, leaving any seeds that fall out behind. Put them in your food processor. Peel and trim the hard ends off the cloves of garlic. 


Put the garlic in the food processor with the chili peppers and half of the olive oil. 


Process for one minute, scraping down the bowl of the processor occasionally. 


Now add in the rest of the oil, the pepper flakes (or paprika), the ground spices, lemon juice, salt and sugar.


Process till smooth. 


Store in a sterilized jar, topped with a little more olive oil, in the refrigerator. Replace the oil each time you use a little of the pipelchuma so it stays fresh. This will last a couple of weeks in the refrigerator.

Chili paste, topped with olive oil

Ideas to use pipelchuma: 

  1. Toss with roast potatoes
  2. Add a dollop to hummus, scrambled eggs or pasta
  3. Thin with a little more oil and lemon juice for a spicy salad dressing
  4. Stir through yogurt or sour cream to make dip or a topping for cooked fish
  5. Marinate chicken, beef or lamb before grilling
  6.  Stir through cooked greens, like collards, spinach or Brussels sprouts

Food Lust People Love: Spicy, garlicky pilpelchuma may be my new favorite condiment. From the Libyan Jewish tradition, it’s made with dried peppers, Aleppo pepper flakes and plenty of fresh garlic.

Enjoy! 

One of the reasons I like to take part in group posts with a theme is the opportunity they often present to learn something new so many thanks to our host, Amy of Amy’s Cooking Adventures! Check out all of the Libyan recipes below. I'm looking forward to trying a few!

We are a group of food bloggers who believe that Sunday should be a family fun day, so every Sunday we share recipes that will help you to enjoy your day. If you're a blogger interested in joining us, just visit our Facebook group and request to join.


Pin this Pilpelchuma - Libyan Chili Paste! 

Food Lust People Love: Spicy, garlicky pilpelchuma may be my new favorite condiment. From the Libyan Jewish tradition, it’s made with dried peppers, Aleppo pepper flakes and plenty of fresh garlic.

.