What are lionfish? You’re about to find out (and with a lionfish ceviche recipe, too). With the demand for Chilean seabass, halibut, swordfish, wild salmon, and other popular fish, retail prices for premium fish are so high that you might as well go to a restaurant for it.

 
We recently wrote about how trash fish, once discarded when netted along with more popular varieties, are becoming popular with restaurateurs and home cooks who want more affordable options. A fish restaurant in New York City, Seamore’s, recently opened with exactly that type of menu.

Now there’s nuisance fish: invaders that are upsetting the local ecology. The “poster fish” is lionfish.

Though beautiful to look at, they are the bane of the Caribbean.

A recipe for lionfish ceviche is below, but you can substitute any fish.
 
 
WHAT ARE LIONFISH?

Voracious predators native to the Pacific and Indian Oceans, lionfish were brought (or tagged along) to the Caribbean, where they happily hang out among the coral reefs.

 
 
TAKE A BITE

The only good news is that, once the lionfish is cleaned and the venomous spines are removed, the meat is lovely. It is a delicate, white flaky fish, firmer in texture than halibut, with a flavor profile somewhere between grouper and mahi-mahi. It readily accepts any flavor and technique a cook wishes to use.

With a new name, lionfish could become as popular as the Patagonian toothfish (renamed Chilean seabass for marketing purposes) and mahi-mahi/dorado (dolphinfish).
 
Any suggestions?  
 
RECIPE: LIONFISH CEVICHE

Ingredients

[2] Lionfish have 18 venomous spines: 2 pelvic spines, 3 anal spines, and 13 dorsal spines (photo © Jayhem | photos #1, #2 and #3 via Wikipedia).

[3] A red lionish. Lionfish are also called firefish, turkeyfish, tastyfish, or butterfly cod (photo © Alexander Vasenin | Wikipedia).

[4] Lionfish tastes like a cross between grouper and mahi-mahi. You can cook it or use it raw, in ceviche or sushi (photo courtesy Euro USA).

1. CUT the lionfish, peppers, onion, avocado, and scallions into small cubes. Mix all ingredients together and marinate for at least two hours before serving.

2. GARNISH with fresh herbs and serve.
 
 
SEEK OUT THE UNFAMILIAR

When you see an unfamiliar fish at the market, don’t hesitate to try it, especially if it’s well priced. Retailers wouldn’t sell it if it didn’t taste good—and the fresher, the better.
 
 

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That’s a perfect salad recipe in our book. But how else can you make a fall-inspired salad? Start with your favorite lettuces. Then, add two or more selections from the fall produce list.

Aim for fall colors: a bit of orange,

FALL FRUITS

Use them diced or sliced, raw or cooked:

 
FALL VEGETABLES

You can get lots of inspiration just by strolling up and down the produce aisles, looking for appealing colors and flavors.

[2] Beets and oranges scream fall (photo © Socarrat Paella Bar | NYC).

[3] Broccoli and cashew salad on pinto beans with red onion and red bell pepper (photo © Souplantation [permanently closed]).

SALAD BASE

Before you add the greens, fill the salad bowl with cooked beans, greens, or legumes.

 
SALAD GARNISHES

Ingredients

 
Preparation

1. COMBINE all ingredients. We like to emulsify it in the blender to prevent separation.
 
 

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The fall cool-down began here last week. But we knew fall was in the air more than a month ago, when the fall-flavor product samples started to arrive.

Fall is perhaps the best season to get into the flavor spirit. As the choices of warm-weather fresh produce narrow, pumpkin, squash and foods flavored with “fall spices”—allspice, cinnamon, clove, ginger and nutmeg—give us something to look forward to.

Consider all the seasonal specialties with pumpkin:

BREAKFAST: You can start the morning with pumpkin spice oatmeal, pancakes and muffins; spread your toast with pumpkin butter; and pop pumpkin marshmallows into your cocoa. Or, just grab a pumpkin scone and a pumpkin spice latte.

BREAK: With your morning or afternoon “coffee break,” switch to Zhena’s Vanilla Spice Harvest Herb Tea or Republic Of Tea’s Pumpkin Spice Seasonal Black Tea, with a a pumpkin chocolate chip cookie or pumpkin biscotto.

LUNCH: How about Chobani’s Greek Yogurt Flip, with Pumpkin Harvest Crisp to toss into the plain yogurt? (Pumpkin Harvest Crisp comprises pie crust pieces, glazed pumpkin seeds and pecans.) We also liked Chobani’s seasonal blended Cinnamon Pear yogurt.)

DINNER: There’s pumpkin soup, pumpkin pasta, roasted pumpkin alone or with other vegetables, rice, even in a green salad. And by all mean, have a pumpkin ice cream hot fudge sundae for dessert. We’ll save the pumpkin cocktails, crème brûlée, bundt cakes and pies for another time.

Here’s the first batch of what we’ve enjoyed so far:

 
For snacking, we’ve enjoyed:

TOP: Talenti’s Pumpkin Pie gelato contains real pumpkin and actual pieces of pie crust. MIDDLE: Flip some Pumpkin Harvest Crisp into your yogurt. BOTTOM: Dandies pumpkin mini-marshmallows, vegan and kosher.

 
There’s more to come, so stay tuned! But first note: Most of these are seasonal specials. Eat up!

“Do you know you have expired apple butter?” we queried. “Oh that,” she replied. “Someone gave it to me years ago and I didn’t know what to do with it.”

Apple butter is not butter, we explained. It’s a fruit spread so creamy, it spreads like butter. There’s no dairy in it. Think of it as creamy apple jam.

Today’s tip is for anyone who needs suggestions for using apple butter, and for those who want to make their own from the fall crop of just-picked apples. There’s a slow cooker recipe below.

WHAT IS APPLE BUTTER?

Apple butter is a highly concentrated form of apple sauce, as dense as a spread. While the skins are used, since the apples are cooked to a point where the sugar in the flesh caramelizes and the flesh turns brown, the color of the apple doesn’t make a difference.

In the Middle Ages, the first monasteries with large fruit orchards began to appear in Europe. Apple butter, developed at that time, turned out to have a long shelf life (due to the concentration of sugars). It was an ideal way to conserve part of the apple crop.

Villagers made their own apple butter, and a popular bread spread was born. As imported spices became more affordable, apple butter was enhanced with allspice, cinnamon, clove and nutmeg.

Fast forward some centuries to the colonization of North America: Housewives brought the technique for making apple butter with them. In the 1700s, the German Rhinelanders and Moravians who settled into the Blue Ridge Mountains, especially in Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia, “really honed apple butter-making to a deliciously fine art.” (Source: FoodTimeline.org.)

In the 1800s, another German immigrant group, the Pennsylvania Dutch (a misspelling of Deutsch), established the tradition in southeastern Pennsylvania. In the latter half of the century, with the invention of the Mason jar, apple butter was “put up” by even more households. These days, you can freeze it.

Apple butter’s popularity declined in the 20th century, with the proliferation of store-bought brands of jam and jelly providing a wide variety of fruit options year-round.
 
WHAT KIND OF APPLES SHOULD YOU USE?

You can use any apples, but soft apples work best because they cook down the fastest. Choose one (or more) of these varieties, and you’ll have apple butter in no time:

 
WAYS TO USE APPLE BUTTER

Breakfast

 
Lunch

Dinner

 
Dessert

Snack

 
RECIPE: SLOW COOKER APPLE BUTTER

Because the apples cook for a long period, this is a recipe best made in a slow cooker. Plan to start cooking early in the morning. For gifting, use 8-ounce Mason or Ball jars, or other attractive jars. Note that the apple butter won’t have any preservatives, so should be refrigerated or frozen. This recipe is courtesy Taste Of Home.
 
Ingredients For 4 Pints

 
Preparation

1. PLACE the apples in a 3-quart slow cooker. Combine the other ingredients, pour over the apples and mix well. Cover and cook on high for 1 hour.

2. REDUCE the heat to low; cover and cook for 9-11 hours or until thickened and dark brown, stirring occasionally. Stir more frequently as the spread thickens, to prevent sticking.

3. UNCOVER and cook on low 1 hour longer. If desired, stir with a wire whisk until smooth.

4. SPOON into jars or freezer containers, leaving a half inch of space at the top. Cover and refrigerate or freeze.
 
_________________________________
*Freeze apple butter in an ice cube tray; blend frozen cubes with almond milk and banana, with spices to taste.

†You can use apple butter like applesauce, as a replacement for oil, eggs and butter, in most baked good recipes. Like applesauce, it provides sweetness and moistness in breads, cakes, cookies, muffins, pancakes and waffles. Look for tested recipes.

‡You can cut back on the sweetness, or try one batch and then adjust it.

A conversation ensued among the nut-averse and lactose-intolerant in attendance, that they didn’t use pesto because of the cheese or the nuts.

There’s an easy alternative: chermoula, a Middle Eastern marinade and sauce popular in the cuisines of Algeria, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia.

As with pesto recipes, there are countless regional variations both in ingredients and proportions. But chermoula usually starts with a mixture of fresh herbs (especially cilantro), olive oil, lemon juice, cumin, garlic and salt.

Flavorful chermoula is typically used with fish and seafood, and its green color adds brightness to what we personally refer to as “beige and brown foods.” It is also used to flavor meat, poultry and vegetable dishes.

Variations include black pepper, fresh coriander, ground chiles, onion, pickled lemons and saffron, among other ingredients.

[2] A leg of lamb with chermoula and roasted bell peppers (photo © Australian Lamb).

[3] Butterflied leg of lamb with chermoula. Here’s the recipe (photo © Australian Lamb).

Hummus & Chermoula[/caption]
[4] Hummus garnished with chermoula (photo © Balaboosta Restaurant | NYC).

In the Middle East, chermoula is traditionally made with a mortar and pestle. In our tests making pesto, the mortar and pestle produced a more flavorful pesto than the food processor. So we pulled it out to make this recipe. Feel free to switch on the food processor instead.

This recipe is a Moroccan variation, with paprika. As with pesto, it is easy to make. Prep time is just 10 minutes. You can make extra and freeze it.

Ingredients For 1 Cup

 
You can put your own stamp on the recipe, of course. We had some leftover fresh mint, so added it to the second batch.
 
Preparation

1. COMBINE all the ingredients in a mortar or food processor. Grind or pulse into a thick paste. It’s that easy!

2. STORE the chermoula in a jar with a tight-fitting lid. It will last for up to 3 weeks in the fridge, needing only to be stirred.

3. FREEZE extra in the compartments of an ice cube tray that has been sprayed with nonstick olive oil spray. When the cubes have frozen, remove them to a freezer bag.
 
 
MORE GOOD FOOD FROM THE MIDDLE EAST

This weekend we perused a book that had been sent to us on The Food of Oman, a sultanate on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula.

When we pulled it out of its packaging, our first reaction was, “We have no time to figure out the cooking of Oman.” But as we thumbed our way through the book, we wanted to eat everything!

If you enjoy learning new cuisines, or know someone who does, pick up a copy. The author, an American food writer who lived in the Middle East, takes readers on a journey that is delightful.
____________________________

*You can include the small stems that attach the leaves to the main stalks.

†A fruity style (as opposed to peppery) is preferable.