Category: Fish

Asian Kani Bites

Ahhhh!!! I’m so so excited for this recipe, sponsored by one of my favorite brands, Kikkoman®! And that Yom Kippur is over, and we can all take a collective sigh of relief that the serious holidays are behind us, we’ve all been inscribed for a healthy, happy year, and on to the celebrations…Sukkot!

Sukkot has always been one of my favorite holidays! The weather is cool but not cold. There’s this wonderful spirit in the air, and we get to hang out with family and friends just eating, singing and rejoicing. I mean, does it get any better than that?


Sukkot is so special that I *almost* don’t mind getting back into the kitchen, again, because I get to make my Bubby’s cabbage soup, all sorts of mechshie (Syrian stuffed vegetables), my kofta stuffed dates (from Millennial Kosher) and of course, Torah cannoli for Simchat Torah!

I’ve talked a lot about the tradition of eating stuffed foods in honor of Sukkot. The tradition is symbolic of an abundant harvest season. Since the wheat is harvested in Israel during the fall, we stuff foods to symbolize our desire for an overflowing harvest. This is popularly done with stuffed cabbage, or holipches, which some say are also made to resemble the scrolls of a Torah.

I know it’s a bit of a stretch, but this year, I decided to do something new, and instead of stuffing a vegetable, I’m stuffing wonton cups with pulled kani aka surimi, or mock crab! Pulled beef has been in the spotlight for a while, and lets just say I’m bored of it. It’s been on every recipe menu, at every party and holiday meal, and it’s just so heavy! I wanted to lighten things up and kani is JUST THE THING.

I love that surimi is a fish that you don’t have to buy fresh, and I always have it in my freezer for Kani or sushi salad! My kids love my kani fried rice from my cookbook, and it’s an easy appetizer you can pull together when you have last minute guests. Which happens a lot on Sukkot by the way!

The great thing about this recipe is that it makes a lot, which is a must for holiday dishes, you can prep all the components ahead of time and just assemble before serving. If the wonton cups last that long ‘cuz they’re pretty addictive!

This recipe is also totally customizable – add whatever toppings you like, or stir the kani into linguini or fried rice instead of wonton cups. There are so many directions to go with this, and the Asian sauce works really well for stir fries too!

I love that Kikkoman has such a large selection of kosher ingredients, you can even buy a prepared sauce instead of making your own! A great trick for drizzling on sriracha or spicy mayo is to unscrew the Kikkoman cap and replace it with the cover of a squeeze bottle (see photo above!), it works wonders!

If you’re feeling extra fancy, try the pickled radishes,  you can even use onions, daikon or carrot instead!

Wishing you and yours a very happy Sukkot!

This post is sponsored by Kikkoman®.

Related Recipes:

kani salad
kani caesar salad with nori croutons
sushi salad
sushi salad II
sushi burrito

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Apple Honey Mustard Salmon

This recipe came to me last week when I was preparing my salmon and I’m so glad it did because it’s JUST. SO. PRETTY!! I definitely have a thing with decorating a side of salmon, and I love how the apples resemble fish scales!

I think a memory a lot of us have of Rosh Hashanah from our childhood is that moment when the fish head was brought to the table and WE. HAD. TO. EAT. IT.!! It always smelled awful and that fish eye just stared at us, as if to say, you killed me and now you’re going to have to eat me!!! I still have nightmares from those fish heads. Nightmares!!!

When people ask for recipes for the fish head, I usually just tell them that no recipe is going to make anyone want to eat it so just throw tons of lemon on it and stick it in the oven! Most of the fish stores have been storing the fish heads all year, so they’re definitely not fresh, and you can smell it a mile away. I don’t know what’s worse, the eyeball staring back at me or the smell coming out of it!

That’s the thing about fish that people don’t realize – it really should never smell like fish! It should smell like the ocean. If your fish smells fishy, it’s probably not fresh and it will probably taste fishy after you cook it. Moral of the story – BUY FRESH FISH. And don’t try and get fancy with your fish head ‘cuz nobody wants to eat it anyway.

But this here? This is the fish that you WANT to serve. It’s the dish that everyone is going to OOH and AHH over. And you’re going to be feel like a gourmet goddess for pulling it off. At least, until, we pass the fish head around!

May we all be blessed to be like the head, and not the tail this year!

 

 

Related Recipes:

honey fish roasted salmon
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Sweet Chili Broccoli Salmon

I have a confession to make: I can’t spell brocolli. I mean broccolli. No broccoli! Thank G-d for auto-correct because I just can’t get it right.

I’ve always been a good speller but I’ve got a few mindblocks:
broccoli
nauseous
exercise

It’s a good think I don’t get nauseous from eating broccoli after I exercise otherwise I’d have 3 typos in the same sentence, ha!


Actually speaking of broccoli, it’s one of my favorite veggies, and I can legit eat an entire tray in one sitting! I love it raw, I love it steamed, roasted and stir fried. I’m not even partial to fresh broccoli, the frozen stuff is just fine for my standards, so long as it’s thawed properly and not mushy. Mushy brocolli is gross, Mushy brocolli doesn’t deserve to be spelled correctly.

So for all you broccoli lovers out there – thaw your frozen broccoli, never boil it! I like to run the frozen broccoli under cold water just to lightly thaw and then stir fry over high heat. That’s it. Perfectly tender broccoli every time.

Related Recipes:

sweet chili salmon with wasabi crust
broccoli parmesan poppers 
fish tacos with broccoli slaw

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Shaktuna (Tunisian Tuna Shakshuka)

Having recently traveled to Paris, I have a newfound love of tuna – and not the type we mix with mayo and stuff in a bagel. But the kind that’s canned in good quality olive oil and served with sesame bread. Or the kind that’s stuffed into a teeny tiny sandwich with potatoes, eggs, capers and olives: the Tunisian tuna sandwich known as Fricassé.

I made my way to Charles Traiteur, the popular kosher catering/take-out to taste their renowned Tunisian Tuna Sandwich, a soft sesame baguette stuffed with tuna, eggs, harissa, olives and a hint of mustard. It was good, but it didn’t quite live up to the hype, maybe because the bread was soggy.

But then I went back before Shabbos and got their Tunisian Fricaseé sandwich – mini bites of heaven with the same ingredients of the tuna sandwich, only on delicious fried bread and I haven’t stopped dreaming about it since!

Now lets go back a couple of months, when I was introduced to Finer Fin tuna, aptly named because that tuna is FINE!!! I have been hooked on their amazing flavors, including Mexicana, 3-Bean, Zesty Lemon and Spicy Chili. Each filet is hand-sliced and packed in extra virgin olive oil. The tuna is wild caught, a great source of Omega 3, Non-GMO, low in mercury and sustainable caught. It basically sells itself!

So, back to Paris, I came home re-inspired on the tuna front and decided to do a riff on shakshuka and the classic Tunisian Tuna sandwich and let me just say…WOW. Like seriously this makes the perfect breakfast, brunch, lunch or even dinner. It was just THAT good.

Because Finer Fin’s tuna is already packed with flavor, it needed only a small can of tomato sauce to create a base for shakshuka. I added the other classic elements of olives and capers, but you can easily leave those out if you’re not a fan of briny flavors.

You can also throw in some spinach or kale into the mix if you’d like, which is really what I love about shakshuka – it’s just so versatile! (see the gazillion different combos I linked to below, I can’t get enough!).

So if you’re looking for a taste of Paris, or you just want a quick and easy dinner to get on the table, look no further than SHAKTUNA!

This post has been sponsored by Finer Fin. All opinions are my own.

Related Recipes:

roasted eggplant shakshuka
Mexican quinoa shakshuka
beet, kale and goat cheese shakshuka
zoodle shakshuka,
garbanzo bean shakshuka with labneh
spaghetti squash shakshuka
stuffed portobello shakshuka

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Everything Bagel Keto Crackers

I’ve been dieting ever since I can remember, and if you’ve been with BIB since the early days, you probably remember when I posted about the South Beach Diet which I went on religiously after every baby. But then I started a career in food and diets that eliminated entire food groups became difficult to stick to. I also had a 90 day stint with Whole30, which I still firmly believe in as a nutritional reset, but not really as a way of life. It’s far too restrictive and there was so much prep involved which became near impossible with my busy lifestyle.

So, when I finally decided I was done with my yo-yo habits recently, I wanted to commit to a plan, if only for a few months – but a strict regimen that would help me lose the cookbook + baby + stress weight of the past few years – and with lots of people I know losing weight on keto, I decided to jump in blindly.

I thought keto would be easier to manage – that is, no major food planning – and I have to admit that that part is totally manageable. Since I cook pretty healthy for the most part, I find that adapting my regular dinners is pretty easy. I have no problem with grabbing a quick lunch, and I mostly skip breakfast, which isn’t a bad thing on keto since 16 hours of intermittent fasting is encouraged. The problem then, is the counting.


I legit hate diets where I have to weigh my food or count my calories. Maybe it’s the flashbacks of being on Weight Watchers in high school, when my scale became my best friend, but it’s legit the worst part about this diet. In this case, you’re not quite counting calories or weighing your food – you’re counting MACROS = grams of protein, carbs and fat throughout the day.


For optimum results on keto, it’s important to stay within your macros if you want to stay in ketosis. Keeping carbs under roughly 20 grams is HARD because every. single. thing. has carbs. And I’m not talking about pizza or pastries here. I’m talking about not overdoing the veggies. I’m also finding it hard to reach my fat macros, and for the first few weeks, I religiously entered my entire food diary into the Carb Manager app to keep track- and I saw a big difference. The weight came off easily. But now as I’ve settled into the diet, I’m getting sick of counting and while I haven’t gained any weight, the scale (and my inches) are extremely slow moving.

I’m still not ready to quit though, I just want to find the right balance for myself because I know this plan can really work if you do it right. In the meantime, these super easy keto crackers (which I adapted from this Pesach recipe by the genius challah/babka queen @naomi_tgis, Naomi Elberg), have been getting me through Shabbos meals because we all need some crunch to eat with our salads/dips when everyone else is eating fluffy Challah.

I’ve been trying them all different ways, and the everything bagel version wins hands down, but give the variations a try as well when you get bored of them!

Related Recipes:

how to build a fish board
artisan toast, 6 ways
tuna with anchovy panko crumbs

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