Recipe 11- Mediterranean Fish Stew

Recipe 11- Mediterranean Fish Stew

Arranging the above ingredients for their photo op immediately made me see how colourful this dish would be, not only to the eye, but to the palate. I wasn't sure how all of these bold flavours would come together, but later I found out how well they all worked in one dish.

My adventure on this one started at the seafood counter. Now I have visited it a few times already along my travels, but today was something out of the normal. Chef Michael leaves this one open ended on what type of fish you can use.. 1-2lbs of ANY FRESH SEAFOOD.

Oh dear, where do I begin?

I told the gentleman behind the counter about this blog and recipe and he gave me some suggestions. 

I already knew that I wanted to use some white fish, I chose Haddock. 

Then it was up to me to make up the other pound. The gentleman suggested a frozen lobster tail " that would only require boiling before use".. ok that sounds easy. My choice was the scallops. 

Into my basket went my paper packets and home I went to start cooking. 

Please keep in mind this was WAY out of my comfort zone, I have NEVER cooked a lobster tail OR scallops. EVER. 

My dear friend Craig helped me out by guiding me through the delicate process of cooking seafood. 

He has been trained in one of the best chef schools in Ontario and if anyone could help me, it would be him. He said nothing was worse then overcooked sea food. 

So to start off,  I jumped in with both feet on the lobster tail. 

When I opened up the brown wrapper and saw that creepy alien tail I kind of thought " what the heck did I get myself into?" Craig told me to season my water with 2 bay leafs, some lemon juice, salt and peppercorns. 

In went my lobster tail to its boiling bath for 6 mins. I was amazed that after a few seconds it was already turning the pink colour you expect. And before I knew it, it was ready to come out. 

I am not going to lie, I was wiping the sweat on my brow worrying that this would not cook properly.

After a quick ice bath my tail was done! And my reaction....

HOLY COW I JUST COOKED A LOBSTER TAIL, I SURVIVED..OH MY.. TEXT EVERYONE I KNOW! 

After I pulled myself together from my internal excitement, next was cutting open this thing. 

Google search- " How to cut open a lobster tail" 

Tadaa!! Some kitchen shears and elbow grease got me some wonderful lobster for this dish. I was so pleased with myself for taking this challenge on. It was an exciting feat! 

Next up was the ACTUAL recipe. 

Chef Michael says in his recipe, that the fish will cook fast once it hits that hot broth of the stew. I figured it would be best to prep everything ahead of time so I could toss it all in, and not wait for chopping etc. I chopped my onion, garlic and fennel bulb.

Google search: "how to cut a fennel bulb" 

This fennel bulb looked totally foreign to me, I had no idea what to do with it. 

I have to say, google is a godsend. Chopping the fennel bulb was way easier then expected and very cool looking on the inside. Now like any curious mind, in my mouth went a raw piece of fennel. I figured it would taste kind of like a cabbage since thats what it reminded me of.... 

NOPE! THAT IS NOT CABBAGE! 

wow! what a unique flavour. It had the taste of black liquorice, in a vegetable form.. does that even make sense?  anyways...

Next up I grated my oranges for the zest and then squeezed the juice out with my new juicer.

Nothing fancy here, it was a 4.99 juicer from Target and it worked GREAT! 

Next I got my pot ready with some olive oil and in went the onion, garlic and fennel.

These smelled great while they began to warm up in the pan. 

After that, everything went pretty quickly. 

Into the pot went my canned tomatoes, broken by hand, as suggested by Chef Michael. I have yet to do this as gracefully as he does, I always look like I have suffered a gun shot from all the splashed tomato juice and seeds all over my shirt :) HAHA 

I also added in my orange zest & juice. Now I just had to taste of this concoction. Was it ever good! The tomato and oranges make this magic broth very unique and very flavourful! 

In went my spices, fennel seeds, coriander & saffron.

It always amazes me when a recipe calls for saffron and you only need a TINY bit.

If you have ever purchased this spice, you know how expensive it is, I am glad you only require a little bit to get so much flavour into your dish. 

Remember above how I said that fennel tasted like liquorice? well it was about to taste ALOT like it. 

If I could change something for next time, I would of used half or one quarter of the fennel seed. 

If liquorice is not for you, I think you could just eliminate it completely. 

Now I do like it, but I think for next time, I would cut it back a little bit. 

I let my broth simmer for a few minutes while I chopped up my fresh haddock and took my lobster meat from the fridge. 

I added in my haddock first and let it simmer while I cooked my scallops. 

-scary part of recipe part 2-

I have never cooked a scallop, so I quickly jumped online again and found my dear Martha Stewart at the top of my google search. 

I watched her video and got to it! 

I dried off my scallops, got my oil and non stick pan ready. 

Salted them top & bottom and in they went to be seared. 

To my surprise they turned out PERFECT! 

They were melt in your mouth good. 

I was SHOCKED! 

By the time these were cooked, my stew was complete. I threw in my lobster meat for an extra minute or 2 since it was already cooked and I didn't want it to be overcooked. 

I chopped some green onions to be ready for the "last min" like Chef Michael says. 

I served up my stew with my perfect scallop on top! 

I dug in and.... WOWZERS was this EVER TASTY! 

I have not had many mediterranean dishes, but this was just unlike anything I have ever tasted.

It was like you could taste every ingredient individually, but they came together in one bowl in perfect harmony. 

As I looked down at my complete dish, I could not believe that I cooked this, in MY kitchen.

I really pushed myself with this recipe and my labor paid off with this beautiful stew that tasted amazing! 

The final touch is a drizzle of Sambuca liquor on top.   

I could not believe that this entire stew was made in less then 30 mins! This is defiantly a weekday worthy dish, and I will be making this again.

One last thing I wanted to add was that you could get away very nicely just adding your favourite white fish and no extra seafood, or you could go all out and add all the seafood you like. This broth does wonders for really making that fish special. I really enjoyed this dish and I hope that you give it a try too! 

As always, my compliments to the Chef and cheers to you, my friends! 

I also wanted to send out a HUGE thank you to everyone that has been following my blog.

Your messages, tweets and emails are always great and I really enjoy reading them all!