Cook's Challenge!

stumped on this one sorry!

ummm,extra garbage in my garbage can,lol.

What the heck is fresh smelt?! I'd eat that star fruit while I pondered that question. Hehe.

A delicious small fish, Vic.

Thanks!

Pan Fried Smelt, Rutabaga Fries and Chocolate Kissed Star Fruit

extras: flour, garlic powder, heavy cream

Mix flour with garlic powder and salt and pepper. Dredge smelt and rutabaga slices. Fry til crispy.

Melt chocolate chips with a little heavy cream. Slice fruit and dip in chocolate. Sprinkle with anise. Refrigerate til chocolate hardens.

Interesting - hard to come up with a more diverse batch of ingredients.

Extras:

Flour
Orange liqueur (e.g. Grand Marnier)
Whipping cream


Smelt & Rutabaga "Fish & Chips" and Star Fruit Chocolate Mousse

Peel rutabaga. Cut into thick slices and then into lengths similar to french fries. Toss with olive oil, salt and pepper and bake on cookie sheets until done and crisp on outside.

Cut heads off and clean smelt. Coat fish in flour mixed with salt and pepper. Deep-fry. Serve immediately with rutabaga "chips".

Cut star fruit into slices. Make mousse by folding melted chocolate chips into whipping cream and seasoning with star anise and Grand Marnier. Chill to set. Serve mousse in bowls or deep glasses lined with star fruit slices and garnished with whole star anise.

Don't know about the smelt maybe some walleye or pearch..... The good lake fish...We go walleye fishing once a year at lake Erie we have a house near Sandusky

Don't know

I love what you did with the star fruit, Jonathan!

Thanks, all!

Thanks Shannon.

Not much else you can do with smelt but fry them, is there?

I thought smelt was used for bait! I won't eat anise. I'm going to just watch the others do this one.

Not that I know of, Jonathan. We used to eat a LOT of smelt growing up, bones and all!

Smelt for bait? No way!

Extras: Romano cheese, flour , Splenda

Menu:

Cheesy Fried Smelt with Homestyle Rutabega Hash Browns

Chocolate Chip pancakes with Star Fruit

Rinse the cleaned smelt under cool running water then pat dry.

In a large bowl mix the romano cheese, flour, salt, pepper, and ground star anise with water to make a tempura-style batter.

Bread the smelt, then drop into hot oil and fry until batter is a light golden brown.

Preheat oven to 375. Dice the rutabaga into small squares, place on a foil lined baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper. Bake about 15 minutes or until done.

Chill the star fruit. Slice when you are ready to serve.

In a glass bowl combine water, flour and chocolate chips (Reserve some chocolate chips for the sauce). Mix well to make a thin batter.

Drop spoonfulls of the batter onto a hot griddle or hot non-stick pan. These should be very thin, like wafers, not thick. Brown on both size.

Melt the rest of the chocolate chips in the microwave with a tiny drop of oil to thin. Drizzle on top of the pancakes and serve with the star fruit on the side.

Tina, I was just wondering where you've been.

Perfect! I would eat that! I love the addition of the cheese to the fish batter.

Man, I haven't had smelt in years. I'm not even sure the Market still sells it? My Dad used to batter and fry that all the time, and we would eat them like french fries. I can't get anybody in the house to eat it... though it has been a long time since I tried, hmmmmm....

I've been on a birthday Sabbatical. LOL

Yesterday was the big 4-0 and Darling Hubby took me on a weekend road trip to celebrate - I played hooky yesterday.

Smelt AND rutabaga?????? That's quite a combination, Shan!

I am not sure if Matt would it eat, but you're right, we would eat it like fries. And of course they sell it around here ;)

w00t! Happy Belated B-Day, Tina!

That's for sure, Marianne.

Shannon, I am totally stumped on this one. I was going to make a sauce for the smelts but then I saw that one of the 5 is chocolate and that just doesn't go. Then again, you can melt it down, make chocolate candies and serve them for dessert. Hmmm...maybe that's the way to go. Make a sauce with the star fruit, and star anise, maybe a bit of juice and a thickener, cook the fish with a bit of salt, pepper and chile and then roast the rutabagas with a bit of oil, salt and pepper.

Rutabaga is a tough one but it's amazing what you can learn to cook when you have a share in a CSA farm (as I did when I lived in Wisconsin).

Another way to work with them is to peel and shred them, then make cakes out of the shreddings and fry them kind of like latkes.

I would eat that, Risa.

I think I'm going to try some rutabaga when it's in season, Jonathan. All this talk about it makes me want to try it.