What I Bought at the West Side Market: The Great Kipper Experiment
So you're all curious about what happened with last week's purchases at the West Side Market, right? Here's the story....
I. The Easy Part
Although Carole made the excellent suggestion of eating the orange-honey almonds with blue cheese and figs, I found myself just nibbling on them all day long. I did find they went surprisingly well with Stockyard Oatmeal Stout.
II. The Great KipperExperiment Disaster
First of all: geek alert. I, like many Americans, was first exposed to kippers through Red Dwarf -- "smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast" being the tagline of Arnie Rimmer's infinitely more heroic alter ego, Ace. So ever since about age 12 I've had this prurient curiosity about people who would eat fish for breakfast.
So last weekend I diligently Googled kipper recipes. I learned that a kipper is a smoked herring and that they're especially popular in Manx cuisine. I even went to the Cleveland Public Library downtown and got out a book on Conversational Manx to see if I could learn any impressive phrases about kippers, but the closest I found were:
S'goan ta'n skeddan ec y traa t'ayn.
The herring are scarce at present, and
Row monney skeddan eu? Cha row.
Have you had much herring? No.
That didn't exactly bode well.
I then went through a series of missteps. The first was that I'd bought vacuum-packed raw kipper fillets rather than the fully cooked, ready-to-eat tinned variety that most recipes seemed to call for.
So I decided I'd substitute the kippers for smoked haddock in this traditional Scottish finnan haddie recipe, despite my reservations about mixing mustard with milk. I decided to make this with smashed potatoes and Irish soda bread in a sort of pan-Celtic tribute to my ancestors.
However, their spirits were obviously displeased.
I knew the situation was dire when I unpacked the kipper fillets and noticed that they were not boneless. (Really, I should've noticed this beforehand.) At this point, I'd already gotten myself into the mood by drinking a few Guinnesses, which was a bad idea.
Fact: I am terrible about fishbones. I have no idea what to do with them. It's a mental block. So, fishbones + alcohol = "Ohhhh fuuuuuuddddge." Except, like Ralphie, I didn't really say fudge.
By the end of the "deboning" process -- and I use that term lightly because there were lots of bones left in the remaining mangled fish pulp -- I was starting to wonder if I should order a pizza.
The next thing that went wrong was with the mustard-milk. I should not be allowed, legally, to use milk in any recipe that requires heating it, because I stop paying attention and the next thing I know, it's curdled.
Last week my dad was complaining, as old coots will, about what he considered inadequate media homage to the Blizzard of '78 (which was undoubtedly Nature's way of welcoming me to Planet Earth).
Thirty years from now, I can imagine myself saying something similar about the Great Kipper Disaster of '08.
The end product was so similar to a giant pot of cat barf that we ended up throwing it away. This was the first true culinary disaster I have ever had. I suppose everyone gets one.
III. Oily Dead Things
Determined to make things right, I went to Mediterranean Imports on Wednesday and bought myself a tin of kippers, which is what I should've done in the first place.
Since my English friend Clare suggested I eat the kippers on toast, I decided that's what I should do - nothing fancy. This recipe suggested eating them on toast with lemon-lime marmalade, which I couldn't find, unfortunately. So I bought a jar of bitter orange and a jar of key lime marmalade.
In order to appreciate kippers on toast, you have to get over the slight feeling of revulsion you get as you peel back the lid of the tin and are confronted with what can only be described as oily dead things. I toasted four slices of my leftover soda bread and tried the following configurations:
1. Kipper + butter
2. Kipper + butter + lime marmalade
3. Kipper + butter + bitter orange marmalade
4. Kipper + butter + a combination of the two marmalades
The clear winner was #2. Smoked fish and lime are quite nice together.
In case you are interested, here are some of the kipper recipes I found on The Internets:
Devereau & Sons Isle of Man Kipper Recipes (dig the fishie with the chef's hat and mixing bowl)
Mackenzie Limited Kipper & Haddock Recipes
BBC Food: Kipper Chowder
Kipper Toasts
Fifty Manx Recipes: Fish
Stay tuned next week to see what I do with these:
Rose hip jam, $5.50 for a huge jar at Mediterranean Imports, and
Roasted Pistachio Oil, $11.99 for 8.5 oz., also at Mediterranean Imports (I splurged, I know....but I'd bought a bottle of Romanian pinot noir for $4.99 at Athens Pastries the day before, so things evened out, right?)
I. The Easy Part
Although Carole made the excellent suggestion of eating the orange-honey almonds with blue cheese and figs, I found myself just nibbling on them all day long. I did find they went surprisingly well with Stockyard Oatmeal Stout.
II. The Great Kipper
First of all: geek alert. I, like many Americans, was first exposed to kippers through Red Dwarf -- "smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast" being the tagline of Arnie Rimmer's infinitely more heroic alter ego, Ace. So ever since about age 12 I've had this prurient curiosity about people who would eat fish for breakfast.
So last weekend I diligently Googled kipper recipes. I learned that a kipper is a smoked herring and that they're especially popular in Manx cuisine. I even went to the Cleveland Public Library downtown and got out a book on Conversational Manx to see if I could learn any impressive phrases about kippers, but the closest I found were:
S'goan ta'n skeddan ec y traa t'ayn.
The herring are scarce at present, and
Row monney skeddan eu? Cha row.
Have you had much herring? No.
That didn't exactly bode well.
I then went through a series of missteps. The first was that I'd bought vacuum-packed raw kipper fillets rather than the fully cooked, ready-to-eat tinned variety that most recipes seemed to call for.
So I decided I'd substitute the kippers for smoked haddock in this traditional Scottish finnan haddie recipe, despite my reservations about mixing mustard with milk. I decided to make this with smashed potatoes and Irish soda bread in a sort of pan-Celtic tribute to my ancestors.
However, their spirits were obviously displeased.
I knew the situation was dire when I unpacked the kipper fillets and noticed that they were not boneless. (Really, I should've noticed this beforehand.) At this point, I'd already gotten myself into the mood by drinking a few Guinnesses, which was a bad idea.
Fact: I am terrible about fishbones. I have no idea what to do with them. It's a mental block. So, fishbones + alcohol = "Ohhhh fuuuuuuddddge." Except, like Ralphie, I didn't really say fudge.
By the end of the "deboning" process -- and I use that term lightly because there were lots of bones left in the remaining mangled fish pulp -- I was starting to wonder if I should order a pizza.
The next thing that went wrong was with the mustard-milk. I should not be allowed, legally, to use milk in any recipe that requires heating it, because I stop paying attention and the next thing I know, it's curdled.
Last week my dad was complaining, as old coots will, about what he considered inadequate media homage to the Blizzard of '78 (which was undoubtedly Nature's way of welcoming me to Planet Earth).
Thirty years from now, I can imagine myself saying something similar about the Great Kipper Disaster of '08.
The end product was so similar to a giant pot of cat barf that we ended up throwing it away. This was the first true culinary disaster I have ever had. I suppose everyone gets one.
III. Oily Dead Things
Determined to make things right, I went to Mediterranean Imports on Wednesday and bought myself a tin of kippers, which is what I should've done in the first place.
Since my English friend Clare suggested I eat the kippers on toast, I decided that's what I should do - nothing fancy. This recipe suggested eating them on toast with lemon-lime marmalade, which I couldn't find, unfortunately. So I bought a jar of bitter orange and a jar of key lime marmalade.
In order to appreciate kippers on toast, you have to get over the slight feeling of revulsion you get as you peel back the lid of the tin and are confronted with what can only be described as oily dead things. I toasted four slices of my leftover soda bread and tried the following configurations:
1. Kipper + butter
2. Kipper + butter + lime marmalade
3. Kipper + butter + bitter orange marmalade
4. Kipper + butter + a combination of the two marmalades
The clear winner was #2. Smoked fish and lime are quite nice together.
In case you are interested, here are some of the kipper recipes I found on The Internets:
Devereau & Sons Isle of Man Kipper Recipes (dig the fishie with the chef's hat and mixing bowl)
Mackenzie Limited Kipper & Haddock Recipes
BBC Food: Kipper Chowder
Kipper Toasts
Fifty Manx Recipes: Fish
Stay tuned next week to see what I do with these:
Rose hip jam, $5.50 for a huge jar at Mediterranean Imports, and
Roasted Pistachio Oil, $11.99 for 8.5 oz., also at Mediterranean Imports (I splurged, I know....but I'd bought a bottle of Romanian pinot noir for $4.99 at Athens Pastries the day before, so things evened out, right?)
posted by Christine at 5:47 PM
3 Comments:
okay, when you got to 'an example of manx cuisine' that pretty much said it all LMAO raw kippers ewwww
but it does sound possible to eat it once with marmalade :-) I admire your persistence!
oh and btw, Christopher's Bread stand; pugliese bread; it's like dying and going to heaven
Rose Hip Jam sounds like it would be good. Can't wait to find out if you use it as part of a dish or just slather it on toast.
kippers are actually apropos for a blog about Cleveland, because a number of the early settlers of Cleveland and some of the early immigrants to Cleveland were Manx.
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