I am continuing my quest to explore the limits of the deviled egg and this one is the most fun so far! Sushi deviled eggs hit all the right notes for a show-stopping appetizer: delicious, fun-to-eat, elegant and beautiful.
They are easy to make, too. The hardest part about making these sushi deviled eggs is getting those little tobiko eggs (flying fish roe) in the seaweed. You can avoid the hassle altogether by making an indentation in the wasabi-yolk and scooping a mound of tobiko on top. Stick a little piece of seaweed on top and you have an elegant appetizer any expensive restaurant would be happy to serve.
I get my tobiko (also known as tobikko) from a Russian market near downtown Miami called Marky’s Caviar. If you are a serious foodie in Miami searching for an experience; I highly recommend a stop in Marky’s. It’s like going to Disney World. Without rides…and lots of fish eggs.
So maybe it isn’t like Disney World. But if I had a choice of one or the other (money aside), I would probably choose Marky’s.
Marky’s sells tobiko in little glass jars for around $5.00. It’s not expensive, and it comes in all sorts of pretty colors: red, green, black and orange. It’s the same stuff you see on top of sushi. Tobiko is sweet and salty and pops in your mouth. I could seriously eat it by the spoonful.
It just seems right to top a hardboiled egg with more tiny eggs. Throw in some wasabi and toasted seaweed and you had me at hello.
I suggest serving these with some pickled ginger on the side. They don’t need soy sauce, but you could offer it (or maybe some ponzu) at your next dinner party. I don’t actually have many dinner parties myself nowadays with a toddler underfoot, but if I did, these sushi deviled eggs would be at the top of my must-have appetizer list.
Adapted from Martha Stewart’s Wasabi Deviled Eggs
Note: I made these green with a sprinkle of matcha tea powder. If you add enough wasabi to make the yolks green, you just may choke from how spicy they are.
Note: If making ahead, boil and peel the eggs. Store them submerged in water in a food container until you are ready to assemble (1-2 days).
Ingredients
Method
Place eggs in a medium saucepan in a single layer. Add 1 teaspoon of baking soda and enough water to cover eggs completely (the baking soda helps them to peel). Bring to a boil. Simmer for 5 minutes. Cover and remove from heat. Allow to sit for 10 minutes. Drain and run cold water over the eggs or place into an ice bath to cool.
Carefully peel the eggs. Cut them in half lengthwise or crosswise. If you are cutting them crosswise, slice off a tiny slice at the rounded bottom of each egg half so they sit upright.
Scoop or pop out the yolks into a bowl. Mash with a fork until very smooth. Add the mayonnaise, wasabi and vinegar. Season with salt and matcha tea powder (optional). Pipe or spoon the wasabi egg yolk into the egg whites.
With scissors, cut the seaweed sheets into 1/2 inch strips about 2 ½ inches long. Dip your finger in water and wet one end of the strip. Roll into a circle or oval shape and insert into the center of each egg yolk.
Using a very small spoon or chopsticks, fill the seaweed with tobiko caviar. Serve with pickled ginger (optional).
http://loveandduckfat.com/sushi-deviled-eggs-elegant-appetizer-recipe/
Do you want even more elegant deviled egg recipes? Check out these:
I have to admit, I don’t cook very many Mexican dishes—but when I do, pork canitas is one of my favorites. Pork carnitas is slow cooked pork with lots of garlic, spices and citrus. It can be easily made on the stove top in a large pot or your dutch oven. After a few hours of cooking, you end up mounds of tender, juicy pork that fall apart with a fork. It’s full of flavor and perfect for tacos one night and a casserole the next.
I like to cook a pork roast about once a month. It’s easy to throw the ingredients in a pot on a Sunday and let it cook without a lot of fuss. The pork slowly simmers on the stove and I end up with enough for several meals (in our small family), plus more to freeze for another round of meals. It may sound like something that is difficult to do, but pork carnitas is actually very easy, and your family will be so happy with the delicious results.
Pork Carnitas Tacos are great to serve for Cinco De Mayo, in fact, I’ll be pulling my stash from my freezer just for the occasion. Serve your tacos with homemade pico de gallo and, some shredded cabbage and corn tortillas and you have yourself a delicious, authentic Mexican meal. Another delicious way to use this pork is for breakfast like in this roast pork eggs Benedict with cilantro hollandaise.
Btw…be on the lookout on your grocery store shelf for La Tortilla Factory Hand Made Style Yellow Corn Tortillas. They are drastically better than the ones I’ve purchased before. They don’t fall apart, yet still have that delicious corn taste.
Ingredients
Method
Using a dutch oven or any large, heavy-bottomed pot, heat the oil and add the oregano, cumin, onion and garlic. Saute for about 8 minutes, and then place the pork on top. Add enough water to just cover the meat. Add the jalapeno, bay leaves, lime juice and squeeze the orange juice into the pot and bring to a simmer. Reduce the heat to low and cook for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.
Uncover the pot and continue to cook on medium-low heat, at a vigorous simmer another 1 ½ to 2 hours. Skim the foam or fat off the top as it cooks. When the pork is tender and much of the liquid has evaporated, use 2 forks to pull the meat apart in the pot (you can leave big chunks at this point). Increase the heat to medium-high and cook another 20 minutes, letting the liquid evaporate and the meat caramelize and brown in the fat left in the pan.
Remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly. Remove the bay leaves. Shred the meat thoroughly and discard any large chunks of fat.
http://loveandduckfat.com/pork-carnitas-tacos-cinco-de-mayo/
I thought I was finished making baby food a while ago when I posted my last baby food recipe at the end of November. It turns out I was wrong! My son, who is now 16 months old, refused to let me feed him at 10 months. Since then, he’s been feeding himself a very picky diet of organic cheese, cereal, dried fruit, bread, crackers and the occasional strawberry. Anything else lands directly on the floor. Did you see a vegetable in that list? Nope. He will stick a handful of sand into his mouth no problem. A perfectly roasted and maple glazed carrot? No way! Since he started self-feeding, he gets his vegetables from those expensive organic baby food pouches or when I add spinach or zucchini to his daily fruit smoothies.
Those store-bought organic baby food pouches can get expensive; costing almost $2 each for just 4 ounces. He eats up to three of them a day. This is why I purchased refillable snack pouches and started making my own homemade baby food recipes again, like this apple, blueberry spinach and banana puree. I’ll be posting more “sneaky veggie” baby food recipes as I go along. They all focus on adding vegetables and protein to tasty fruit purees and are so yummy, little ones don’t mind a bit.
Apple, Blueberry & Spinach Puree
This recipe for apple, blueberry, banana & spinach puree is one of our favorites. It has a beautiful blue color (which hides the spinach well). It’s so tasty; I sometimes squirt some into his milk and give it a shake to make blueberry milk!
I have to mention the reusable pouches I bought. I’m trying two different brands right now to see which ones I (we) like better, the Squoochi or the Little Green Pouch. Have you tried them? So far, I love that they both are dishwasher safe and freeze well. Also, the tops are all interchangeable with the store-bought pouches—a handy thing in case you lose one. I use my handy Cuisinart Mini Prep to get a smooth puree. It’s easy to clean and the perfect size for small batches of baby food.
I hope your little ones enjoy this recipe. Stay tuned for the next hidden veggie recipe! Until then, check out 10 delicious homemade baby food recipes.
Ingredients
Method
In a small saucepan, heat apple and blueberries over medium heat. Add water or juice and reduce to a simmer. Cover and cook until the apples are soft and the blueberries break down. Add the spinach and stir until wilted. Allow to cool.
Using a food processor, puree the apple mixture with the banana. Add water, milk or formula if you want a thinner consistency.
http://loveandduckfat.com/apple-blueberry-spinach-puree-homemade-baby-food-recipe/
Disclosure: this post contains an affiliate link to a product I use and purchased myself.
There was a restaurant in Salem, Massachusetts that served halibut with sherry cream sauce and I still crave it fifteen years later. They served a perfectly pan-seared filet of halibut perched on top of a bed of creamy mashed potatoes with asparagus. The best part was the intensely-flavored sherry cream sauce. Fantastic paired with any fish or seafood; this sauce is incredibly tasty.
Halibut with Sherry cream sauce
This is the kind of sauce that can be difficult to create at home because the secret is in the stock. In the restaurant, they had an ample supply of shrimp and lobster shells, along with celery tops, herbs and onion skins available. Boiled for an afternoon, the stock was then strained and reduced with sherry and lots of cream. The result was a heady jolt of fresh seafood flavor, along with the flavors of celery and herbs mingling with sweet sherry.
Home chefs usually don’t go to all that trouble. Who has the time? With a baby at home, I sure don’t!
With a little creativity, I managed to make a pretty close approximation of the dish with easy-to-find ingredients. It didn’t take me all day and everyone loved it. I substituted a slab of roasted cauliflower for the mashed potatoes. It’s a fun way to serve this vegetable, and a great substitute for buttery mashed potatoes.
Do you have a favorite restaurant dish you would love to make at home? Please share in the comments!
Halibut with Sherry cream sauce
Ingredients
Method
Heat a heavy saucepan on medium heat. Melt the butter and add the shallots and celery. Sauté for 10 minutes, until the vegetables are lightly caramelized but not brown. Add the garlic and cook for 2 minutes more.
Deglaze the pan with the stock and sherry. Add the tomato paste and bring to a simmer. Continue to cook on low heat until the mixture is reduced, about 10 minutes.
Add the heavy cream and cook on low heat for 5 more minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Pat the halibut fillets dry and season both sides with salt and pepper.
Add olive oil in a skillet until shimmering. Add the halibut and cook on medium high heat until brown on the bottom, about five minutes. Flip the fillets and add the butter to the pan. Cook 2 minutes longer, tilting the pan and spooning the butter over the top of the fillets. Transfer fillets to a plate.
It’s fitting that my first post of the year is a soup recipe, and this white bean and sausage soup is one of my favorites. I’ve gushed over soup before and I’ll probably do it again. I make one, sometimes two a week because I just love soup. There’s nothing better on a cold winter evening than a delicious broth filled with tender greens, hearty white beans and savory sausage.
Note: when I say “cold” I mean a January 65 degree low in Miami and I’m still in flip flops. That’s all the cold we get in the winter. Don’t hate me.
Did you know January is national soup month here in the good old US of A? It’s the perfect time to bring out the big soup pot with this is a star of a soup. White bean and sausage soup is a comforting, home-cooked meal, but it’s also elegant. A soups like this is deceptively easy to make, only requiring some chopping, a bit of a sauté and a little time on the stove. The result is a hearty, healthy and satisfying meal for the whole family. Serve with warm, crusty bread and a glass of wine, while you imagine you are in Italy. (This Italy fantasy passes through my head every time.)
Ok, I’m finished gushing. Happy new year everyone and may there be more soup in your future.
White bean and sausage soup
Ingredients
Method
Fill a large pot with water and add the dried beans. Bring to a boil and cook for 2 minutes. Remove from the heat and allow the beans to sit in the water for 1 hour. Drain and rinse beans.
Heat olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add onions and cook until soft, but not brown, about 8 minutes. Add garlic and cook for 1 minute. Add beans, chicken broth, wine, cheese rind, salt, pepper, bay leaf and rosemary to the pot. Bring to a simmer. Cover and cook on low heat for 50 minutes.
Brown the sausage in a skillet and drain on paper towels. Add the carrots and sausage to the pot. If you are using kale, add it to the pot now. Cook another 15 minutes. If you are using spinach or Swiss chard, add to the pot before serving, stirring until wilted and tender. Taste and season with salt and pepper before serving.
I’m writing this blog after a succession of recipe “fails” that has me wondering if I should be writing recipes at all. They weren’t epic fails, but when you botch a birthday cake, Christmas cookies and sugar cookies within a few weeks, it’s enough to shake your confidence. Then I think about why I started Love and Duck Fat in the first place. One of the reasons was to challenge myself to learn something new. When you challenge yourself, there are usually failures involved, or it wouldn’t be a challenge.
Baking (and dessert making in general) is hard for me. Why? It requires precision. I spent years as an artist learning to embrace happy accidents, paint drips, imprecise lines and sloppy paint. This is very hard to do when you are trained from childhood to color within the lines. I learned to love imprecision because it was more beautiful, wild and freeing. Even to the viewer’s eyes. That is what I wanted to aspire to in art, and I can’t say I ever got there, but I was close.
Baking is just the opposite. It requires exact measurements, precise cooking times and a perfectly steady hand if you want your decorating to look anything close to edible. So I challenge myself with chocolate pumpkin cakes, but I am the first to admit baking is not my forte.
I am embracing my fails as learning experiences and moving on, albeit in a direction I’m more comfortable: seafood.
Salmon with dill sauce, Beluga lentils, sautéed leeks
I was able to get my hands on a gorgeous fillet of wild Sockeye salmon, and paired it with a creamy dill sauce, black Beluga lentils and sautéed leeks. I love the color of the salmon against the dramatic black of the lentils, similar to another recipe where I paired salmon with black rice. The Beluga lentils are a little more expensive and hard to find (buy them on Amazon). They are round in appearance and glisten like caviar, thus the name. You can substitute French green or brown lentils, and the taste will be just as good.
Salmon with dill sauce, Beluga lentils, sautéed leeks
Ingredients
Method
Bring the lentils, vegetable broth, and 1 teaspoon of salt to a boil in a heavy saucepan. Add the garlic clove and bay leaf. Reduce heat to a simmer. Cover and cook on low heat for 20-25 minutes until lentils are tender-firm. Drain and return to the pan. Drizzle with extra virgin olive oil and lemon juice. Season to taste with salt and freshly ground pepper. Keep warm and covered.
While the lentils are cooking, prepare the leeks. I like to cut them in half crosswise, and then quarter them lengthwise, into strips. Wash them well in cold water to make sure all the sand is removed. Dry well before cooking.
Heat olive oil and butter in a large skillet. Add the leeks and cook on medium-low heat for about 10 minutes or more, turning every few minutes. You want them to brown slightly and become very soft. Sprinkle with salt and taste.
Pat salmon dry and season both sides with salt and pepper. Heat the oil or butter on medium-high heat in a nonstick skillet. When hot, place the salmon in the skillet, skin-side-down. Place a sprig of dill on each piece. Cook the salmon for 4 minutes, then turn. Cook another 2-4 minutes, depending on the thickness of each piece, and how you prefer to serve. Remove to a plate.
Pour the white wine into the hot pan. Add the minced garlic and cook for 2 minutes. Add the cream and cook for another 2-5 minutes, until the mixture is thickened and creamy. Add the chopped dill and lemon juice. Season with salt and fresh pepper to taste.
http://loveandduckfat.com/salmon-dill-sauce-beluga-lentils-sauteed-leeks/
In the spirit of full disclosure, this post contains an affiliate link to a product I purchased and used myself. I recommend this product. If you decide to buy any of these items, I may be able to buy a cheap cup of coffee someday from the commission I receive.
