Just to prove to you people that our dinners consist of more than 'beef one thousand ways', here is an appetizer that made us very happy one recent evening.
I had made a run to Whole Foods on Waterman for some fish, and ended up buying some of the most delicate and flavorful cod ever, plus some of their lovely mustard-flavored panko crumbs. (What can I say, it's become a habit of mine. Habit and routine lead to a dull spirit, I agree with Mr. Samuel Beckett on this, but I cannot help falling over into that abyss every now and then...I am weak, and severely lacking in the self-discipline department, especially in snowy, cold winter. But I digress.)
Whole Foods also had an array of unusual-for-them whole fish, some cleaned and gutted, some not. There were gorgeous smelts, whole halibut, whole sea bass, whole grouper, and the rarely-seen-in-these-parts whole sardines!
But what jumped out at me and whispered sweet nothings in my ear were the fresh Maine shrimp. I'd had them before and remembered the briny - almost nutty - flavor, the tender texture, the taste of the crisp winter sea.
Plus, they were I think $3.99 a pound. So, I bought a pound, thinking I'd figure something out - maybe lunch for me? Maybe an appetizer for us?
My altruism took over and I decided to share. (The man even offered to help peel the little buggers! I think perhaps he didn't expect me to say yes to this offer, but say yes I did.)
Inspired at the 11th hour, I chopped some fresh garlic, mixed it with some chili oil that we'd saved from a recent Little Chopsticks delivery (they have the best hot oil, by the way...and homemade Chinese mustard, and it's so worth it to eat their food even though it makes you so bloated for at least 2 days...plus they are lightning-fast in their delivery and so so nice...but this is clearly fodder for another post), and popped the whole concoction under the broiler. They were done in no time at all.
I called it 'Pil-Pil' because when we were in Spain last May, every seafood appetizer that was garlicky and spicy (and usually shrimpy as well) was called Pil-Pil. The man got sick of it, but that was then. This is now. Try it, if you can.
You won't be disappointed.
I'd finally use it in a very healthy concoction including brown rice and red lentils, thereby preventing any potential unused vegetable remorse as well as creating a large batch of a healthy dish I could pick at over the next few days of dining solo, which is not my dining method of choice, to say the least. It was an attempt to assuage my spirit through the catharsis of cooking in a big pot, use up a withering squash, and make a healthy dish that our resident obligate carnivore would no doubt abhor.