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El Restaurante Mexicano

El Restaurante Mexicano

El Restaurante Mexicano
July-August 2006

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Rick Bayless' Seared Alaska Scallops with Jalapeño Cream

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Sensational Seafood

As more reports about the benefits of eating fish are published, American diners are turning to seafood as a healthy alternative.

By Jay Lyon
©2007 Maiden Name Press LLC

With seafood consumption up 58 percent over the past two years, Americans are spending more than $50 billion on food that comes from our waters. Much of that -- 64 percent -- is spent at the foodservice level.

Why this sudden increase in seafood's popularity? Chef Michael Bruno of Tango Tapas Restaurant and Lounge in Seattle, Wash. thinks seafood has always been a restaurant favorite. "People order seafood at a restaurant because they don't know how to cook it themselves, or they don't want to work with it themselves," he says.

But Josefina Santacruz, chef de cuisine at New York City's Pampano, has a different take on the topic. "I think more and more people are ordering seafood at a restaurant for health reasons," she offers.

Studies, in fact, show eating fish regularly helps protect against heart disease, improves good cholesterol levels, and lowers blood pressure. The Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute has even published free brochures about the benefits of eating seafood (available at www.alaskaseafood.org), and has developed Mexican recipes like Seared Alaska Scallops with Jalapeno Cream and Halibut Escabeche.

The challenge for Mexican and other Latin-inspired restaurants is to convince diners that seafood is traditional ethnic cuisine, says Santacruz, who notes that customers are sometimes surprised to find fish and other seafood on Pompano's bill of fare.

"They never thought of Mexican food as having seafood. Why? Mexico is surrounded by ocean. No one gave it a second thought — they were just used to Mexican food only being tacos," she says. "It's a real discovery for a lot of people."

While beef and pork are more common diet mainstays in Mexico's arid regions, the diets in most states on Mexico's coast are based on seafood, Santacruz says. "And a lot of Latin American countries have come up with ways of cooking fish with citrus," she adds.

In fact, seafood is so typical in the Mexican diet that it is even used to cure hangovers. "There's a traditional dish called 'Vuelve a la Vida,' which means 'come back to life,' that features shrimp, oysters, octopus and fish. It's spicy, but it has a lot of iron and it wakes you up," Santacruz says.

The fish is eaten on a tostada, or in picadillas stuffed with shark or octopus, crab and shrimp. The meal is served with "La Michelada," beer that's poured over a little lemon or lime juice (which gets rid of the carbonation), and served in a salt-rimmed glass. "It's like heaven," Santacruz says.

One of the most traditional seafood dishes is Huachinango Veracruzana -- red snapper in a tomato-based sauce with garlic, olives, capers and red peppers. The dish reflects the influence of Spanish cooking, "which makes sense, because the Spanish came into Mexico through the port of Veracruz," Santacruz says.

Santacruz says she develops many of Pompano's recipes by taking a modern interpretation of a traditional dish and applying it to American customers.

At Maya, Pampano's sister restaurant where Santacruz also oversees the kitchen, a modern shrimp special inspired by the traditional Veracruzana sauce is a featured dish.

An Anaheim pepper is stuffed with goat cheese and placed in the middle of a bowl. A tomato-bell pepper broth (made with yellow and red peppers and a little poblano) is poured around the pepper, and the whole thing is served with grilled shrimp.

A best-seller at Pampano for three years running are the Tacos de Langosta -- lobster tacos served in flour tortillas with black bean puree, a slice of avocado, and a chile de arbol salsa.

Bruno, too, pays homage to traditional seafood dishes at Tango. "A lot of Mediterranean cultures, Spain included, have traditionally used salt cod, and they still use it today. I use it on my menu to stuff a traditional Spanish tortilla," he says as he explains how he cuts a Spanish tortilla (which resembles a frittata) in half, layers it with smoked salt cod, and serves it with potatoes, onions and peppers along with a tomato jam and aoli.

His most popular dish? "We serve prawns in a chipotle lime marinade. We sauté them quickly, add a pumpkinseed and cilantro pesto, then garnish the dish with whole pumpkinseeds," he explains.

Santacruz says the most popular dish at Maya is Pescado a la Talla -- adobo-marinated halibut, a red cabbage-tomato salad and a chile chipotle rouille (literally French for rust: a fiery-flavored, rust-colored sauce of hot chiles, garlic, fresh bread crumbs and olive oil pounded into a paste and often mixed with fish stock.).

"It's a take on a traditional dish from the Acapulco and Pacific side," she explains. "There, you would usually order for the entire table, and the fish would be an entire red snapper that you'd butterfly, then marinate with adobo (chile guajillo and spices) and grill."

The dish would be served with lettuce, tomato, onion and radish, with a side of rice and beans, green sauce and tortillas so diners could make their own tacos.
Ceviche -- the new sushi?
One of today's most popular dishes is the traditional Latin seafood item: ceviche. Only today, chefs are finding new and interesting ways to incorporate marinated raw seafood into their menus.

"People are coming up with new twists and fusion with ceviches," says Bruno. "They're becoming more like sushi in style, and they don't always have to be in your traditional lime marinades."

At Tango, Bruno's offerings include a Ceviche Mixta of mussels, clams, calamari and baby octopus in a horseradish-cucumber vinagreta with sesame. "It's like a wasabi vinaigrette. It has an Asian influence," he explains.

Other Tango ceviches: Sea Scallops and Grilled Asparagus marinated in lime served with sweet black vinegar; Ecuadorian Shrimp with roasted tomatoes, lime, avocado and chiles; and Tequila-and-Vanilla-Cured Salmon with red pepper, red onion, cilantro and wasabi peas.

Pampano offers a tasting of three or four ceviches on its menu. Among the options are camaron (shrimp, lime, avocado, and chile habanero), atún (tuna, tomatillo, chile po-blano and mango), halibut (halibut, cilantro, mint and mango), and mahi mahi (mahi mahi, citrus-tomato, and chile serrano).

Planning on in-troducing a ceviche to your menu? Bruno offers a few tips.

"When you use red onion, always give the onion a rinse in cold water," he suggests. "It takes the bite out."

Some chefs start with raw product and let it marinate. "I partially poach or blanch the fish to kill the bacteria," Bruno says. If you use raw fish, Bruno suggests freezing it for an hour to kill the bacteria.

And whatever you do, "don't marinate the fish too long -- it should be an hour, tops," he says.
Introducing seafood to your menu
Chefs say introducing seafood to your menu is something you should plan well before you start. For one thing, costs are important to consider when it comes to regular seafood preparation. Chefs just starting with seafood might want to "pick a fish that's popular, but not too costly — fish like mackerel or sardines. Use them when they are available seasonally as specials so they won't break the bank," Bruno says.

And don't forget that the margins on seafood are different than those you'll get on meat. "A pound of hanger steak might cost me $1.50, but the fish I buy for $3 to $4 a pound really costs me about $10 a pound by the time it's cleaned and ready to use," Santacruz explains.

Pampano, however, has discovered ways to balance the cost of seafood items in a way that lets Santacruz offer high-quality, creative and still-profitable dishes. "Tuna might cost us $13 a pound, but calamari, scallops and octopus are relatively inexpensive, so we try to make everything work together as a whole," she explains.

Today's trend is to-ward tapas, small plates that also help keep costs down, Bruno adds.

"Combine things, too. Instead of one thing in the center of a plate, you can do a combination where customers can choose from four or five samples of ceviche," Bruno says.
Keep it light
No matter what fish you use, one thing is certain: keep preparation light and simple, the experts advise. "You don't need to add dairy or cream to seafood because it normally would overpower the dish," Santacruz says.

"People expect seafood dishes to be light in every sense, and they expect a delicate flavor as well."

Bruno, for example, uses infused oils in-cluding a blood or-ange-infused olive oil he recently discovered, while Santacruz lightens up seafood preparation with creative cooking techniques.

"In Tabasco, they cook fish by wrapping it in banana leaves to steam it. You can do the same thing -- add some plantains, tomatoes, herbs and spices and steam the fish in that. It's very low-fat, and moist," she explains. "Don't reinvent the wheel. Grill, marinate, use herbs and spices. A fish like salmon has a defined flavor, but others are subtle and delicate. That's where your use of spices will make a difference."

It will also satisfy your customers and introduce them to an aspect of Mexican food they might never have experienced before. That's what happened to Santacruz when she tasted the banana leaf-wrapped fish with plantains, tomatoes, herbs and spices at a chef's house in Mexico. "I thought it was fantastic -- fish in its most natural state," she recalls. "It was like I had never tasted fish before, though my friend was quick to point out that the preparation was very common to that area."

Recipe Reference: Rick Bayless' Seared Alaska Scallops with Jalapeno Cream

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