Posts Tagged Tarragon
Seared Tilapia with Lemon-Tarragon Sauce and Spinach Orzo
Posted by Eileen Devlin in Low Calorie, Main Course, Pasta, Seafood, Vegetables on January 24th, 2010
Although I much prefer “meatier” fish like salmon or mahi-mahi, this was very, very good. The tilapia is seasoned very well here and so it doesn’t have that “fish” smell and taste to it. And I love it when I find recipes that have an accompaniment included!
For Tilapia:
1.5 lbs fresh/frozen tilapia or other lean whitefish
1 tsp seasoned salt ( I used more though)
1 tbsp olive oil
1/4 c dry white wine
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp dijon mustard
1 tsp snipped fresh tarragon or 1/4 tsp dried tarragon, crushed
1. Rinse fish, pat dry and sprinkle with seasoned salt. Prep your skillet with oil and cook fish until it flakes easily (approx 4-5 mins total). Set aside in dish and keep warm.
2. For sauce, add wine and lemon juice to skillet making sure to scrape up any crusty bits from the fish. Whisk in mustard and tarragon and heat through. Serve over fillets. I yielded 6 servings. Enjoy!
For Spinach Orzo:
Prep 8 oz dried whole wheat orzo, drain. Immediately toss orzo with 5-6 oz package of baby spinach, 1 tbsp olive oil, 2 tsp finely shredded lemon peel and 1/4 tsp salt. Season to taste with fresh ground pepper.
Mmmm. . .good!
Nutritional Information (for both together):
Calories: 294
Total Fat: 7 g
Cholesterol: 57 mg
Protein: 28 g
Carbohydrate: 28 g
Fiber: 7 g
Sodium: 448 mg
Bison Stew with fennel, mushrooms, tarragon and goat cheese
Posted by Van Santos in Main Course, Recipes on April 11th, 2009
The little bottle in the middle is truffle oil!!
And the finished product—not quite so beautiful.
Not as pretty perhaps, but much more yummy!!
So I’m a new contributor here and I will probably do things a little differently. I know not how to use a recipe. And therefore I cook with my gut and have no clue exactly what I do any given time I make something and everything is always a variation on the theme.
I enter the kitchen with the spirit of adventure and I do have some distinct “guts” that help me achieve exactly what I want often, but other times things turn out quite differently from what I intend—generally when I’m doing something I’ve never done before. So if you are experimenting with this “recipe” try to approach it with that spirit.
The secret to food always being tasty is the quality and combination of ingredients. Where things differ from my intent most often is in texture, which can be very annoying at times, but, nonetheless, I tend to end up with something edible.
So this is the recipe as best as I can describe being that I measured nothing! This, can, of course, be prepared with beef as well as bison.
The Recipe
3 lb bison roast (this of course can vary depending on your needs) I had to cut up the roast into chunks for stew as the market did not have stew meat. I had my husband and sous chef help with this.
one large onion (diced or slice in thin half circles)
2 or 3 large fennel roots (sliced in thin half circles)
2 lbs mushrooms (sliced thin)
1 cup of white wine
One large log of goat cheese
3 tablespoons dried tarragon (I’ve never cooked with fresh tarragon–if you can do that you’d probably use a lot less)
Salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste.
Slice the onions, fennel and mushrooms and saute on medium high heat to brown just a tad.
Brown the meat in some olive oil or organic butter in a separate pan–do not cook thoroughly, just brown it on high.
Combine the meat and the veggies and toss about in a large pot.
Pour the cup of wine over it and cover and simmer for 20 minutes.
Add salt and pepper anywhere along the way as needed. I do suggest you put at least some of the pepper in early on as it’s nice if it cooks with it for a while. You may find you need a bit more at the end.
After 20 minutes check and see how much liquid is there. You’ll want to uncover and simmer the liquid down to below the surface of all the goodies. (perhaps half way below or a little less–cook the meat up to an hour—if you use other cuts of meat or beef you may want to cook longer)
When it’s all done stir in the goat cheese and put in a teaspoon of truffle oil–more or less to taste. (this is optional—I only have truffle oil right now because my sister gave it to me as a gift. It’s outrageously expensive!)
Have fun!!
Chicken Pesto Stuffed with Fresh Mozzarella and Steamed Vegetables
Posted by Van Santos in Main Course, Recipes on April 6th, 2009
For years I’ve enjoyed making pesto sauce. I remember on day simply thinking to myself “what would make a good pesto” and I started to experiment. I never used a recipe. this was one of the rare cases where my mind seemed to piece everything together. I had planned on making this dish Saturday evening but I was too sick, I just didn’t have the energy. Yesterday evening I found myself in a slightly better physical state so I decided to have a go at it.
For this dish you will need:
- 6 garlic cloves
- 1 bunch of fresh Basil
- 1 bunch of fresh Tarragon
- 1 bunch of fresh Radish greens
- 8 oz Grape Seed oil
- 4 oz Olive Oil
- 1 cup of fresh baby spinach
- 2 tbsp of hazelnuts, chopped
- pine nuts
- ½ cup grated asiago cheese
- 8 oz fresh mozzarella, cut into small cubes
- 3 boneless, skinless, thin sliced chicken breast
- 1 Head of broccoli
- 1 yellow squash
- 1 box Fettuccine
Pesto Sauce
- Put one 1 tsp of Olive Oil in a pan, heat, and roast the garlic cloves. You want these cloves to be BROWN. Not tan. Not lightly golden. BROWN on all sides.
- Take your Fresh Basil, Tarragon and Radish Greens and chop in a blender. I tend not to use the thick stems of the leafs, but some people opt to. To me the taste ends up being too bitter when the stems are included. After chopped, remove from blender.
- Put Grape Seed Oil, Olive Oil hazelnuts and asiago cheese in blender, mix.
- When nuts/cheese and oil have mixed where there are no large “chunks” add the previously mixed Greens as well as the garlic cloves and mix until you obtain the consistence you desire
Your pesto sauce is now done. You may be asking a number of questions about this, so let me try to head a few of them off to being. I use double the amount of Grape Seed oil as compared to Olive Oil because I have found that Olive Oil can be too strong at times. Yes, hazelnuts are used… Be careful not to overdo the usage as the flavor of hazelnut can overwhelm the sauce.
Stuffed Chicken with Mozzarella and Spinach
- Pre-heat oven to 350
- Transfer your pesto sauce out of your blender, if you have not done so already, and rinse out blender.
- Add Spinach, Mozzarella and blend together
- Lay out the chicken breast, add Mozzarella and Spinach filling to the breast, then spoon on desired amount of pesto sauce
- Roll the chicken breast lengthwise, tie with kitchen twine
- Place on foil covered baking sheet, spoon pesto over chicken
- Bake for 35 to 40 mins
While it is usually easy to dry out chicken breast rather quickly, especially thinly sliced breast, remember, as this bakes the cheese in the chicken will melt out. This will help keep the moisture in the chicken.
While the chicken is baking, boil up the Fettuccine. I would suggest you boil the pasta in saltwater (a technique I just learned from JT, one of the other writers on this blog). This will add a subtile taste to the dish. Also steam up the broccoli and squash for about 10 minutes in about an inch of water.
Once everything is ready to be served, drizzle on extra pesto sauce and sprinkle grated asiago cheese and pine nuts to the dish.
Expect to have plenty of pasta and pesto sauce left over as this recipe makes roughly 3 servings. The overall taste to this dish is very well balanced. No one thing out does the other, and there are plenty of flavors to go around. There you go… Enjoy!
