From the monthly archives: February 2015
In our first edition of “Restaurant Recipes” Chef Anthony Chalas of La Sirena Restaurant & Bar invited us into his kitchen to see how easy it is to cook the invasive, but delicious lionfish.
Before we started we wanted to know what led Anthony to the kitchen. He told us that he was basically born there. His father is a Greek chef and still Anthony’s favorite cook, while his mother was an expert caterer for more than two decades. Anthony worked his way up through the ranks of many restaurants in New Jersey. He even travelled to Greece, where he spent time working in kitchens and honing his craft.
Anthony’s top tip for wanna-be chefs is to always start with a really hot pan. A big mistake people make is putting food into a pan that has not been properly preheated. His other tip was to not be afraid to finish dishes in the oven.
Anthony opened La Sirena Restaurant & Bar in Puerto Morelos just over one year ago. Featuring Mediterranean cuisine in the restaurant and live music in the bar, it has been a great addition to our little fishing village. He invited us into his kitchen to see how he makes his signature dish “Blackened Lionfish”, a dish that he and head chef Tomas Juarez Rodriguez co-created for last year’s Puerto Morelos Food and Wine Festival. Now he shares his secret with you.
Cooking lionfish may seem like a dangerous task, but it is not. Here in Puerto Morelos, the people at the fish co-operative are happy to fillet the fish for you, removing the poisonous spines that could cause you problems if not handled properly. If you wish to do it yourself, here is a video that shows you how.
Blackened Lionfish (Pez Leon) With a Dilled Sour Cream(recipe below)– Serves 4
For best results make dill sauce ahead of time
4 lionfish filets
2 Tbsp olive oil
Blackening Seasoning
Mix equal parts paprika, cayenne, oregano, thyme, garlic powder, onion powder, white and black pepper
Dilled Sour Cream
1 cup sour cream
1/2 bunch of dill finely chopped
1 clove fresh finely chopped garlic
dash of Worcestershire sauce
squeeze of lime
salt and pepper to taste
Begin by making the dilled sour cream. Mix all ingredients together in a bowl and refrigerate 1 to 2 hours to let the flavours blend.
Cook the lionfish begin by heating 2 Tbsp olive oil in an oven-safe sauté pan until very hot.
Gently coat both sides of lionfish filet with Blackening Seasoning.
Place fillets in a hot pan with the rounded side of the filet face down. Allow to cook 2-3 minutes until blackening is complete. Flip fillets in pan, cook another 2-3 minutes to blacken the other side. Move pan into a preheated 350 F or 170 C degree oven. Allow to bake for 5 to 7 minutes until cooked through. Move to plate and top with a dollop of dilled sour cream. Serve with spinach or your favorite fresh vegetable. Also goes great with rice. ENJOY!
Photos by: Robert Birce
Beautiful, graceful and deadly. The Red Lionfish (Pterois Volitans) should not be in our waters. Known for their ornate beauty and venomous spines, lionfish are native to the coral reefs of the South Pacific, not the Atlantic Ocean or the Caribbean Sea.
The introduction of this creature to our waters appears to have happened in 1992 when Hurricane Andrew destroyed an aquarium in southern Florida, releasing six lionfish into Biscayne Bay. In addition to this, it is thought that many more fish may have been released into waters off the U.S. coast by unhappy aquarium enthusiasts.
Lionfish in our area are termed an invasive species. There are two large problems with these fish, due to their venomous spines they have a lack of predictors and they are voracious eaters dinning on the smaller fish in the sea, endangering many species. They have caused such a decrease in marine life in some areas that extreme measures have been taken to try and get rid of them. One marine park in Roatan, Honduras even tried to train sharks to feed on the lionfish to try to decrease their numbers. Here in Puerto Morelos we have a rule, see a lionfish, kill a lionfish. It is the only way we can protect our reef.
Lionfish don’t interact well with people either. Their spins, although not deadly, can cause lots of nasty symptoms when touched. The good news is lionfish spines are used defensively, not offensively. If you don’t touch them, they won’t touch you. Still, these are not fun fish….unless you are eating them. They are yummy! And the best thing we can do to get rid of this invasive species is to dine on them.
On the next Salsa & Sun we will start a new feature called “Restaurant Recipes” where one of our favourite chefs will teach you how to cook lionfish.
Mexico has so many amazing cuisines and an equal number of restaurants to go along with them. We are starting a new feature which will take you inside the kitchens of some of our favourite dinning establishments. Not only will you get a look at how those wonderful dishes are being made, but the chefs have also agreed to share their secret recipes with you! So keep checking back here. We will have our first “Restaurant Recipes” feature next week.
The smart phone is part of our daily lives. Having one in Mexico makes things a lot easier. Even a simple trip to the grocery store goes more smoothly with a loaded phone in hand. Next to social media apps, these are the ones that we have found the most useful while living and traveling in Mexico.
XE Currency Converter
Cost: Free
With the constant change in the pesos to dollar exchange rate, it is nice to know what you are actually spending.
Spanish Dictionary and Translator
Cost: Fee
This app, by Curiosity Media, doesn’t have every word in it, and falls a bit short of a good old Webster, but it does the trick in a pinch. Not only does it show you the written word, it will conjugate the verb for you and play the translation so you can hear the pronunciation. The app has a few games on it to help you learn Spanish, plus a word of the day feature to remind you to keep working on your language skills.
Google Translate (World Lens)
Cost: Free
This app called “World Lens”(was owned by Quest Visual but has now been bought by Google) allows you to point the camera on your smart phone at any printed material and it will translate it for you into another language. It is best for signs or labels. It is not really meant for documents. I have the Spanish/English extension downloaded. It is not perfect, but this app has come along way. Now that Google owns them, they have been incorporated into their Google Translate app on iTunes, but it is still called “World Lens” on Google Play.
Units Plus
Cost: Free
“Units Plus Best Unit & Currency Converter” is a handy metric to imperial conversion to have. It converts meters to feet or temperatures from Celsius to Fahrenheit. This app converts length, area, volume, speed, weight, time, temperature and more. Handy for everything from cooking to renting a 200 square meter apartment. It does have a currency converter on it as well, but I personally prefer XE Currency Converter.
Skype
Cost: Free to Cheap
We no longer have a phone in our house. We rely on our cell phones for local calls, but for long distance to Canada or the USA we use Skype. Pronounced sky-pee in Spanish. Skype to Skype calls are free. Or you can use Skype to a land line or cell for only pennies a minute.
All of these apps are available for both Andriod and Apple products. What are you favourite apps? We would like to hear about them. Add them to the comments at the top of the post.
