Glazed Goodness

Hoisin, like ginger or ancho or southwestern, is one of my trigger words. The presence of any those words in a title is enough for me to perk up and take a serious look at the recipe in front of me. In the past week I made two different recipes that use hoisin and I even didn't realize it until I downloaded the photos from my camera. The first is from Rick Moonen (that's him with me at the Chicago Gourmet Event) and his book Fish Without a Doubt. It is a simple hoisin glaze that has some lime juice and garlic in it. This is a no-cook sauce that you can just easily mix up and use on a variety of fish. Above I used it on Rainbow Trout with great results. I served it with a slaw dressed with his asian vinaigrette and the obligatory spinach sauteed with garlic. This is a good one to brush on your salmon, folks.

Rick Moonen's Hoisin Glaze.

2 T hoisin sauce

juice 1/2 lime

1t honey

1 small garlic clove, minced

1 T fresh minced cilantro

coarse salt

Mix first 5 ingredients together. Taste and season with salt. Brush it on after your fish is cooked. Can be halved.

Below you'll find Hoisin-glazed Scallops with Spinach from the current issue (96) of Fine Cooking magazine. These are too simple to be true. The seared scallops are just brushed with some hoisin right from the jar, no mixing at all. This time the spinach is a little special though. You saute spinach with some cilantro and green onions and drizzle the wilted greens with toasted sesame oil. (I took the liberty of adding garlic and using mature, not baby, spinach.) Its asian flare compliments the scallops very well. This makes a flavorful little dinner, and healthy too. I got unsolicited compliments from Dear Husband for this one.

And finally one thing I wanted to say is that I really recommend Kikkoman's Hoisin sauce. I read somewhere, (it probably the Cook's Illustrated people,) that, after taste-testing, it was the best one. So I gave it a try. And I really do find it more delicious than the others. However, I was never unhappy with the other brands I tried either. So use what you can find.