Tuesday Recipes from the Melba Team - Duncan
So this one is something I make after going to the gym or going for a run. It takes 15 mins, tastes delicious and hits the spot every time.
I guess I’ll call it Duck and Dive - Duncan’s After-Exercise Brunch. It’s also super cheap because you can use pretty much any white fish. I use Pangasius because it’s a sustainable alternative to cod and a lot cheaper. I get mine from M & S in the UK because they are transparent about the farming methods and have been certified by the MCS.
Serves One
Ingredients:
- 1 Large Duck Egg
- 1 fillet Pangasius (you can get Vietnamese River Cobbler, which is the same thing, in Tesco and other supermarkets - although I worry about the environmental standards)
- Handful Rocket
- Handful Watercress
- Handful of Parsley
- Salted Butter
- 3 Shallots
- 2 bulbs of Garlic
- Half Lemon
Preparation:
Step 1: Pre-heat the Oven to Gas Mark 5/375 F/190 C. Place your Pangasius into a small oven dish and season it.
Step 2: Slowly cook up the Shallots and Garlic on a low heat until they turn transparent .
Step 3: Add the Lemon and half the parsley to the pan with the shallotls and garlic. Then add this mixture onto the Pangasius Fillet, cover in foil and place in the oven for 12-15 minutes until cooked through. Pangasius can dry out pretty quickly so keep an eye on it to make sure you don’t overcook!
Step 4: Just before you retrieve the fish from the oven. Poach your duck egg so that the yolk escapes when you prod it - you know what I’m talking about!
Step 5: Lightly dress the remaining leaves (rocket, parsley, watecress) with a light olive oil and small amount of vinegar.
Step 6: Place the poached duck egg on top of the salad. Then place the fish on top of that and enjoy!
Tuesday Recipes from the Melba Team - Santiago
- 1.5 kg of tiger shrimp
- 10 cloves of garlic finely chopped
- 1 large yellow onion finely chopped
- 1/2 bushel of parsley finely chopped
- 3 diced tomatoes (can be from can)
- 3 spoonfuls of tomato paste/puree
- 1 table spoon of cayenne pepper
- 1 glass of white wine
- 1/2 cup of half-half cream
- Olive Oil
- Salt & Pepper
- In a large deep pan, add a generous amount of olive oil and simmer the onion until soft,
- Add the garlic and simmer for another 3-5 minutes making sure that it doesn’t brown.
- Add wine and let it evaporate.
- Add 3 dices tomatoes, 3 spoonfuls of tomato paste/puree.
- Add pepper and salt to taste.
- Add a bit of chopped chilly. (optional)
- Add 1 table spoon of cayenne pepper.
- Let it cook for a few minutes mixing well.
- Add the shrimp (with the skin and heads, ideally), mix in well. Cover and let cook until shrimp turn pink on all sides.
- Add a bit of half-half cream, mix well.
- Add fresh chopped parsley mix-in and serve.
Payments dealt with by us. Good times had by you.
Today marks an important milestone for Melba. We are proud to announce our integrated payment system is now complete and live on our website. Now, it’s easier than ever to host and attend a Melba feast.
How it works
It’s easy. Since PayPal is now fully integrated into our site, all the host must do is input their registered PayPal account into our platform and we will take care of all the rest! After the successful feast, we will send guests’ contributions to the host’s account. This ensures that guests can feel their contributions are in good hands.
Fees
We collect 10% of the contributions to paid events. The fees will help us to cover the costs of running Melba and will allow us to continuously improve the experience of using the service. Costs related to transaction and Paypal fees will be added to the booking total during check-out.
We hope that everyone enjoys this new feature.
- The Melba Team
The Social Chef Series: Robert Crawford
What was it that initiated your interest in cookery?
The feeling I saw people and family get when good food was served at
Family Function. I used to always watch my mom cook. Sometimes a
little too closely!
How would you describe your cooking style?
Unique, Addictive, and Innovative. I always try to take a traditional meal and add that Cajun twist to it. I’m always mixing and matching spices. Usually, I go for that “mouth full of flavor in one bite” to get you addicted to my cuisine.
What do you enjoy most about cooking?
I love the Kitchen. It’s the greatest room anyone can be in. I love
the creative aspect of making something people enjoy and crave for.
From where do you gain your inspiration?
My Uncle John Pasmore and Dom Delouise. Being like my uncle makes me like a successful entrepreneur. Dom was a great cook and extremely funny.
Do you have any current culinary ambitions? And what are these?
Noel’s Kitchen is striving to gain a complete awareness in the New York City area. We want people to associate a certain halo effect and having Noel’s as an option for everyone to dine on.
Robert is currently owner and operator of Noel’s Kitchen Inc. based in New York City.
Tuesday Recipes From the Team - Elco
AS CLASSIC as it can get. A Sicilian once taught me this recipe and shared me with one of the secrets of traditional pasta-making as it is done in the home country. It’s a traditional Carbonara with only a few ingredients, so what’s important is the freshness and quality of ingredients.
- Fresh spaghetti, 400 grams
- Smoked bacon, 300 grams
- 4 eggs
- 2 onions
- Parmesan cheese 100 grams
- Separate the Yolk from 4 fresh eggs in a cup.
- Apply a dose of pepper and salt to the yolk and steer it through.
- Cut the onions up in small chunks.
- Bake the bacon for a few minutes, add the onion to the pan and stir it up.
- At the same time as step 4, cook the pasta until you can trow it at the ceiling and it sticks.
- Take out the pasta of the pot, drain the water and put the pasta back in the pot.
- Add the bacon, onion, yolk and 50 grams of Parmesan to the pot and steer until your hand gets really really tired.
- Put the remaining 50 grams of Parmesan on the table.
- Say something like “Mangiamo!”
- Pasta is served.
Tuesday Recipes From the Team - Ancor
Mojo Verde with Papas Arrugadas (wrinkly potatoes)
- A bunch of coriander (cilantro) finely chopped without the stems.
- 3 cloves of garlic peeled and cut thick
- Half glass of virgin olive oil
- 1 spoon of wine vinegar (Vinagre macho de vino)
- 1 tea spoon of cumin in grain (cominos en grano)
- 1 tea spoon of green peper or one fresh green peper finely chopped without seeds.
- Coarse salt
1. Put the garlic, peper and cumin in a mortar and pestle.
2. Add corse salt and a bit of olive oil to mortar and pestle again.
3. Put the mix in a container and add olive oil until get the desired density and add a tea spoon of vinegar. Stir.
4. Enjoy it with salted codfish, Canarian wrinkly potatoes (papas arrugadas) or with bread.
Mojo Verde with Squid
Slowly Cooked Design
Chocography.
Tuesday Recipes from the Melba Team - Sam
Fried Green Tomatoes
Fried green tomatoes are a tried and true southern classic. Perfect for any occasion. Being from the south, I find myself eating Fried green tomatoes more than I should. I think these really go well as a side dish or with a hearty brunch.
Ingredients
- 3 medium green tomatoes
- Salt
- 1 cup flour
- 1/2 cup buttermilk
- 1 egg
- 1/3 cup cornmeal
- 1/2 cup dry bread crumbs (fine)
- 1/4 cup vegetable oil
Preparation:
1. Slice unpeeled tomatoes into 1/2 slices. Add light salt to slices. Let slices stand for 5-7 minutes.
2. In separate bowls: add flour, buttermilk, egg, cornmeal, and breadcrumbs.
3. Heat vegetable oil in skillet with medium heat.
4. Beat and mix egg + buttermilk together.
5. Dip tomato slices in flower mix, buttermilk-egg mixture, and cornmeal-bread crumb mixture.
6. In a frying pan, fry half of coated tomato slices at a time. 3-5 mins each side, or until as desired.
7. Enjoy!
Recapping Melba Launch Party in New York
The room buzzed with chatter of beer, wine and food last Monday night at Melba’s New York City launch party.
Nearly forty people gathered in a Union Square loft, where a piano man played delicate music, calming guests on another cold February night. The party popped off with beer and wine from New Clarendon Brewing Company and Bed-Vyne Wine Shop, doing their part in welcoming guests to the celebration.
“Bringing wine to the table, sharing food, culture, and music — it’s a great fit for us,” Michael Brooks, one of Bed Vyne’s owners, said.
Brooks served up a 2011 Pullus Pinot Grigio Slovenia Stajerska, an orange-hued Pinot Grigio, which results from the skins being left on the grapes (usually, the grape skins are removed to process Pinot Grigio), he explained. Guests also enjoyed a 2007 Tete de Lard Cab Franc Saumur from Loire Valley, France and a 2011 Alfredo Roca Malbec from Mendoza, Argentina.
Brewers Stone Dow and Geordie Wood of New Clarendon Brewing Company poured a refreshing Belgian-style saison made with cardamom, blood orange peel, ginger and hibiscus. The second tasting was a Marienplatz Dunkelweizen, a traditional wheat beer with honey malt.
Beverages were plentiful as Marilyn Donahue-Schiller’s Eastern European menu emerged: sausage, pickles, beet blinis, and hearty trays of gravlax.
Later, a delightful winter meal of roasted pork, sauerkraut gravy, roasted potatoes and vegetables was served family-style at round tables awaiting hungry guests.
Presented with a huge platter of meat, it was up to one brave (or hungry enough) soul to lead the meat carving for the table.
As guests began settling in for dinner, Santiago Tenorio, co-founder of Melba, and Alisha Miranda, head of community for Melba in NYC, welcomed guests to Melba’s first gathering in New York City.
“I’m really excited that we got such a great group of people together tonight to really be part of Melba’s launch in New York and be part of our journey as we bring Melba to the U.S.,” Tenorio said.
Miranda gave a shout out to Brooklyn, where she pictures these feasts really taking off.
“I’m really lucky to have been able to recruit some of the finest folks I know out of Brooklyn to make this party happen,” she said. “I think the food/tech world is ready for new, innovative projects, and hopefully Melba becomes one of those.”
In a place with new faces all around, everyone got to know each other over a homemade meal. With a wide variety of BYOB beer and wine around, too, it was easy to try a variety of things — and hopefully discover something interesting.
Leticia Salama, owner of Leti’s Catering, enjoyed experiencing something “new and fresh,” she said.
“I got to meet a wide variety of people — from chefs, owners of start-ups, food photographers, journalists, brewers, investors, to Melba people,” she said. “I guess you can meet all those people in a restaurant too, but the ambiance was much different. I felt like it was more a community of people. All of us gave a little something to make it happen.”
Tenorio said the event was like those held in London, where Melba launched five months ago.
Tenorio, who enjoys cooking and was inspired by Anthony Bourdain’s travels, said Melba feasts allow people to interact with the people behind the food — unlike most restaurants. Melba also gives cooks the chance to express their cultures, he said.
“I don’t want to be stuck in a corner cutting carrots,” he said. “I want to cook what I want to cook.”
The meal concluded with a light dessert of fresh pears and pineapple. For an irresistible take-home treat, HIM in the Kitchen’s Armando Rafael presented his cardamom, cayenne, sea salt and chocolate chip cookies. Packed in brown paper coffee bags, it was hard to wait until home to enjoy this incredible experience of a cookie — especially when it was such a fantastic pairing with New Clarendon’s cardamom saison.
“It was nice to mingle with new people and try all these different foods and drinks,” Rafael said. “I liked meeting new people equally as interested in food.”
After a day of hard labor, Donahue-Schiller finally left the kitchen and lounged on a couch, still in good spirits thanks to many helping hands from Melba staffers and volunteers — with a glass of wine in hand. She was pleased to see people “slow down” and chat with each other throughout the night.
“I think tonight was a lovely event,” she said.
Looking at the cheerful faces as they exited the dinner party, we couldn’t agree more.
Look for more Melba events coming your way soon in New York City, or host your own!
by Beth Kaiserman, guest writer for Melba, foodie and writer taking in Brooklyn, one bite at a time. Thanks to all our sponsors, volunteers, and staff for making our New York launch so successful!
Check out more photos of Melba’s New York launch party on Instagram at #MelbaNYC
