Learning The Secrets Of Seafood.

"Learning the Secrets of Seafood" is one of the classes offered by the Outer Banks Restaurant Association's "Taste of the Beach" 4-day extravaganza.

Amy Huggins of Outer Banks Epicurean
conducted the demonstration.
And a wonderful, delicious meal we had.
Shrimp, tuna, and scallops.

First, Amy made a lovely shrimp cocktail on a bed of mesclun lettuce with herbs.
The fresh dill was wonderful in the mix.
The dressing was a dollop of mayonnaise
with white truffle oil mixed in.

Note to self: "Self: Buy some truffle oil!"


This was delicious.


The shrimp were served in martini glasses.
Amy cooked the shrimp perfectly.
And I loved the addition of truffle oil, which I've never had before.
I saw a small bottle of it at Harris Teeter the other day - $13.
I'll buy.
Now that I know how to use it.
I've also heard about adding it to mashed potatoes and cauliflower.


Next up, tuna loins.
Now, Mr. Hawthorne makes tuna a lot.
He marinates it in Italian dressing, sears it on each side, and then puts it in the oven.
Mr. H.!! I call bull shit on that.
I had the bestest tuna tonight.
EVAH!


Amy asked us how we liked our tuna.
Everybody around me (3 other people) all said RARE.
So I'm good to go.
Amy heated up an iron skillet, added some olive oil, then dropped in the salted and peppered tuna steaks.
In a sauce pan, she had 1 stick of butter, juice of one lemon, and capers.
She cooked the tuna steaks rare. Red in the center.
Please, if you do this, only use sushi-grade tuna.

She plated the tuna and caper sauce and it was like eating a filet mignon.
This was the best tuna I've ever had. EVER.
Mr. Hawthorne, MOVE OVER.
I'll be doing the tuna from here on out.

Amy's third dish was sauteed scallops on a corn/black bean mixture.

Amy salted, peppered, and cumined the scallops.
I liked her suggestion, which is what I do. Instead of just rolling in a spice mixture, Amy likes little pockets of flavor, in this case, cumin. Every now and then, when you bite into the scallop, you might or might not get a taste of cumin. I like that.
I really liked Amy. Our culinary views are quite similar.

The delicate scallops were served on a bed of black beans, corn, cilantro, lime juice, and garlic.

One thing I can see right here, Amy used canned black beans, although rinsed.
I say NO to canned beans.
Although I have used them.
Just don't like to.
The canned black beans have a reddish tint to them.
I like real cooked black beans.

Just don't use canned beans.
Just don't.
Use REAL BEANS.