Recipe: Moqueca de Peixe (Bahia Seafood Stew)

Moqueca de Peixe (Bahia Seafood Stew) for 6

• juice of 1 lime
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 pound white fish fillet(s), cut into strips or chunks
• 1 pound shrimp, peeled and deveined
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 chopped red onion
• 1 chopped green bell pepper
• 1 chopped red bell pepper
• 1 bunch chopped green onions
• 5 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 large chopped tomatoes
• 1/2 cup minced fresh cilantro
• 2 (8-oz.) bottles clam juice
• 1 (14 1/2-oz.) can low sodium broth
• 1 cup coconut milk
• 1/2 teaspoon ground red chilli pepper

Combine lime, salt and pepper, garlic, fish and shrimp in a large bowl; toss or turn to coat. Marinate in refrigerator 30 minutes.

Heat oil in a large Dutch oven or stock pot over medium heat. Add onion, bell peppers, green onions, garlic, and bay leaf; cook 6 minutes, stirring occasionally. Increase heat to medium-high; add tomato, and cook 2 minutes.

Add half the cilantro, clam juice, and broth. Bring to boil; reduce heat, and simmer 10 minutes. Remove bay leaf.

Blend vegetable-and-stock mixture until smooth (I used a hand blender, but you could also transfer the mixture, 1/3 of it at a time, to a blender for pureeing). Add coconut milk and red chilli pepper to pureed vegetable mixture. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat; cook 3 minutes.

Add fish-and-shrimp mixture; cook 3 minutes or until seafood is cooked. Sprinkle with the remaining cilantro.

We had this over brown rice, but it could also be served simply as a stew.

Recipe: Avgolemono

Avgolemono is a Greek egg-lemon-rice soup, a comfort food, which we had last night alongside a simple bread stuffing with apples, dried cranberries, celery, leeks, carrots and herbs, with cranberry chutney (which I always find myself craving a second round of shortly after Thanksgiving). Since the oven was hot, I also popped in some gingerbread.

Avgolemono might be an acquired taste, be forewarned.

Avgolemono for 4
1 quart vegetable stock
1 Cup uncooked brown basmati rice (that's what I used, because it's what I have, but any brown or white rice would do)
1/3 Cup fresh-squeezed lemon juice
1 egg
a celery heart, including the leafy parts, chopped; or chopped fresh parsley, to taste; or dill, torn into bits, to taste
salt and pepper to taste

Put the rice and stock into a soup pot. Bring to boil over high heat, then turn heat to low, cover, and let simmer until the rice is tender, about 15 minutes. While the rice is cooking, chop the celery heart or parsley or tear the dill into bits and divide it among four bowls. Beat the egg and lemon juice together in a small bowl. When the rice is done, turn off the heat, whisk a big ladleful of hot -- not boiling -- stock into the egg and lemon juice. Stir the egg-lemon-juice-stock mixture into the rice-stock mixture in the soup pot and continue stirring, for up to three minutes.* Season with salt and pepper to taste and ladle the soup into the bowls over the celery/parsley.

*If you are serving this to a small child or pregnant woman and concerned about properly pasteurizing the eggs, use a thermometer and make sure the egg mixture remains at 160 degrees Fahrenheit for three minutes, or use store-bought pasteurized eggs.