A friend threw a boat party this weekend and I volunteered to wrangle the food once I heard there was a grill and it wouldn’t just be making sandwiches for a bunch of people. It seems to have gone over well. We had beef and chicken fajitas, blackened fish and grilled vegetables and some cookies. I thought I’d put the recipes in here along with some valuable life lessons from the party in general.
Lesson 1: When you get kegs of beer, before you leave the store, make sure that the tap they gave you fits the kegs. The keg will generally have a plastic cap over the tap port. It is ok to remove it to test the keg. You have already bought the beer and you can open it when you like so you might as well do it there so you can test the tap.
Lesson 2: Just go ahead and assume that no one will have an appropriate adapter for your iPod to talk to the boat’s sound system. They may say they have the adapters but they are most likely wrong.
Lesson 3: Make sure the grill lights before you leave dock. New taps and iPod adapters can be shuttled in via waverunner. Tanks of propane cannot. A lighter is useful as well since the little clicky thing is not super reliable.
Lesson 4: The waverunner is fun and also incredibly useful.
Lesson 5: When someone asks you if you want to ride on the waverunner with them you say yes. (This is a corollary to the Ghostbusters rule)
Lesson 6: People who are swimming and drinking eat more that you might expect. You should have at least 1/3lb of main course per person and it wouldn’t kill you to have 1/2lb in case there are extra people.
Ok. Recipes. First off, these are basically straight from Cook’s Illustrated. I bought a subscription to their website and Mom got me a subscription to the magazine for my birthday. It is surprisingly good and while it initially irked me to pay for web content, after this weekend I think it was worth the small expenditure. Particularly because they have a free iPhone app that interfaces to their web content very well and has things like built in shopping list creation and timers embedded in the instructions. High quality all around. If you like to cook it’s a pretty good return on $35. Plus there’s a free week trial so you can browse the recipes if you like.
Blackened Red Snapper
Ingredients
2 tablespoons sweet paprika
2 teaspoons onion powder
2 teaspoons garlic powder
3/4 teaspoon ground coriander
3/4 teaspoon table salt
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
4 red snapper fillets , 6 to 8 ounces each, 3/4 inch thick (I got some really big fillets from Central Market so there were only two but it was still almost 2lbs)
Vegetable oil for grill rack
Serving dish
Instructions
Combine paprika, onion powder, garlic powder, coriander, salt, and peppers in small bowl. Melt butter in 10-inch skillet over medium heat. When foaming subsides, stir in spice mixture. Cook, stirring frequently, until fragrant and spices turn dark rust color, 2 to 3 minutes. Transfer mixture to pie plate and cool, stirring occasionally, to room temperature, about 10 minutes. Once cooled, use fork to break up any large clumps.
Pat fish dry and score the skin in a one inch grid. This will keep it from curling and will allow you to spice the fish on both sides. Rub with the spice mix. If you find any bones you should go ahead and try to get them out now. You will forget about it when it’s time to serve. Wrap in aluminum foil and keep cold until it’s time to cook.
Heat the grill to medium to medium-high heat. Brush the cooking surface with oil to keep the fish from sticking and then put the fish on skin side down. Cook for 3-4 minutes and then flip it over. You may want two spatulas or a spatula and tongs. The fish is floppy and will break apart if you aren’t careful. Cook an additional 5 minutes on the second side. I actually cooked them for more like 5min and 6min but that’s because the fillets were so big. It was still really moist and tender when I pulled them off.
Cut into strips and serve. If you have a fancy dish that will keep the fish warm that would be a good idea but I just had an aluminum pan and bunch of starving party goers.
Grilled Zucchini, Red Onion, Red Pepper and Mushrooms with Lemon-Basil Vinaigrette
This is modified a bit from the original.
Ingredients
1 large red onion , peeled and cut crosswise into four 1/2-inch-thick rounds
3 medium zucchini (about 1 pound), ends trimmed, sliced lengthwise into 3/4-inch-thick planks
1 large red bell pepper
6 small to medium portobello mushroom caps
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
salt and ground black pepper
1 small garlic clove , minced or pressed through garlic press (about 1/2 teaspoon)
1 teaspoon finely grated zest from 1 lemon plus 1 tablespoon juice
1/4 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil leaves
Instructions
Peel the onion down to the first moist layer and then cut it into four sections as if you were going to make thick onion rings. Put two sections on each of two skewers so that the skewer goes through all rings. The idea is to pin them all together so they don’t fall apart or cook too quickly.
Cut the zucchini into three pieces lengthwise.
Cut the bell pepper into six or so pieces removing the seeds and other inside bits. You want these to be big enough to not fall through the grill but small enough to lay mostly flat.
Put the mushroom caps on skewers, three per, so that they lay flat.
Whisk the garlic, salt, pepper, lemon zest and juice, mustard and basil together in a bowl.
This is mainly where the recipe deviates. The original has you brush the vegetables with the oil and reserve the vinaigrette to put on later. I’ve combined the oil for brushing and the vinaigrette and use the whole thing as a marinade. Put all of the veggies in an appropriately sized zipper bag and dump in the mixture. Seal the bag and then lightly toss it around so everything is coated. This works well because the mushrooms absorb a lot of the moisture and thus take longer to cook than they might have otherwise so all the veggies finish about the same time. Plus the flavors cook well and it’s less complicated when you’re on the grill.
Heat the grill to medium heat. Put all the vegetables on the grill and cook for 18-22 minutes flipping once half way through. You should check that you’re not burning them and reduce the heat if necessary. When they’re done they should have noticeable grill marks and be tender but not completely soggy.
Serve with the following Lime Ginger vinaigrette.
Lime-Ginger Vinaigrette
This has the original quantities of ingredients. I doubled them to make twice as much and I think that worked better since it was used on the fish too.
Ingredients
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice , from 1 lime
1 1/2 teaspoons minced or grated fresh ginger
1 teaspoon dried coriander seeds , crushed
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro leaves
1/3 cup canola oil
Instructions
Mix everything in a bowl. Transfer to a glass jar with a lid or maybe a plastic squeeze bottle (that would have been super awesome, remember that for next time) and shake like a crazy person. Let stand for 1 hour before serving.
There were also cookies. The beef was tequila-lime marinaded flank steak. The chicken was lime-cilantro chicken breast. Both were pre-prepared from Whole Foods and were (I am told) very tasty. Cook the beef 5-6 minutes per side searing with high heat to start and then reducing to medium. Cook the chicken 6-8 minutes per side the same way. The thing with the chicken is that it needs to be a little firm and obviously done. You can play the is the chicken done game and then have everyone be squeamish about it possibly being underdone or you can just cook it for a couple of extra minutes and remove all doubt. If the chicken breasts are plump and well marinaded they won’t dry out while you’re making sure no one gets poisoned. Chicken. Evil but tasty.
