Category Archives: seafood

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 1 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 0 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.

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.

Jun 13 0 comments
grilled, barbequed, smoked, and fried, seafood

Grilled Dolphin with Roasted Poblano Sauce


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One of my favorite restaurants in the south is Hyman’s Seafood in Charleston, South Carolina.  I love the town of Charleston, and don’t have the opportunity to go as often as I’d like.  My favorite thing to order at Hyman’s is the fried dolphin fish (mahi mahi) with hush puppies and collard greens.  With a sweet tea to wash it all down, it’s a quintessential southern meal.

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Since a trip to Charleson isn’t in the cards anytime soon, this weekend Dan and I made our own version of this delicious meal.  We made grilled dolphin with a poblano sauce, hush puppies, and spinach with garlic and olive oil.  Dolphin fish is one of my favorite fish, and I love fish with the fresh spicy flavors of jalapeño, cilantro, and poblano.  Dan mastered the poblano sauce, and it was so good that I even ended up dipping my hush puppies in it!

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*Lately we’ve been having some trouble with the built in RSS reader, so this past week we made the move over to Google’s Feedburner.  It seems to have fixed all of the problems, and it also lets us do a better job of tracking what’s what.  Because I’m stalking you.  Anyhoo, even if you don’t like the idea of being stalked by one North Carolinian, you should update your RSS (if you read b&s via RSS) to this.  It’ll make reading better and I promise I won’t try and come to your house.

Grilled Dolphin with Roasted Poblano Sauce

2 dolphin filets

1 lemon

2 garlic cloves

1 poblano pepper

1 1/2 jalapeño peppers

1/4 cup red wine vinegar

1/2 cup fresh cilantro

Salt & pepper

3 tbsp olive oil

Begin by making your sauce.  In a pan deep enough to hold the oil.  Place the poblanos and the whole jalapeño in the pan and drizzle them with 1 tbsp of olive oil.  Roast at 400 for 30 minutes.

When they’re roasted, you’ll need to pull the skin off of the poblano.  This is really easy, just let them cool down a bit first.  You’re pulling the filmy outer layer off the poblano- that’s the skin.  Chop the poblanos, the roasted jalapeño, and the fresh jalapeño, and put them in a food processor.  Add the garlic, red wine vinegar, cilantro, and salt & pepper.  Blend until smooth.

Heat up a grill or a grill pan.  Be sure to spray your pan/grill with some oil as fish can be flaky and hard to deal with.  Squeeze the lemon juice over the filets and sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Grill for 10-12 minutes on each side over medium heat.

Drizzle with the poblano sauce and serve.

Serves 2.

Mar 09 2 comments
captain james cooks, dips, sauces, and spreads, seafood

Smoked Kingfish Dip


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This weekend Dan and I went down to Morehead City to meet with the caterers and the florists for our September wedding.  It was an incredibly successful and relaxing weekend away, exactly what I needed.  For those that are not familiar with the area, Morehead is located in the southern Outer Banks, in Carteret County or the “Crystal Coast.”  The nearest lighthouse is Cape Lookout, which sits on the Cape Lookout National Seashore, which is the longest expanse of protected, unsettled banks in the chain.

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The reason we decided to get married in Carteret County is because it’s the sort of place where you feel completely at peace.  I’ve been going down there my whole life and as soon as I cross through Havelock I start feeling giddy.  It’s the sort of place that that inspires you to scheme up ways to make a life down there (something my parents are figuring out how to do).  Dan and I spent the entire seven hour drive home developing a business plan for a waterfront coffee shop (something Morehead desperately needs).  We think we’ll be a big hit.

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Carteret County is known for a lot of things.  The charm, the amazing diving, the beautiful scenery, and fresh, delicious seafood.  I guess it goes without saying that seafood in a fishing town is bound to be good.  If there is one thing that people Down East know, it’s seafood.  One of my favorite things to do while we’re down there has always been to go to the fresh seafood market with my parents and sisters, pick a selection of the catch of the day, and have a feast back at the house.  There’s nothing like sitting on the back porch looking out over a marsh with a stomach full of tuna or dolphin or mackerel.  That’s the closest I think I can get to being completely content.

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This trip down was a brief one so there was no trip to the fresh fish market, though my father did surprise me with two of my favorites, brunswick stew and kingfish dip.  His kingfish dip is delicious, and I always love when he makes it, so I was even more excited when he offered to share the recipe.  Kingfish, or king mackerel, are a fish that migrate with the gulf stream.  My father makes the dip with smoked kingfish.  You can find smoked mackerel at specialty grocery stores, vacuum sealed, and also at some fish markets.  Or, if you’re interested in learning the art of smoking fish, there’s an informative site here.

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Smoked Kingfish Dip
Source: Captain James Rosemond

Flaked smoked kingfish

1/2 cup milk

1 tbsp real mayonaisse

4 ounces light cream cheese, softened

1/4 cup finely minced onion

1 stalk finely chopped celery

1 tbsp finely minced parsley

3 tsps finely chopped dill pickle

1/2 tsp lemon juice

3 shakes hot sauce

Cayenne pepper

Salt & pepper

With a fork, flake the smoked fish off the filet.  You can flake it finely or coarsely depending on your preference.  Discard the darker meats that you find in the center of the filet.  Put the smoked fish in a medium bowl and pour milk over it.  Cover and soak in the refrigerator for thirty minutes.  Drain the milk using a fine strainer and place the fish back in the bowl.

Stir in remaining ingredients.

Cover and chill 2-3 hours to allow flavors to blend.  Serve with crackers or fresh vegetables.