Grilled Fish Tacos

So Eric spent the better part of last week in Columbus Ohio at a show and Charisse insisted that he bring her home some sort of present. After tooling around Columbus on his way back to the hotel, Eric ran into North Market, an indoor farmers market type place chock full of good food and wonderful surprises, namely North Market Spices, a small spice shop that somehow cost us 150 bucks in “presents”. We think you’ll agree that the price was worth the spices we ended up with. Powdered Wasabi, Mace Blades and Powdered Hibiscus just to point out a few. Eric even brought home a book “Herbs & Spices” which is all about… you guessed it, herbs and spices. Reading it on the plane, the smell of all those spices emanated from the pages and pushed Eric to will the plane to go faster so we could hit the kitchen and start coming up with yummy foods and awesomely full stomachs to go with the wonderful smells emanating from the book’s pages. Charisse was home, completely unaware of the culinary storm that was fast approaching, instead enjoying watching her dad Pat play the drums with his blues band. Getting home was almost like Christmas morning, spices flying out of their wrappers and lots of "oooh! ahh!" sounds. Now that the storm has passed here, we’re going to make you wait a little longer to see what we conjure up with all this loot, instead we still need to show you last Tuesday’s recipe: Grilled Fish Tacos. Booyah. Fish tacos are one of those uniquely South American dishes that always seems refreshing, especially at the end of a long, tiring day. We spent most of last weekend getting the yard cleaned up and getting benches put in around the edge of our patio, so we were pretty beat. We decided to fire up the grill, invite Charisse's parents over (actually Pat called and asked "what's for dinner?", so we made extra) and threw some wood in our outside fireplace. The tacos hit the spot and were generously helped down by an outstanding martini. Okay, maybe more than one. Hit the jump though for the Grilled Fish Taco recipe and Eric’s personal view on what makes the perfect Martini. We think James Bond would agree.

Printable Recipe

BBQ shrimp skewers with peppers and plums

Last month Eric's parents went on vacation, right around the time their fruit trees ripened. They left about a day or two before the first fruits came into their own. Actually, this happens every year, why vacations in this family have always happened around the time the fruit ripens we'll never know, but you can plan a harvest by his parents vacation calender. This year they went chasing an eclipse in the South Pacific, (something Eric's dad Pat has always dreamed of seeing with his own eyes and finally saw one this time, after getting rained on twice before) and we raided the back yard with buckets and fruit pickers. Later, when we were hearing all about the trip Pat mentioned that it was really peculiar that all the fruit was gone. We told them that it was delicious. Charisse ate some straight up, we tossed some into this dish or that dish, and the last of the plums we ran though with a stick. Why you ask? Simple, Grilled shrimp skewers!

Theres something about making any kind of skewered meet dish like Shish Kabob or Kakori that is just primordial in its creation. Something about running a piece of meat through with a pointy piece of wood and throwing it on a big fire makes Eric really excited. Maybe it draws him back to the caveman hunter roots of ancient humans or maybe he just likes having another reason to fire up the Weber. Actually, growing up Eric's parents had a square rust red grill, like the Meco 4100 which cooks differently than a normal Weber, thought it still makes a great grill. Growing up, the grilled skewer was always a good way to cook through some leftover meat and veggies or spread what you have across more people without making it look like your skimping on servings. It took Eric a while to really enjoy the flavors of a good grilled skewer, he was always a picky eater as a kid. Actually, that hasn't changed much, Eric is still a bit of a picky eater, but he's gotten over that when it comes to grilled food, which is a good thing because this is not a dish to skip. The plums and the marinade give the shrimp a nice sweet flavor and the peppers add just enough zing (without the seeds, its all flavor no heat). Try it out, let us know what you think!

Grilled Steak with Garlic Butter

It was about a month ago that Eric got home to find a backhoe digging a big hole in his front yard and our friends Dan and Jenn came to the rescue, inviting us over for dinner. Dan was going to fire up the grill and cook... something, but he wasn't sure what. Eric on the other hand had a great rub ready to go and really wanted to try out making some flavored butters. It was a match made in perfection. Eric brought the rub and the butter and Charisse and Jen handled the rest.

Using a fancy butter on a well seasoned steak is almost always going to be fantastic. The butter melts along the steak as you eat it, almost as an after thought to the flavors in the steak and the rub. The rub gives the steak a kick going down but doesn't hide the natural beef flavors and doesn't overwhelm the other courses. If it tastes like your shooting Tabasco sauce, your doing it wrong. Choosing the right flavored butter is key, and should be picked to be a counter point to the rub. The sweeter the rub, the more liberties you can take with the butter, without the butter becoming the main attraction.