Think On It

Seafood Stew with Cheddar Cheese

February 19th, 2007

Last night, with Lent drawing near, I invited some friends to supper to eat the fattening dish I had promised to write up for Palma. How did Palma know about it? In a Slow Travel off topic thread, a friend in Maine asked what to do when life weighs too heavy. I suggested she go hiking to the Atlantic coast and sit on a big, black rock and ponder life while eating lobster (because she is after all in Maine and does not have to sell children to buy lobster) stew with cheddar to keep off the chill. Palma then sent me mail asking if such a thing really existed, and if so, could she have the recipe?

The recipe didn’t exist. Why? Because the original recipe used a frozen soup brand that hasn’t existed for decades. Could it be revived? Of course it could. I promised her I would write a new recipe for it and post it here.

Time passed and I had made it only once, and that’s not enough to publish, in my estimation. It was a huge success though, and was the first dish I’ve made that my neighbor, Olga, had ever asked how it was done. That was encouraging, although because it has cheddar cheese in it, it did Olga no good. Cheddar nearly doesn’t exist at all in Italy, and short of going to Torino or Milano or a French grocery in a faraway town, you can’t buy it here. Olga will do none of the aforementioned.

With Lenten dieting looming I knew it had to be made again and tested again in a hurry. Luckily, some young friends had sent me some cheddar from England and it was in the freezer. Like others keep their jewels in a safety deposit box, Americans and British keep cheddar in the freezer. It makes us feel rich and rife with possibilities.

The menu last night started with an antipasto of pecorino fresco (not aged), pecorino stagionato (aged) and a very aged fontina all served with the peach mostarda with balsamic vinegar I put up in October. I can’t remember how I made that, so I will have to do it again in peach season this year. I loved it and so did everybody else. The mostarda had lost quite a lot of its piquancy since October, but it was still there. It was intensely fruity and was perhaps the best use of balsamico I’ve experienced yet. I am a very sparing balsamico user. I am not sold on the profligate use that is normal these days. We drank Prosecco with the antipasto.

After that we had bowls of the shrimp and cheddar stew over rice with a Nero D’Avola from Terra Gaia to drink and hot from the oven hard rolls. The rolls were okay, but the kitchen was cold because I had a fire in the fireplace and the thermostat cut off the heat. They rose in a warmed oven, but when I removed them to heat the oven to cooking temperature, they turned out to be slackers and shrank a lot. They rose only partway back in the oven, and overall, they may have been worth it for the perfume they lent the house, but as rolls they were just okay.

We continued with a plate of thinly sliced Swiss chard ( bietola) stir fried with garlic and a few whole bird chilies.

For dessert we had a new recipe that no matter how hard I try to jump onto the salt caramel wagon that was shoved off by David Lebowitz, keeps coming to my mind named “Not Pie.” So that’s what it is, not pie.

This stew is from many years ago when I used to climb autumnal cliffs with my husband and my little eg. It has been many years since I could carry eg on my back, let alone swing from grapevines while carrying her on my back. Ergo, it is many years since I have felt like I could indulge in this dish, but in the interest of science and the warm calm it brings my tummy, it is here recreated. I think you could use any of the sweet shellfish in it, but I have only used lobster and shrimps. Scallops, really big ones, keep popping into my helpless mind.

I do not know why it was named Thermidor. It resembles neither the real recipe for anything Thermidor, nor the battle of Thermidor, although it might have been a comfort after the battle.

Shrimp Thermidor Stew

3 medium potatoes, peeled
1 medium/large onion, peeled and rough chopped
½ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon butter
water just to cover

about 1 cup of milk–or cream, if you need to gain weight
a couple of shakes of Tabasco, or a pinch of ground chili pepper (peperoncino)

600 g or 1-1/2 pounds of shelled shrimps—frozen work just fine (or a similar amount of lobster meat or crab meat)

about 5 ounces or 150 g of cheddar cheese, shredded

salt to taste
freshly ground pepper

very finely minced parsley leaves—i.e., parsley dust

2 cups uncooked plain long grain rice, cooked according to directions on the package.

To dice the potatoes, slice a bit less than ¼”thick, and then cut into approximate ½” square.

Heat the tablespoon of butter in a large, heavy cooking pot, and toss in the onion and the salt. Sauté the onion until transparent, and then add the potatoes. Add water just to cover. Cover and simmer until they are done. Drain almost all of the water. You can choose to stop here and finish closer to mealtime.

Using a potato masher or a stick blender, partially mash the potatoes in the pan. Leave about ¼ of the pieces whole. Add the milk and put over a low flame. Shake in the Tabasco or the chili. Heat to a simmer, stirring. Add the shrimps and bring to a simmer, stirring. Grind pepper generously over the pot, and then taste for salt. Be careful not to over salt, because the cheese will also add salt. You may also stop here and finish later.

With the stew at a simmer, stir in the shredded cheddar. Serve immediately in soup plates (piatti fondi) over a generous serving of cooked rice. Sprinkle with parsley dust. Serve immediately.

With two vacuum bottles, at least one of them wide mouthed, this makes excellent hiking food, being hot, substantial and full of both instant and enduring energy sources. In other words, if you are hiking or climbing or skiing, etc., it’s not fattening. Don’t put the rice and stew together, because the rice will settle and the first eater will get all stew and the last will get all rice.

My Italian friends thought of this as a soup. Stew, soup, it doesn’t really matter. I explained that in American cooking there isn’t a primo piatto, but usually a piatto unico and they seemed satisfied to leave it at that.

Not Pie

This is like the middle of an apple pie, no pastry. Does that make it dietetic? In your dreams. It can be made for one or 20. All you need to worry about is the size frying pan it would take to hold 20 apples.

You use one apple per person. Here the recipe is for four.

4 crisp, somewhat tart apples. I used 3 kinds, mostly Annurka, my favorite here, 1 Rome and one huge one I don’t know. Do not peel them, just core them and cut into slim wedges

3 tablespoons butter
½ cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (canella)
¼ teaspoon nutmeg (noce moscato in polvere)
2 decent pinches of sel gris or another natural sea salt (you may decide to use more when you taste partway through the cooking, but don’t use less.)

Heat the butter in a wide and capacious frying pan that has a good lid. Throw in the prepared apple wedges and then sprinkle over them the sugar and seasonings.

Reduce the heat to low and put on the lid. Leave them alone to cook until they are tender.

Turn off the heat and leave them alone until you need dessert. When ready to serve dessert, remove the lid and heat again on medium heat, stirring a bit to coat the apples, until warm. Spoon the apples onto dessert plates and spoon the caramel over them.

Add a small pool of plain heavy cream next to the caramel. Eat with a spoon.

As always, clocking on a photo will enlarge it. Most of the photos I shoot and use here can be seen at FlickR and if you think I have selected the wrong photo for something, let me know and I will rethink it based on your opinion.

Entry Filed under: Uncategorized, Food, Italy, Preserving