Memorial Day Picnic at the Beach, Park or in Your Own Backyard!

by Editor | May 26, 2016 | Abbot Kinney Food

Sure you love food trucks! You can’t do that all the time. Here’s a quick and easy way to get eats!

Round up your friends, grab a baguette (or two!), and settle in; it’s picnic season! Whether you’re headed to the beach or the park, when it comes to picnicking, you need foods that can hang out with you. Instead of packing a tupperware full of greens, think marinated vegetables or a grain salad that will stand up to dressing …and the sun.

My back pocket picnic food of choice? Roasted bell peppers. Tear off a piece of bread, top it off with some peppers and you’re set for lunch or a sunset snack. Yes, we know you can find bell peppers bottled up at the grocery store or pre-made at the antipasto counter, but there’s such a difference when you make them yourself, trust me!

My time-saving tip, when you do make them, make a big batch, and have them ready to go for when you need them next. They keep well in the fridge for a couple weeks as long as they are covered in their own juices. Not only are they great simply marinated for picnics, but they can easily be dressed up with a just a few dollops of strained greek yogurt, quick pickled onion (just soak sliced red onion in a little rice vinegar for five minutes), and a sprinkle of aleppo pepper in case you’re asked to bring a dish for the post-beach bbq.

 Ingredients
3 large red, yellow, or orange bell peppers
1 tablespoons olive oil
1 small clove garlic, finely chopped
Kosher salt
½ teaspoon good quality vinegar (I prefer rice or red wine vinegar)
½ teaspoon chopped parsley, optional

Instructions
Preheat grill. Place bell peppers on warm grill. Grill, turning occasionally, until skins are blackened in spots and blistered all over, 12–15 minutes. Transfer peppers to a large bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let sit 15 minutes.

Peel and seed peppers; cut into quarters. Toss peppers in a clean large bowl with olive oil, garlic, ¼ teaspoon of salt, vinegar. While it’s not necessary, before packing your peppers up to go, garnish with parsley.
Serves 2-4

Enjoy Your Picnic!

Want to Jump on the Slowpoké Train?

by Editor | May 11, 2016 | Abbot Kinney Food

AKFF Blog is introducing a new Food Column with our Guest Blogger, Natalie Huerta, from Purvey LA.

Seasonal seafood? Yes! With all the produce at the farmer’s market, it’s easy to forget about another local, seasonal ingredient we have access to here in sunny southern California: seafood!

While it may be more of an investment than a bunch of greens, it’s just as important to know where your fish is coming from as your kale, when thinking about how our appetites impact the environment. As an alternative to the colorful tuna bowls cluttering our insta feeds and popping up across the boardwalk, let’s recreate them at home, using nothing but the season’s best and brightest.

The Fish

Whenever cooking fish at home, you want to use premium quality fish from a source you trust. To me, that means talking to the fisherman who caught it! That way, you can ask them when it was caught, how it was caught (pole and line caught is most sustainable!), and even where they caught it. The team behind Wild Local Seafood is my go-to source for sustainable seafood caught just off the Santa Barbara coast. They can be found at both the Santa Monica and Mar Vista Farmer’s Market and they’ll be sure to tell you everything about any piece of fish in their coolers. While poké is traditionally made using “sushi grade” ahi tuna, come mid-May, California King Salmon season is in full swing, so consider swapping out ahi for seasonal salmon.

The Prep

Once you’ve brought your fish home, to maintain ahi’s vivid coloring, remove it from it’s packaging, pat it dry, wrap it in plastic, and keep it chilled until you’re ready to slice it up. I realize now that you “invested” in a pound of sushi grade fish, it can be intimidating putting a knife to it! Relax, take a deep breath, and be sure you have your sharpest knife at the ready. Using a sharp fillet knife, turn the tuna so you are slicing against the grain and dice into neat ½ inch pieces.

The Dressing

As is the philosophy with most, the better the ingredient, they less you have to do to it. Use the dressing recipe as a guide, but feel free to adjust the levels of salt or sesame oil to your taste.

Ingredients

1 lb. of the freshest, sushi-grade tuna you can find, cut into ½ inch cubes.
3/4 teaspoon pink Hawaiian sea salt or flake salt such as Maldon
3 scallions, thinly sliced
2 teaspoon of black and/or white sesame seeds
1/2 white spring onion or walla walla onion, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons sesame oil
soy sauce, for serving

Instructions

Place ahi in a large mixing bowl. Add flake salt, both types of sesame seeds and scallions. Give it a good mix, incorporating all ingredients evenly. Then add white spring onion, breaking up the slices in your hand as you add to the bowl. Add sesame oil and mix to combine. Let mixture set about 10 minutes to let the salt melt into the fish and the flavors set. Taste, and adjust the seasoning, adding more of whatever you’d like.
Serves 2-3

The Poké Bowl Assembly

Serve poké over salad greens, with rice, or a combination of the two. Keep it simple or top off your bowl with any other seasonal ingredients you might find at the green market. In spring, I like adding chopped cucumber for texture or a few nasturtiums for a pop of color but shredded snap peas, chives, or pea shoots would work nicely, too!