Category Archives: seafood

Aug 02 3 comments
seafood

Habanero Grouper

Approximately two years ago, Dan and I planted a jalapeño plant and a habanero plant.  They grew, and they grew, and then they flowered… but our apartment didn’t get enough light (or heat) for them to bear fruit.  So they sat, for years, just barely hanging on.  Until we moved into this great apartment that has a yard! and full sun! and they got huge and started throwing dark green leaves out and finally, after so much waiting, came the flowers.  And slowly the flowers dropped and left behind tiny little peppers.  We were so excited.  We danced, we counted future peppers, and I started roasting and pickling peppers in my mind.

First the habanero put out a pepper.  More excitement.  More staring at it creepily as it grew.  Some concern about what we were actually going to do with a habanero.  Then came the jalapeño.  I started picturing future salsas.  Oh, the huevos rancheros.  But then something happened.  The jalapeño stopped getting longer.  Instead, it got fatter.  It looked, weirdly, just like the habanero.  Do you know where this is going?  You must.  You’re thinking duh! it’s not a jalapeño, dummies! you planted TWO habaneros!

We did.  Without realizing it, we harbored two habanero plants for years, the whole time dreaming about our wonderful jalapeños.  Because while I can handle a jalepeño, habaneros are the kind of vegetable that make me step back.  Blink.  Wonder what the hell I am going to do with a pepper that makes a grown man cry.  And not just one, but dozens.  You know what plants that haven’t been able to successfully reproduce for two years do?  THEY GO BUCK WILD.  We are swimming in habaneros, and I am having a nervous breakdown.

Thankfully, I have figured out a few things to do with habaneros.  First, I took a bunch down to my father’s house and then left under the cover of darkness.  Secondly, in a method more relevant to this food blog, I used them to create an underlying spice profile within a sauce.  My brilliant husband suggested that I pierce the habanero and let it simmer in a sauce, so that it might lend its flavor (ie heat), but not overwhelm anyone’s senses.  And it was such a hit.  I simmered a habanero in this brown butter brown sugar sauce for about an hour and the result was a dish that had afternotes of spice, and a low, consistent heat.  It was tasty and I was, thankfully, one habanero down.

In other news, this past weekend was the final weekend of performances for the water ballet I mentioned.  The ballet, Jason and the Aquanauts: 20,000 Legs Over the Sea was based on the movie of a slightly different name.  My scene, in which the hero Jason battles a skeleton army, was clearly the best.  I’ve included, as proof, the video of our scene and my makeup for the shows.  Terrifyingly awesome, I know.

Jason & the Aquanauts: Skeleton Scene from elena rosemond-hoerr on Vimeo.

Habanero Grouper

1 habanero

1 stick of butter

3 tbsp brown sugar

2 grouper filet

Salt & pepper

Put a large skillet over medium low heat.  Melt butter.  Stir in brown sugar.  Pierce whole habanero with a fork.  Place the fork in the butter mixture.  Allow to simmer for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

Pat your grouper dry.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Place on a broiling pan.  Drizzle with butter mixture.  Broil on high 10 minutes.

Serve over rice, topped with butter sauce.

UPDATE: THEY’RE GETTING BIGGER BY THE MINUTE!

Mar 28 5 comments
seafood, soups, grits, stews, and meat pies

Chorizo Shrimp & Grits

I would like to begin this post with a disclaimer- I am actually a pretty healthy (and diverse) eater.  We only eat meat two or three times a week and I try to cook with fresh, organic, local ingredients.  I promise I don’t drench everything in bacon fat.  I bring these sorts of recipes (the pie and the bacon and the grits) to you because I know that’s why you come here.  I just wanted to assure you that, despite what this site might reflect, I have a pretty well rounded diet.

Now, onto to the sausagey goodness.  When we go out to dinner and I see shrimp and grits on the menu, I am always compelled to order them.  I am of the opinion that my go to recipe, which is adapted from the famous Crook’s Corner in Chapel Hill, is perfection.  It’s cheesy and bacony and everyone that has ever tried it has been in a state of grit bliss.  As a result, I am usually disappointed by what I order at restaurants.  Not for lack of trying, the flaws of these dishes range from poorly made grits to dishes that just have too much going on.  I have, however, had a few variations of chorizo shrimp and grits that were good.  Some even pretty good.  So I decided to try my hand.

I’ll admit, I was underwhelmed with this dish.  It was good, and with a few tweaks it could have been very good, but I never once rolled my eyes back into my head with delight the way I usually do with my Crook’s Corner recipe.  And I wouldn’t say that you shouldn’t try it, just that it wasn’t the best thing ever or even the best shrimp and grits ever.  It was just good shrimp and grits.  Different.  Sausagey-er.

Instead of nitpicking through why this dish wasn’t as good as a dish that I’ve loved for years, I’ll tell you a funny story.  So we had the Turcottes (Dan’s sister Megan, her husband John, and their 3 1/2 year old daughter, Meredith) over for dinner on Saturday night.  We feasted on falafel, melon, and handpies- it was delightful.  After dinner we were sitting around trying to teach Meredith jokes.  The first one John told was the knock, knock joke I’m sure you’ve all heard that ends with “orange you glad I didn’t say banana.”  The next was another knock knock joke that ends with “I’m drowning.”  The third (courtesy of Dan) was the interrupting cow knock knock joke.  Then I told my Grammy’s favorite joke about a chihuahua (a joke for another time).  Then, it was Meredith’s turn.  It went:

Meredith: Knock, knock.

Us: Who’s there.

Meredith: Orange.

Us: Orange who?

Meredith: I’M DROWNING!

The kid is a comedic genius.  Or her parents need to tell her more jokes.

Anyway, back to the grits.  I’ll give you the recipe, plus the tweaks I would have made if I could do it again.  You should try it, you should tweak it, and you should tell me whether or not I’m just being crazy and it’s actually a great dish.

Chorizo Shrimp & Grits

2 Spanish style chorizo sausages

1/2 pound raw shrimp (unpeeled)

1 red bell pepper

1 green bell pepper

1 red onion

2 cloves garlic

1 tbsp bacon fat (I told you it would come in handy)

1 cup grits

2 cups milk

2 cups beef stock

1/2 cup beef stock

4 tbsp butter

Red pepper flakes

Salt & pepper

1/2 cup gruyere

Begin by cooking your sausage.  Remove the casing from the sausage and cook it over medium heat, using a spatula to break it up.  While that is cooking, peel and clean your shrimp (tutorial here).  Boil a cup of water and add a pinch of salt.  When the water is boiling, add your shrimp.  Cook them until pink 2-3 minutes.  Remove and set aside.

When your sausage is cooked, set it aside.  In the pan where you cooked it, quickly saute the shrimp and then set those aside as well.

In the same pan, heat your bacon fat.  Chop garlic and add it to the pan.  Slice your onion and peppers.  Add them to the pan and reduce the heat to low.  Cook for 1 hour or until the onion and peppers are completely caramelized.  Add in 1/4 cup stock, stir the shrimp and chorizo back in, and simmer.

Start in on your grits.  Heat the milk and remaining stock over medium heat.  Add butter and salt.  When the water boils, add in the grits and lower heat to simmer.  Cover and cook until thick (approximately 20 minutes).   Stir in the chorizo mixture and salt to taste.  Serve.

Dec 11 0 comments
captain james cooks, seafood, soups, grits, stews, and meat pies

Seafood Stew


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One of the things I learned at art school was that I’m not special.  That sounds a little harsh.  I mean, specifically, that my life story, the things that have happened to me and the challenges that I’ve faced, aren’t unique.  When I was growing up I was one of the few people I knew that had divorced parents.  But every one of my close friends from college (save Dan) are the products of divorce.  For the first time since I was eleven I had a group of friends that totally got what I was going through, who knew what it was like.  Some of them have parents who still have a friendly relationship, others (like me) have parents whose relationship is rough, at best.  Swapping war stories with them was healing, made me feel like people beyond my  brothers understood what I was going through.

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This Thanksgiving was a demonstration of how things can play out in a funny way.  My parents live just a few miles from each other in Durham, which makes visiting both of them around the holidays easy since we can toggle back and forth from their houses.  This year, my dad and stepmom were supposed to be in Northern Virginia for Thanksgiving, so we made plans to spend the holiday with my mom.  Then we were invited to my Aunt Lori and Uncle Kevin’s house, my father’s brother and his family.   Just before Thanksgiving my dad and stepmom cancelled their trip, which meant they spent the holiday with her family while we spent it with my mom and my dad’s family.  Complicated.

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My dad has a section on b&s called “The Captain Cooks.”  So I was only mildly surprised to get a text (he just got an iPhone and started texting) from him on Thanksgiving morning inviting me to come over and take pictures of him frying a turkey.  Unfortunately we were due at our dinner, so I offered to document his meal for the Friday night dinner we’d be attending, a seafood stew.  I will, however, absolutely have to share his turkey recipe with you soon, because it was delicious.

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My dad does soups and stews really well.  Brunswick stew, chili, seafood boils, they are rich and full of flavor.  I used to love when he would make a few gallons; my sisters and I would just curl up in bed with a big bowl and allow ourselves to be filled with its warmth.  This stew was no different.  Full of flavor, perfect for a big family dinner over a family game of dice.  The biggest conflict on that Black Friday?  The difference between soup and stew.  Thoughts?

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Seafood Stew
Source: Captain James Rosemond

1 pound sausage

1 pound cod

1 pound shrimp

1 onion

2 cups carrots

4 potatoes

2 16 oz cans crushed tomatoes

1 4 oz can tomato paste

1 cup celery

2 16 oz cans green beans, canned

1 bottle V-8

Cayenne pepper

Salt & pepper

2 small cans clams (with juice)

2 small cans oysters (with juice)

4 tbsp olive oil

Chop celery, carrots, onion, and potatoes.  Set aside.  Parboil potatoes.  Drain.

Heat oil in a large stock pot.  Saute sausage until brown.  Add celery and cook 5 minutes.  Add carrots, onions, and potatoes, one at a time.  Stir in the juice from the clams and oysters, but not the fish itself.  Cook 5 minutes.

Stir in tomatoes, tomato paste, green beans, and V-8.  Add salt and pepper and cayenne.

Simmer for 2-4 hours.  30 minutes before you’d like to serve, bring heat back up and add seafood.  Cook for half an hour, stirring occasionally, and serve.

Aug 26 2 comments
seafood

Water, Butter, Wine


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People often make rash assumptions about me.  For instance, people often assume that because I’m tall, I should play basketball.  Then I fall in front of their face and they reconsider.  But until they see me fall/drop something they believe me to have wasted years of potential talent.  Talent I promise I do not have (much to the chagrin of my high school history teacher, the basketball coach).  Another assumption people make about me is that because I cook well and run a food blog that I am knowledgeable about all food.  People, I am a SOUTHERN food writer.  I can also talk comfortably about Mexican and Italian food, but that is only because I eat a lot of Mexican food and my mother is Italian.  She’s also Irish, but I can’t say I’ve ever been served a traditional Irish dish.  If you met my grandmother, you’d understand why.  She doesn’t even make my poor grandfather cookies, let alone potatoes (just kidding, Grammy.  Wink, wink, Poppie.)

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One of the things I’ve noticed about the south is that European ancestry is not as important within the caucasian population as it is in other parts of the country.  In the northeast people define themselves by their immigrating forefathers, holding tight to their customs.  In the south it seems that people have shed a lot of those ties to Europe and are simply southern.  The southeast was heavily settled before the Civil War, but after 1892 people were funneled through Ellis Island in New York City.  As a result, the northeast had an influx of immigrants more recently and more heavily than the rest of the country.  On my father’s side the name-bearing European immigrant was a man named John Kwiatkowski.  He was Polish, and he immigrated indirectly to North Carolina, where he eventually married into a settled family.  When he arrived, he changed his name to Rosemond, because Kwiatkowski meant “man of the flower.”

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As a participant in all the hype surrounding Julie & Julia, I keep being asked a) what my favorite Julia Child recipe is and b) questions about French cooking.  Questions that I can’t answer because I don’t know the first thing about French cooking.  The only Julia Child recipe I’ve ever cooked are her biscuits.  This usually makes me feel like a foodie fraud.  Which I don’t think I am, I never claimed to know the first thing about French cooking.  I write about what I know, which is southern cooking.  Though I do love moules frites.

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This is all a round about way of admitting that another thing I know very little about is wine.  Dan and I have been trying to educate ourselves, but we are totally guilty of buying wine based purely on the label.  What do you expect, we went to art school. While I’ve had sips of white wine here and there over the years, I’ve always preferred red.  However on a recent trip to Williamsburg I realized how refreshing a glass of cold white wine could be in the summertime.

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There is a Polish proverb that says “fish, to taste right, must swim three times- in water, in butter, and in wine.”  So this week I made dolphin fish sauteed in lemon and butter, and served with a cold white wine. And an arugula salad, which is so Italian of me.

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Lemon-Butter Dolphin Fish

1 dolphin steak, skin on

1/8 cup butter

1 lemon

Salt & pepper

Rinse off your fish and pat dry.  Sprinkle the meat side with salt and pepper and squeeze lemon juice over.

In your pan, melt your butter.  Place skin side down and cook 8 minutes.  Flip and cook an additional 8 minutes.

Serve.  The fish should flake easily off the skin, you should not eat the skin.

Serves 2.

Jun 28 1 comments
captain james cooks, grilled, barbequed, smoked, and fried, seafood

Catch of the Day


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This weekend Dan and I journeyed south to Morehead City on some wedding business. It was a great weekend, full of the unexpected and a lot of fun. My two brothers, Reid and Ryan, and my father and stepmother were there the whole weekend, and Dan’s parents joined us for Saturday. On Friday we were treated to what turned out to just be a boat ride on the Tortuga, as the weather turned out to be a little much past the inlet.

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Dan recently finished his open water SCUBA certification, and this weekend was his first open ocean dive. Originally we had intended to take him to the USS Indra, a landing craft repair ship that is sunk in 70 feet of water. When it started to look a little rough to go offshore, we opted for the USS Theodore Parker, a liberty ship that sits in 60 feet of water inshore. Unfortunately our boat ride ended up being a “look and see.” With three foot swells none of us wanted to try and fight to dive, and I definitely didn’t want Dan’s first NC dive to be one where he got bucked off the ladder because of rough waters.

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We were all really bummed out on the way back, because there’s nothing quite as depressing as going to all the trouble to gear up and ride out there only to have to scratch the dive. However, my brother Reid saved the day by suggesting that we do a drift dive on the Beaufort Rock Jetty. Jetties aren’t necessarily my favorite dives, but in a tight spot they’re fun and most importantly they afford you the opportunity to breathe underwater, which is the main goal.

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We switched over to a smaller boat and motored over there. Most people who dive the jetty drive up and carry their gear to the water, but we have a 20′ Robolo that’s the perfect size to pull up and anchor. Reid, who is my father’s first mate and a recent divemaster, was going to dive with us, but in poor DM form shook us within a few minutes of descending. Thankfully we’re fully competent and didn’t need his pretentious hovering anyway. The dive was a drift dive with 3-5 feet of visibility in 30-40 feet of water, and I had such a good time. Since we live in DC we don’t get to dive as often as we’d like, and just being underwater was good enough for us.

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Dan also had a wonderful time. I keep telling him that not a lot of people would have enjoyed that dive, and even fewer would have raved about it. I could not have been happier that Dan loved North Carolina diving. I’m taking it as an incredibly good sign that he had a great time in what were pretty much the worst case scenario conditions. Usually the perpetual pessimist, he found the best in the situation, which makes me happier than I can even express. I can’t wait to show him what NC can offer on a good day.

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After Reid ditched us, he speared a flounder and a small tautog. When we got home he cleaned them, breaded them, and fried them for fish sandwiches. I love flounder and this was probably as fresh as it gets. We ate that fish within two hours of spearing it, and it was completely delicious. Later in the weekend my dad made freshly caught grouper fingers, which were equally amazing.

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My dad’s friend Scotty (the one he wrote a book about) turned him on to the House of Autry fish breading a few years ago, which is what my dad uses pretty exclusively on his fish these days. I meant to take a look at the ingredients, but if I had to take a guess, I would say it’s cornmeal, flour, and some spices. If you can find House of Autry, you can use that, or you could make your own breading. My dad also crumbles up some triscuits (or potato chips if you’re in a tight spot) and mixes them in for some crunch.

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We ate the flounder on sandwiches with fresh tomato, salt and pepper, and a little dijonaisse (the only condiment in the refrigerator- tartar sauce would have been preferable). The grouper was cut and fried in fingers, perfect for eating alone or dipped in some dijonaisse. It combined two of my favorite southern culinary treats- tomato sandwiches and fried fish. I know that it seems insanely simple and that the foodie in me should revolt, but no food makes me close my eyes and sigh a sigh of pure happiness like fresh fish and tomato.

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Fried Flounder Sandwiches

1 whole flounder, or 2 flounder filets

2 cups House of Autry seafood breader

1/2 cup crunched triscuits

1 tomato

2 rolls

1 cup peanut oil

Tartar sauce

Salt & pepper

If you’re working with a whole flounder, you want to skin and filet it.

Combine your breader with the triscuits in a bag. Throw the filets in the bag and shake until thoroughly coated.

In a large skillet, heat your peanut oil until it bubbles around the bottom of a wooden spoon, or dances when you splash water in it. These are very scientific tests, clearly.

Place your fish in the oil and cook 4-5 minutes on each side, or until golden brown. While the fish is cooking, slice the tomato, toast the rolls, and spread on some tartar sauce. When the fish is cooked, toss those on the sandwich, put your feet up on the front porch, and enjoy.

Serves 2.