Soy-Brined Halibut with Mustard Greens, Sesame, and Lime by Alison Roman

I like seafood. I never crave it. Some seafood is more appealing to me: salmon, calamari, mahi mahi. Other seafood makes me squirmy: clams, mussels, sardines. I’ve made salmon and shrimp before, but nothing else. 

Of course, there are a total of 30 seafood recipes between Alison’s two cookbooks, and this project will force me to cook all the seafood out there (including a whole branzino)! I had to start somewhere, right? Why not make it halibut. 

In the Midwest, halibut is not readily available in a regular grocery store, but I was able to track some down at Whole Foods. Halibut is also a bit pricey here, so I chose to cut this recipe in half and just make two filets (not four). 

Halibut is a thicker, mild white fish. Its meaty flesh is very impressionable. It easily absorbs the flavors it’s next to. In this recipe, soy sauce is the leader of the flavor pack. The fish is brined in it, along with a bit of rice vinegar and water, for 1-2 hours before showtime. This brine is primarily motivated by flavor, not so much for maintaining moisture like a turkey brine. 

If cooking fish were always this fast and easy, then I would have no reason to be so intimidated. Cooking this halibut was as simple as placing the fish in a saute pan in a pool of soy sauce, sesame oil and water over a light simmer. Cover the pan and let it cook through for 7 minutes. The steam cooks the fish through without drying it out, and creates a nice steaming liquid to braise the mustard greens. Mustard greens were a fun, tangy pairing for this somewhat bland fish. And a good amount of fresh lime juice and toasted sesame seeds brought it all together. 

I followed Alison’s suggestion and served this with Crispy Potatoes with Onions and Parsley. But I think this could just as easily go over a bowl of coconut rice.  

I didn’t expect to like this dish as much as I did. I’m looking forward to trying it in the summer, eating it on our deck with a glass of chilled white wine in hand. 

21 recipes cooked, 204 to go.

Pork and Red Chile Stew with Tomatillos by Alison Roman

In the best way, this stew was divisive in our home. I’ve now firmly decided that posole (which is basically what this stew is) is not my thing. There’s a lot I appreciate about it, particularly the chewy hominy. But one bowl is more than enough for my palate. J, on the other hand, asked if I could make this every week. So I thought, who better to write about this stew, than the man who loves it?

Without further ado, it is my distinguished honor to introduce to you, my beloved partner in life and love, J…

Greetings, reader.  I am the person to whom this blog sometimes refers as “J”: Annie’s husband, or the person who is, in legal parlance, the “intended beneficiary” of her cooking exploits.  You can call me a grateful beneficiary too, because my, oh my, have my culinary sides been satisfied from the minute Annie opened Dining In.

 The recipe of the day is “Pork and Red Chile Stew with Tomatillos.”  I’ll get straight to the chase: this dish is a treat.  If you’re anything like me, then you enjoy a hot stew in the cold of winter.  This stew delivers the goods.

Start with the pork itself.  One thing that eternally frustrates me about many soups and stews is that a chef will often neglect the meat itself and assume that as long as the stew—the broth, vegetables, spices, and so on—is in gear, the whole meal will sing.  With respect, I dissent.  A good meat is the foundation of any good stew; give it attention, love, and concern.  I will take notice.  And this dish does just that.  By the time this stew is ready, the meat is sufficiently salty, sufficiently tender, and delightfully spiced.  Frankly, the pork itself would serve as a meal unto its own.  So far, in other words, so good.

Let’s talk about the stew.  Suddenly you arrive at one of the best darn stews you’ve ever had the pleasure of slurping.  As with pretty much every one of Alison Roman’s recipes, the flavor hits the palate instantly, and it sticks around for a while too.  The acidity and lightness of the tomatillo contrasts nicely with the generous doses of salt, garlic, and other spices.  Then the eminently bitable hominy kicks in, adding texture and creativity to a dish that barely needed more.

The result?  This dish can lay claim to an accomplishment that few dishes ever will: I can eat it five meals in a row (as I did this past week).  Alison Roman, with a major assist from Annie’s cooking execution, delivers again.

17 recipes cooked, 208 to go.

Bacon-Roasted Pork Tenderloin with Caraway’d Cabbage and Apples by Alison Roman

Imagine you’re in a grocery store, and you’re tasked with selecting the most average, inconsequential ingredient for every type of food. I know it’s a strange hypothetical but stick with me here. 

Snacks: saltines, Cheese: swiss, Cookies: Fig Newtons, Meat: ground turkey OR pork tenderloin, Veggies: definitely cabbage

Apples and bacon are excellent, but still, I was quite skeptical. Oh me of little faith. Leave it to Alison to turn dull foods like pork tenderloin and cabbage into something so fantastic. I ate seconds and thirds. I’ve never enjoyed cabbage so much. Unless finely shredded, raw cabbage doesn’t do anything for me. Sauteed cabbage is limpy and sad. But a roasted cabbage head gets tender in the middle and crispy on the outside, now that’s the kind of cabbage I’ll eat weekly! Okay, monthly. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. 

There’s not much more to this dish outside of the ingredients in the title, except for two that really pull it all together: caraway seeds and red wine vinegar. 

I must confess, I don’t remember ever cooking with caraway seeds, and I couldn’t have told you, even remotely, what they taste like. So I did a bit of a deep dive. According to Wikipedia, caraway is “also known as meridian fennel and Persian cumin” and “is similar in appearance to other members of the carrot family.” Another site says it has a bit of an anise flavor. Based on those descriptions, I was even more confused. But when I finally got ahold of the seeds, I saw that they are practically identical to fennel seeds, just a darker brown and a bit finer. And as odd as it sounded on the internet, they did add a slightly cumin-y, licorice-y, anise-y flavor that complemented the salty pork, tangy apples, and bland cabbage. 

The final finish with vinegar, something Alison calls for a lot, made all of the dish’s elements feel lighter and brighter. It’s also what gave the cabbage the final flavor push it needed. (Small confession. In my old advertising job, I worked exclusively on a client that made vinegar. Their ads always talked about how vinegar could “brighten any dish,” and I thought it sounded like hokey advertising-speak, a little ridiculous. How could you actually “brighten” a dish, besides shining a flashlight on your food? But now, as I attempt to write about vinegar myself, I honestly can’t come up with a better word for how it transforms food. If salt makes flavors taste more like themselves, then vinegar brightens them. Fine, I was wrong!) 

This meal was the simplest main dish to assemble so far. Which served me well, since I needed to put it together quickly and transport it to a dear friend’s apartment to roast. Kailey and I spent the evening talking about how much this meal surprised and delighted us, among other fun topics like popular 90’s Christian rock bands. Jars of Clay, anyone?

15 recipes cooked, 210 to go.

Crispy Chickpeas and Lamb with Greens and Garlicky Yogurt by Alison Roman

Yes, this was my first time EVER cooking lamb. Yes, I’m now shocked that I waited so long. I’ll break this mouth-watering dish down by the five unique and totally necessary elements that make it up: ground lamb, crispy chickpeas, sauteed greens, fresh tomatoes, and garlicky yogurt. 

Ground lamb. It took a little time, but I eventually found some at Holy Land. The meat is cooked in a skillet with spices, just how I’d cook any other ground meat. So simple, yet I felt some exhilaration while pushing the meat around in the pan. Already this project has forced me to cook with so many new (to me) ingredients. Every time I use one, I feel a spark of inner joy, knowing that I’m choosing to risk a small failure and courageously choosing to do the thing anyway. For someone who is as afraid of failure as I am, (hello, Enneagram 3), this kind of daily exercise has been good for me. 

Crispy chickpeas. I’ve tried making crispy chickpeas in the past by way of oven-roasting. They can take a while and it’s hard to strike the right balance between too soft and too hard. Alison’s method took less time and less work. She has you crisp up the chickpeas in the same pan used to cook the lamb with a good bit of vegetable oil. You know they’re done when they appear golden on all sides. The chickpeas gave a great salty crunch to the dish, counterbalanced by the briefly warmed greens. 

I chose a fresh bunch of swiss chard for my greens. There’s something so appealing about their bright pink stems! I loved the way she has you cook them: stems and leaves separated, stems thinly sliced and sauteed until just tender but still crisp on the inside, and leaves until just wilting but not totally limp. After eating a ton of soggy swiss chard in my college cafeteria, this cooking method gave me hope for more chard in my future. 

Fresh tomatoes are not something I would have thought to include, and I almost didn’t. I’m so glad I kept them in. They brought a brightness and element of refreshment that counterbalanced the rather oily nature of the lamb, chickpeas and greens. 

At the base of the plate is a simple garlicky yogurt with lemon juice. This creamy, slightly acidic spread brought everything together really nicely. 

J asked that I add this recipe to “our rotation.” I told him yes, but first, I need to make 212 other Alison Roman recipes ;). 

14 recipes cooked, 211 recipes to go.

Soy-Braised Brisket with Caramelized Honey and Garlic by Alison Roman

This recipe reminded me a lot of a New York Times recipe by Sarah Digregorio that I make at least once a month, Honey-Soy Braised Pork with Ginger and Lime. They are similar in ingredients, flavor and cooking method. So I wasn’t at all surprised that we loved it. The biggest (obvious) difference between them was using beef brisket, which I had never cooked before. Partially because it’s expensive, partially because I found it intimidating. This project is forcing me to go out of my comfort zone all the time though, so now was as good a time as any to jump into brisket. 

The meat spends a total of 3 and a half hours on the stove over a low simmer, which means you spend 3 and a half hours smelling your dinner. It’s like having a fresh chocolate chip cookie dangled in front of your face for multiple hours. Annoying, but wow, what a delicious-looking cookie. 

A 3.5 lb. hunk of brisket is one big piece of meat. I practically needed two sets of tongs to lift it in and out of my Dutch oven. Before the clock starts on smelling your dinner, the beef is seared until deeply browned on all sides. Then the honey gets her time at the bottom of the Dutch oven to caramelize and become thinner so that it can coat heads of garlic, quartered onions, and spices. Once the onions are softened, the meat is nestled back in the pot, along with beef broth (or chicken broth), soy sauce, wine vinegar and fish sauce. Then the timer begins. 

210 minutes later, the fall-apart tender brisket is ready to be cut. By now the onions have become very soft memories of their former selves and pair perfectly with the meat in each bite, as do the confit garlic cloves. The braising liquid should be spooned over the top to keep everything moist and full of umami.

The closing statement to this dish is lots and lots of herbs. Alison calls for 4 cups of herbs (cilantro, mint, & basil) to be sprinkled over the top of the meat. It’s a veritable salad. And while J was worried they would get in the way of the meat, I found they were the perfect companion. I’ve never before had a salad made entirely of herbs, but this dish changed that and I am beginning to think of herbs more as standalone essentials and less as inconsequential flourishes. That’s one concept I know Alison believes in. 

12 recipes cooked, 213 recipes to go.