Today's recipe is really driven by what I found at the market.
I found a beautiful arctic char, colorful small beets and fava beans... and decided to make the following dish: Simple pan fried arctic char scented with cumin and roasted beet salad made with fava bean, carrot, toasted pine nut and baby kale leaves. Doesn't it sound great?
I usually serve carbs (usually either pasta or rice) as a side dish or garnish for any main courses. For today's dish, chickpea purée scented with cumin and paprika was accompanied with the salad.
The roasted beet salad or chickpea purée can be served as an appetizer or salad dish.
Cumin flavored Arctic Char
Roasted Beet Salad & Chickpea Purée
(Yield: 4 servings / Cooking time: 1.5 hours*)
* 1.5 hours do not include overnight soaking time for chickpeas.
Ingredients:
Cumin flavored Arctic Char
+ 0.8lb(~360g) arctic char (with skin), 0.2 lb (~90g) per serving
+ 1 tsp toasted cumin powder*
+ 1/2 lemon
+ 1 garlic clove
+ a few sprigs of thyme
+ olive oil
+ salt and pepper
Chickpea Purée
+ 1/2 cup dried chickpeas, soaked in water for overnight
+ 1 garlic clove, peeled and crushed
+ 1 bay leaf
+ 2-3 Tbsp extra virgin oilve oil
+ 1 Tbsp lemon juice
+ 1/4 tsp toasted cumin powder*
+ 1/8 tsp paprika powder
+ salt and pepper
Roasted Beet Salad
+ 4-5 small beets
+ handful baby kale
+ a few baby carrots (or 1/2 small carrot), cut into bite size.
+ 3-4 pods of fava bean
+ 2 pickled pearl onion
+ 1 Tbsp toasted pine nuts
+ olive oil
+ a few sprigs of thyme
+ salt and pepper
Warm Vinaigrette
+ 1/4 tsp toasted cumin powder*
+ 1/2 small shallot, minced
+ 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
+ 1/2 cup white wine
+ 1 Tbsp sherry vinegar
+ 1/4 cup lemon juice
+ 1 tsp Dijon mustard
+ salt and pepper
* Toast cumin seeds on dry pan just until fragrant. Ground the toasted cumin seed by using spice grinder or coffee grinder until cumin becomes powder.
Procedures:
Cumin flavored Arctic Char
1. Remove any pin bones from the char.
2. Make marinade for fish:
- Lemon: zest the peel and squeeze the juice.
- Garlic: crush, peel and roughly chop.
Mix 1/2 tsp toasted cumin powder, lemon zest, lemon juice, chopped garlic, a few sprigs of thyme, some freshly ground pepper and olive oil.
3. Coat the arctic char fillets with the marinade. Wrap tightly and place in a refrigerator.
Chickpea Purée
1. Soak dried chickpeas with enough water for overnight.
2. Drain the water and cover the soaked chickpea with fresh cold water by 1 inches. Add crushed garlic clove and the bay leaves. Season lightly with salt and pepper and bring to a boil. When the liquid reaches full boil, reduce heat to low and simmer chickpeas until tender (about 40 minutes).
3. Remove bay leaf, and any skins that fell apart from the chickpeas. Drain the cooked chickpeas, reserve the cooking liquid.
4. Put cooked chickpeas into a blender. Add lemon juice and drizzle the olive oil while making the puree. Process until smooth, and add some of the reserved cooking water to thin, if needed.
5. Mix in the cumin powder and paprika powder. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
6. If you don't serve it right away, keep it in a refrigerator, and reheat when you serve it.
Roasted Beet Salad
1. Preheat oven to 400°F (205°C).
2. Lightly wash small beets to remove any dirt on the outside of the beet. Pat dry and coat the beets with olive oil, thyme, and season with salt and pepper. Wrap the beets with cooking foil individually. Toss carrots with some olive oil, thyme, salt and pepper, and place them in a sheet pan.
3. Roast the carrots for about 15-20 minutes and wrapped beets for 25-30 minutes on the top rack of your oven until they are tender.
4. While the beets are roasting, blanch fava beans, toast the pine nuts, and prepare pickled pearl onions.
- Fava beans: fava bean has two layers of skin; the pod and the shell. First, remove the pod and blanch the fava beans with shell in salted boiling hot water for 1 minute. Shock blanched fava beans in ice water immediately. Remove the cooled fava beans from the shell.
- Pine nuts: Toast the pine nut on the pan just until fragrant and you can see little bit of color on the pine nuts.
- Pickled pearl onions: slice in half and pull away the layers. (Please click here to see the pickled pearl onion recipe.)
5. Prepare warm vinaigrette. Combine the white wine, sherry vinegar, lemon juice, shallots and cumin seeds in a small saucepan and bring to a boil over medium-high heat without a lid. Cook until the liquid is reduced to about a half (for about 5 minutes). Off the heat, whisk in the mustard and extra virgin olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. Keep it warm.
6. Take out roasted carrots and beets from the oven. Unwrap roasted beets and shock in ice water to stop the cooking process and to make it easy to handle with hands. Remove the skin from beets by rubbing it with paper towel or kitchen cloth. Slice the beet into bite size.
7. Toss beets, carrots, fava beans, pine nut and pickled onion with some warm vinaigrette.
Final cooking / assembly
1. Take out marinated arctic char from the fridge at least 15 minutes before cooking. Remove any big pieces of garlic or thyme. Pat dry each fillet and season with cumin powder, salt and pepper both sides.
2. Pan sear the arctic char skin side first on a hot pan with drizzle of olive oil. Cooking time will depend on the thickness of the fish, but generally... pan fry 2 minutes on skin side first until the skin is crispy, flip the fish and cook another minute.
3. Spread chickpea puree on a plate, and place beet salad over the chickpea puree. Serve with pan seared arctic char next to the salad.
Enjoy~
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