salt-baked hamachi kama for breakfast

So I fricken love hamachi kama. I used to always look for it on the menu at sushi restaurants because nothing can beat a nice grilled piece of yellowtail collar with a lot of lemon on the side. The flesh is succulent, falls apart at slight pressure, and any salt you add to it only enhances the flavor. Sunday morning, after Mike had already gotten our weekend ritual of Dunkin'* for breakfast, I jumped out of my seat and ran to the kitchen.  You see, I'd bought the hamachi kama at the Lobster Place in Chelsea Market before the weekend and was worried it had gone bad. 

Fear not, (I did), the fish was fresh and smelled like... mostly nothing. I like that in a fish that I'm about to consume. 

My normal dealie with the kama is to place it in a cast iron pan with olive oil and butter in the bottom so the skin gets extra crisp and fabulous. Then I dump it unceremoniously into a bowl so that I can eat in front of my keyboard and pour the rendered oils over the entire lot. 

Notice the tots made a one time only appearance. I normally eat this plain with a whole lemon to squeeze on every bite. 

recipe if you can call it that

• one piece hamachi kama (yellowtail collar)
• plenty of salt
• olive oil/butter

Heat the oven to 350ish degrees and place your hamachi kama, skin side down, into a pan just large enough to hold it. Pour a splash or three of olive oil over the top and into the pan and add a pat of butter in the bottom because I said so. Get your tastiest, flakiest, semi coarse salt and sprinkle it liberally over the whole thing.

Place in the oven and cook till it sizzles that it's done at you. 

*I do tots and an iced tea/coffee, he does an everything bagel with cream cheese and two donuts.

pork cheeks braised in a coconut-tomato-wine sauce with pasta

So I was walking up from a paper supply store and decided to stop by Eataly. At the meat counter they had pork cheeks in the spot I was hoping to find boar sausage, but whatever. Pork cheeks! I didn't know what I wanted to do with them, but I knew that I wanted them. The butcher behind the counter asked me what you do with pork cheeks and I said well... braise mostly.  

So that's what I did.  1.5 pounds of pork cheeks got braised in my le creuset purple dutch oven of awesomness then got smothered with wine, tomato paste, tomato concentrate, coconut milk, berbere spices, salt, pepper and a small can of anchovies. 

This was placed into a 300ish oven for 3ish hours. Then I decided I didn't want to eat them that day because we'd had italian sausage earlier while the cheeks were cooking. So into the fridge they went.  The next day, I got Mike to heat them up (funny how guys can make a big deal out of heating up the food you did all of the prep work for because they might break/drop/set-fire-to something) and cook the fresh pasta from the noodle case at Eataly. 

He was... hesitant... but not everyone can be excited about pork cheeks without trying them! Once he got over that he liked them enough to clean his bowl (win!). 

I had them later that night with some more pasta and a sprinkle or two of Parmesan cheese. The cheeks are so easy and really flavorful. Plus, the meat just falls apart after all that cooking.

recipe

• 1.5-2 lbs pork cheeks
• 1 tube of tomato paste
• 1 small bottle of tomato concentrate
• 1 can of coconut milk (the creamier the better)
• 1/2 a bottle of red wine
• one small can of anchovies
• Berbere spice mix (I get mine from spices and tease)
• few dashes of Worcestershire sauce
• salt and pepper to taste