My 15 Minutes of Culinary Fame

About 6 months ago, I was a contestant on the "Stump the Chef" segment of NPR's Splendid Table, "the show for people who love to eat!" You can listen to the segment at the 15:22 mark here -- basically, I called in with a list of 5 things that I had in my fridge and the host, Lynne Rossetto Kasper, had to make a recipe out of it that I would choose to cook, and that the celebrity judge (in this case, chef Mario Batali) also thinks is acceptable.

Here's what I had in my fridge:

Leftover fishcakes (made with salt cod, potatoes, onions and Newfoundland savoury); a bunch of rapini; a hunk of 7-year-old New York State cheddar; a bottle of rhubarb wine from Nova Scotia; and partridgeberries, aka lingonberries, or as I like to think of them, a cross between cranberries and a moose. ("A moose with horns!")

Truth be told though, when I told Kelly after my little interview what we would be cooking up, she said, "Oh, those fishcakes are long gone."  As fishcakes come around this house but once a year, on Christmas Eve, we were forced to wait six entire months to make the dish. Needless to say, in that period of time, the cheese also disappeared, so it was replaced by 8-year-old Canadian cheddar. (The rhubarb wine, unaccountably, didn't go anywhere.)

Fear not, the rapini was fresh too. Here we blanch it, as directed by Lynne, and as is our usual practice anyway.

The rapini was drained and then into the pan went some butter ("Do you have any butter?") and garlic.

And then the blanched rapini to which, when lightly browned, we added the partridgeberries.  ("Really?")
















Very Christmassy. Out of the pan and onto the platter:
 














This year's fishcakes were possibly the best I have ever made. The mater-in-law visited for the hols and brought the salt cod from home. From Belbin's, St. John's shi-shi grocery store, so very high pedigree. She had to get a special permit to leave the province with it. Plus, I followed my sister's rule of binding the cakes with cream rather than eggs. They did not bind quite as well but they were much more tender than the usual variety.

We crumbled them up, brushed them with butter, and ran them under a hot broiler.
















Ta-da! Fishcake croutons!

Next challenge: the rhubarb wine. Was it slightly sweet, as I thought? Yes. Was it nasty, as Mario feared? YES!

 

However, once added to the pan juices and some berries that we left in the pan, it reduced down quite well. It almost looked like something you'd like to eat!

Something you'd drizzle over a mound of crusty little fishcake croutons on bed of partridgeberry-goosed rapini.

Shave a little of that very sharp and crumbly cheddar on top ...



















 



Et voila!

The three of us sat down and had at it.

The verdict? Surprisingly good. I had been keen on the fishcake croutons since the get-go, and they didn't disappoint: salty, crunchy, and buttery. I tried to be nice about the partridgeberry/rapini combo while on the radio (you try telling Lynne Rossetto Kasper that she doesn't know what she's talking about, foodwise ... not possible!) but I really wasn't that enthusiastic about it. Yet the two strong flavours, one bracing and bitter and the other rich and tart, blended together seamlessly, perhaps helped along by the slghtly melted cheese shavings. The wine and berry reduction could easily have been done with any crisp and fruity white, and provided a really crisp, light note at the end.  Who'd a thunk it?

Our friend Murr, whom some of us call Murre, the proper name for the seabird/dinner dish that Newfoundlanders call turrs, wants me to call up Splendid Table again and tell them I have a brace of turrs in the fridge. Wonder how they'd do with that? Oh, I also have a bag of turnip greens, some riblets, bakeapples, and a pack of Purity lemon creams.  Lynne, are you there?