Pepper Capponata Conchiglioni with Rockfish

Sometimes, once just isn’t enough. Your first visit to New York. A bite of steak. A glass of amazing wine. With things like these, one taste deserves another. Do you ever feel that way with ingredients that you’ve used? Those grapes from last week’s lamb special did that for me. There was something about their sweetness, their depth of flavor. I knew there was so much more I could do with them.

So, I set about to another recipe. This local pepper capponata with rockfish and pesto really turned out well. Try it at home and let me know what you think!

Pepper Capponata Conchiglioni with Rockfish
makes 4 servings

Capponata:
1 eggplant
1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil, divided
Salt and pepper to taste
1 large onion
1/2 fennel bulb
1 red bell pepper
1 yellow bell pepper
pinch of crushed red pepper
1/4 cup tomato paste
1 1/2 Tbsp red wine vinegar
1/4 cup roasted grapes

Dill Pesto:
1 tsp chopped garlic
1/2 cup Italian parsley, stemmed
1 Tbsp dill, stemmed
1 Tbsp preserved lemon
1 oz Beecher's Flagship cheese
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
Pinch of salt
Dash of black pepper

1 1/4 cup conchiglioni pasta

2 lbs rockfish
2 Tbsp canola oil
Salt and pepper to taste

To make the capponata, pre-heat the oven to 350 F. Wash all the vegetables and cut into a medium dice, keeping all ingredients separated. Toss the eggplant in 2 teaspoons olive oil with light salt and pepper.  Roast in the oven until lightly brown and soft, about an hour.

Increase the oven temperature to 425 F. In a large roasting dish, toss the onions and fennel with 1 teaspoon olive oil, light salt and pepper. Sweat in the oven until translucent, about 15 minutes. Add the peppers and crushed red pepper. Roast until soft and lightly brown, but retain shape, about 15 minutes. Add the eggplant to  the dish and stir in tomato paste, red wine vinegar and roasted grapes. Finish by seasoning with salt and pepper to taste. Set aside.

For the dill pesto, simply combine all of the ingredients in a food processor and purée until smooth. Set aside.

Bring a pot of slightly salted water to boil and cook the pasta about 8 minutes. Drain noodlesand mix into the capponata. Do this near serving, so the noodles don't get soggy in the capponata.

Cut the rockfish into four equal pieces and sprinkle both sides of each piece with a little salt and pepper. Heat a little canola oil in a sautée pan and cook fish until done, about 4 minutes a side.

Plate with the capponata conchiglione pasta on one side of the plate and the pesto on the other, then lay the fish near the edge of the pasta so the fish has one end on the pesto sauce. Voilà!

Please, try this recipe out at home and let me know what you think in the comments!

Blackened Rockfish with Shrimp Salad

I set out for the Big Apple earlier this week, but don't think that means that you'll be without new recipes while I'm out of Seattle! (If you're interested in why I'm in New York, head over to twitter and follow @BeechersNY). While I'm in New York, I invited the chef de cuisine of Bennett's Pure Food Bistro, Ryan Shimabukuro, to be a guest writer on The Carne Diem. He's got some great ideas for dishes and I think you'll be excited to try the recipes he posts.

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Hello everyone!
A couple of weeks ago, Kurt made a prawn and rockfish pasta verde for the Bennett's special. I haven't quite gotten rockfish out of my head since then and came up with this simple combo that you can build into a dish using your own favorite sides. Although you can use a generic blackened seasoning that you could pick up at most gourmet grocery stores, I've included one of my own.  The recipe makes much more than you will need for four servings of rockfish, but it never hurts to have extra of this very versatile spice mix lying around for other impromptu dishes.

Makes 4 servings

Blackened Seasoning
1 cup paprika
1/3 cup onion powder
1/3 cup garlic powder
1 Tbsp coriander
2 tsp cumin
1 1/2 tsp black pepper
pinch cayenne pepper

Shrimp Salad
2 tsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp Old Bay
1/2 garlic clove, chopped
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 1/2 tsp olive oil, divided
8 medium shrimp, cleaned
1 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped
2 green onions, diced
2 tsp capers
1/4 cup mayonnaise

4 filets of rockfish, cleaned and deboned


Mix the ingredients of the blackened seasoning together so the spices are evenly distributed. Reserve.

Prepare a marinade for the shrimp by mixing the lemon juice, Old Bay, garlic, salt, and pepper. Put the shrimp in the marinade for half an hour. Heat a half tablespoon of olive oil in a medium sautée pan over medium heat.  Remove the shrimp from the marinade and cook in the oil until done, about 6 minutes.  Remove from pan and let chill for 15 minutes. Chop the shrimp into 1/2" pieces and place them in a medium bowl. Add the bell pepper, celery, green onions, capers, and mayonnaise and mix together until the mayonnaise has very lightly covered all the other ingredients. Reserve.

Heat the remaining teaspoon of olive oil in a large sautée pan over medium high heat. Dust the rockfish liberally with the blackened seasoning and place them in the pan. Flip after about 3 to 4 minutes and cook for another 3 to 4 minutes. The fish should be cooked through with a slight crispness on the outside. Remove from heat and plate, topping with a tablespoon of the shrimp salad.


A couple of extra tips:
-Make sure not to leave the shrimp for too long in the marinade, since the lemon juice will eventually start cooking the shrimp ceviche-style.
-Once you've assembled the salad, it will actually gain more flavor over time as the components absorb more of the flavor. A half a day or so is ideal.
-I encourage square meals - at Bennett's we served this with some braised kale and red chard and some delicious fried heirloom tomatoes with basil aioli. What will you make for your sides?