Hello friends,
it's been a while since my last post...my apologies...but I come with peace offerings: great mouth watering pictures!!
Boyfrand and I decided to NOT exchange gifts for valentine's this year, because...we're not into the material things in life....in other words, we are both lazy. THEREFORE! We just got together for a nice homemade seafood dinner. It was....divine! and here is my documentary--
We've been wanting to have a seafood night for quite some time now...and what better time to do that other than the evening of LOVE...*puke*
Boyfrand purchased a Himalayan Salt Block for about $40CDN including shipping. We put the block of salt on a portable stove (ones you have hot pot on) and elevated it with a metal rack. After about half hour of heating up, this baby is ready to cook up a storm.
BUT WAIT, first I must introduce my Asian Salsa of love. Why "love" you ask? NO, it's not because it's Valentines. It's because I hand chopped it...out of love...so there. In my big Bowl-of-love, I have the following ingredients: Celery, Cilantro, Cucumber, Corn, Tomato, Peppers (orange & red), Red onion, a can of Tuna
This big o' love salsa didn't have the word "Asian" in it for no reason. Normally, we would put in Italian or Balsamic dressing but to accompany the rest of our menu roll up better, I decided to "asianize" it. In it, I added:
See? I even ate it with chop sticks.... (no I didn't really, I just took a picture with it...lol)
After a bit of mixing and tumbling, put the Asian Love Salsa into the fridge to chill it. It tastes better when it's cold! This dish is awesome to eat on its own as well. It'll taste even better the next day. Guess what I'm having for lunch today? Try it out!!
Don't they look pretty together? Aww...ok that's enough mush.
NOW! On to the yummy part of this romantic dinner of ours...
Thanks to Group Buy United, we were able to purchase quality Sashimi at a decent price at Black Ocean Seafood Wholesale in Richmond....Stuff there are resonably priced. Check out this video, for that strip he/she's cutting...it was about 15 dollars? Not badly priced in my opinion!
So for dinner, we defrosted and cut up the following items:
Wild Pacific Salmon
$13 for a big strip, what you see is only 1/3 of it
Ahi Tuna
$11, again- we only defrosted 1/3 of it
Albacore Tuna
$12- same as above
Jumbo Shrimp
From Black Ocean $30/box of 16?...I'd say they're about 12cm long...
Scallops
from T&T
OH THE EXCITEMENT!
((TA-DA))
First up, we have the scallops on the block: one mistake we made though, we put margarine on there...so this was a total fail... but it said to do so on the instruction video! Because of the moisture combined with margarine, the scallops completely absorbed the salt...I was scared that my hair would fall out after tasting one of them. Quick fix though, we scraped off the margarine, and all was back to normal! This tasted really good with the Asian Love Salsa. The sweetness of the corn balanced out the saltiness.
After we picked up our hair off the ground, we continued on with the jumbo shramps. We set off the smoke alarm because their brains were oozing out onto the block, which then turned into smoke... (see how much the scallops shrunk?)
The shrimp won over the scallops. It was juicy, and tender on the inside. Boyfrand said it tasted mighty fresh, which I agree with completely! The block was blackened quite a bit by the brain juice... so we'll have to figure out how to solve that problem next time! (suggestions?) All in all, I LOVED the shramps. They were so yummy!!
I didn't end up cooking too much sashimi on the block..because I like them better raw. But we felt fancy and creative so we seared the sides of the tuna and made it pretty.
Yea, I was pretty proud of myself...haha!
and that concludes our Schmalentines Schmeafood Feast! Definitely will have to try out the steak on the salt block next time...and also! I'm marinating the scallops!
Until next time, followers!
Winnie-OUT
