Here Fishy Fishy!!!!

I am from the Monterey, California area so I grew up eating fish. Salmon, Shrimp, Crab, Bass etc. etc. I love fish so when I saw this recipe I thought it was going to turn out awesome. It looked pretty easy but in fact it was harder than I thought. Here we have a fish appetizer called Tres Amigos. I don't really get the name besides that it has 3 different kinds of fish. The first step is to make a compound butter. A compound butter is butter that is flavored with anything. It is used as a flavor agent. This was my first time making or using a compound butter but my Dad has made them in the past to put on a steak and it was awesome. The first step was to bring 1 lb of butter to room temperature. Nothing like a little butter to start right? I then chopped up a shallot finely and sweat it in some olive oil over a medium skillet. Now I have not used shallots very often but find that they look like a really big brown garlic. It tastes more like an onion than garlic and has a very mild flavor. This is what it looks like.

Now there is a difference between saute and sweat. When you put the onion into the pan and you hear that sizzle stop because you are sauteing. To sweat is to bring the liquid out and therefore is a very slow process but it makes the flavor more rich. I then added white wine and then let it reduce until "dry" which means no liquid left in the pan.

Then I took it off the heat and folded in some parsley. Flat leaf Italian parsley to be exact. Now I am not a fan of parsley and especially curly parsley. It must be from all of those days working at Applebee's putting that limp green on every plate. I then took the yummy pound of butter and put it into the mixer and added salt and pepper. I then poured the shallot mixture into the butter and mixed and then folded the home grown basil into the butter.

I then placed the butter onto some wax paper. Well, it called for wax paper but all I had was parchment paper, and then I rolled it into a log shape and put it into the freezer for the night.

Now time for the fishy.... Scallops, salmon and halibut to be exact. I was in luck that Bashas had both fresh Scallops and Salmon. Of course for a ridiculous price but its all in the name of science right. I actually had some halibut in my freezer so on I went. For you fish virgins, the white fish on the left is the halibut and the one on the right is salmon. Both yummy.

I bought 1/2 a pound of each and then attempted to slice them into four eight strips which is ALOT harder than it seems. I am not sure if it is because I have crappy, not sharp knives or what but I ended up having to saw the fish which in turn made it mushy and not pretty. This in turn made the rest of the process very VERY difficult.

The goal was to create thin strips and then to layer the strips, one halibut and then one salmon to wrap around the scallop. Do you know what a scallop is???? I knew it was some kind of fish, I have seen my mom eat one or two in her time but not exactly sure what kind of "fish" it was. Thanks to wikipedia it is an "abductor" muscle that is housed in a very pretty shell. Yummy :) Actually yes. The goal of this recipe is to create a "rose" like look around the scallop. This is WAY easier said than done. Because of my poor carving skills ( I definitely could not work at a sushi bar) the pieces of the salmon and halibut were not long enough to wrap around the entire scallop. Now thinking about it, I wonder if there are different size scallops and the ones I used were too big. Here is what mine turned out to look like.

As I said before, I do not have a broiling pan so as you can see I have my makeshift one. :) I then cut a small slice of the compound butter log and placed a slice on each scallop. I then placed it into the broiler for 8 minutes.

Now AB states to serve the fish medium rare which is a little scary to me. I know some people eat raw fish but on this day, I guess I wasn't up to testing the limits of my stomach. On another note, I did just tried Sushi for the first time which has made me love fish more and more. Don't be scared if you haven't. It is amazing!!! Ok, that was my rant for today. So because I was scared of raw fish, I cooked it for another 2 minutes. After a total of 10 minutes I removed the fish and served.

Overall I turned out really pretty. I was excited to try it. I am guessing it is meant to be eating in one bite which we both attempted to due but it was difficult which again makes me think the scallops were too big. The fish was "I think" cooked. It was good but I could only eat one or two because it is ALOT of fish for one bite. I think the thing that made it was the compound butter. It was so yummy. I am glad I have an extra log for some steak for chicken next week. :) With regards to taste, it was ok. I would not make this recipe again because I am not confident in my fish cutting skills. I will have to work on that. :) Next up is broiled chicken breast.

One other thing. I finally read and watched the movie Julie and Julia. The book and movie were ok. I was slightly disappointed. Maybe because I was expecting more. Anyways, I am hoping to make this blog a little more exciting. Please join me in giving me suggestions on how to improve. :) I wonder if anyone else is even reading this besides my mom. Hopefully yes. :)