Catfish are a large family of bony fish, named for the elongated barbels that resemble cat whiskers. These barbels function much like whiskers, allowing them to feel their was around the bottom of lakes and rivers. Their sensitive whiskers, combined with their excellent senses of smell and taste, make catfish excellent at scavenging and hunting whatever they can find.

Catfish live all over the world and are eaten in many cultures. In America, channel catfish and blue catfish make up the majority of catfish that are fished and consumed.

We don't eat Latin food at my house very often--most of my Latin dining experience has occurred at Justine's house on enchilada night. My dad has been wanting to make fish tacos for a while, and I decided that the match up worked perfectly for the dish.

Fish tacos can be made with any whitefish, though cod is usually used. By those who dislike, it Catfish is generally criticized as being watery and bland, though by the same token, it has been treated as a delicacy in certain cultures. I had never tried catfish before, so I was a little nervous about this dish.

I bought two catfish filets and prepared each in a different way--my sister doesn't like spice, so I kept that in mind, and removed jalapeno from the original recipe. One was marinaded in lime juice and garlic and then put in the broiler for about 10 minutes. The other one was sliced in pieces and dredged in a mixture of cornmeal, chili powder and Cajun spice blend. The pieces were then pan fried for about 3-4 minutes a side.

I used pre-made hard taco shells and served the catfish with shredded cabbage and a salsa of avocado, tomato, onion, cilantro, and lime juice. I thought the salsa was a little too sweet, but my parents adored it and I can't exactly pinpoint where the sweetness came from. The catfish was delicious--the fried was way better than the broiled, but I should have used more of the spice because there wasn't as much kick as I'd expected.

Overall, the homemade salsa probably took the longest to make, and I now have a small farm's worth of half used veggies in the fridge. This could be easily made again, though I would probably go for a storebought salsa to save time and money. I would also considering trying a different fish, just to see the difference.

Up next is #8. Potatoes (Contemporary French). Bon Apetit, me.

If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it's probably a duck. But what IS a duck? I'm glad you asked.

Ducks are one of the three Anatidae family, which consists of ducks, swans, and geese--all birds that have evolved to live an amphibious lifestyle. The feathers of ducks are waterproofed and form a tight layer around the body, which keeps the duck warm and helps it float. It has short, powerful wings which aid it in long distance flying. The bill is designed to sift through mud for edible particles.

Ducks are found in every continent, save for Antarctica, but are most commonly used as poultry in southeast Asia. Americans tend to prefer chickens, which are built with less fat and more white meat. Ducks, however, are LOADED with fat, which helps keep them buoyant and insulated from the cold. As well, ducks tend to use their wings, which chickens do not. Breast meat in chicken is kept "white" because the muscles are extremely inactive, especially when compared to the dark meat in the legs and thighs. Ducks us it all, and basically don't have any white meat to speak of. The most common variety of duck eaten is the Pekin duck, a descendant of the wild mallard.

My dad says duck is one of those foods that he loves to order at restaurants because it means someone else is cooking it. When birds are all plucked and headless, they all tend to look pretty much the same, but as I noted earlier, ducks are very different from chicken. You really don't cook a duck like you'd cook a chicken--it's a lot of work.

As the style for this meal was Chinese, I knew there was really only one dish I could make--Chinese Crispy Duck. The process of making a true Peking Duck is incredibly labor intensive and supposedly utilizes a special breed of Chinese duck, raised specifically for the purpose of being cooked as a Peking Duck. I used the cheapo fake way, obviously.

My duck was purchased at the farmers market before it came home and had some of the fat trimmed, especially from the neck, tail, and inside of the thighs. The duck was then submerged in a large pot filled with a simmering marinade consisting primarily of chicken stock, soy sauce, and rice vinegar. Also added was ground anise, chopped shallots, red miso, and an orange peel. Before entering the marinade, I pricked the duck's skin all over with a skewer and rubbed it with Chinese five spice. The pricks in the skin were placed to allow the fat to drain while it dried and cooked.

The crispyness of a crispy duck comes from the drying process. I left the duck in a cold room under a fan for 24+ hours, which allowed it plenty of time to dry out. When it was ready to be eaten, I roasted it in the oven at 400 for 45 minutes, though I probably could have left it for longer.

The duck was served moo shu style with mandarin pancakes, which are basically just flour tortillas. The marinade was reduced and used as a sauce for the wraps. I also prepared Chinese white rice, though it ended up not really being necessary alongside the pancakes.  Ultimately, I think the duck tasted delicious and was fun to prepare, though the dish could have been improved if I had let it maybe cook a little longer to drain out more of the fat.

I had bought a whole pack of red miso, but only needed about a tablespoon for the marinade. I decided I might as well find some way to use it (because, let's face it, miso isn't exactly an ingredient you just throw in with some pasta on leftover night), so I decided to make one of my favorite dishes, miso soup, to go with the duck. Yes, I know miso soup is Japanese, not Chinese... but I don't care so yeah.

Miso soup is basically three parts--miso, tofu, and dashi, a Japanese seafood stock. The dashi is made with dried seaweed (kombu) and bonito flakes (katsuo-bushi). Benito flakes are basically fish meat that's dried and shaved... yummy. It smells like fish food and the dashi itself is one of the foulest smelling  things I've ever experienced. I added the miso and miraculously it transformed into tasty goodness. I'm glad the miso was easy to make... because I know have enough miso, dried kelp and bonito flakes to make it a couple more times in the next few months.

Next on the platter is 7. Catfish (Latin American). I'm thinking fish tacos.

Squash is one of those loverly botanical fruits/culinary vegetables, being the large holding vessel for seeds of the squash plants. Squashes come in many varieties (pumpkins and zucchini are both squashes) and have been eaten in North America for centuries.

I'm not exactly sure what defines cooking as "Californian" as opposed to "Contemporary American" or whatever, but squash is sure as hell seasonal--they are often divided into categories of summer and winter squash, based on when they were harvested. Summer squash is harvested at the beginning of the season when the plant is still immature, while winter squash is the name for the mature plant. Butternut Squash, the squash I used for this dish, is a winter squash and a Thanksgiving staple--how can you get more seasonal than that?

I made this soup for Thanksgiving at my Aunt's house in Pittsburgh. We forgot our camera so we didn't get a shot of the finished product, hence the dummy photo via Google Images. (It's the first photo that comes up if you google butternutt squash soup.) My aunt also purchased all the ingredients.

I made a lot of soup given the fact we were serving 10 people, so obviously the recipe would be adjusted for a smaller batch. The good thing about the soup is that it stores well, so even if you make a bunch, you can make use of it all.

I used four containers of pre-diced squash, which saved me the adventure of having to hack one apart myself. The squash was thrown in a big pot with chopped onions and chicken stock. I also added two diced potatoes, which were added to give the soup a creamier consistency.

After the mixture was left to simmer for a while, I went into it with the most marvelous and messy of all kitchen utensils--the hand blender. The first time I used one was a couple of years ago when I made gazpacho on my mom's birthday. I put it in a pot that was too shallow and showered the kitched in diced veggies and wet bread. This time I was better prepared.

After the soup is blended together... well, that's it! Voila, nice creamy squash soup. I am a big fan of this recipe for a number of reasons stated above (easy to make, easy to store) but most of all I like it because, well... I just don't really like squash that much. This soup, however, is perfectly satisfying as an appetizer. Definitely one I'll be making again... probably next thanksgiving.

Tonight I will be preparing dish 6. Duck (Chinese). This one has by far been one of the most fun to prepare, and I'm excited to share it!

Cheese is basically the name for any milk that is no longer milk. More technically speaking, cheese products are the result of coagulating milk into a solid form, or curdling it. From that point, there are an incredible number of ways to continue to process the cheese, resulting in hundreds of different varieties.

Oh, the Margerine episode of South Park is on, what fun!

...Er, as I was saying, there are a shit ton of cheese varieties out there, made in a number of ways. Cheddar Cheese, for example, is made by cutting curds into cubes, which are stacked onto one another and pressed for a long period of time, then cut and stacked and pressed again.

For this course, I didn't want to limit myself to a single kind of cheese--I wanted the opportunity to experiment with various cheese flavors.

The filet isn't difficult to make by any means--meat in general is basically throw on heat and voila. In my house, we usually don't eat stake with a sauce, so this definitely switched things up a bit. I boiled heavy cream for 45 minutes, stirring it the entire time (thank goodness there is a tv in my kitchen) before adding crumbled gorgonzola, parmesan, and parsley. Gorgonzola is a blue cheese--a cheese that is injected with bacteria so it grows a delightful blueish colored mold. When you think about this, it makes it sound entirely unappetizing, and the smell doesn't really add the appeal. Gorgonzola has a very sharp, cheesy flavor to it--my dad despises it, so it's good he wasn't here. The sauce, quite simply put, was wonderful, and I have the extra that wasn't used on the steak.

The ravioli didn't turn out that well, as I don't have a pasta maker, so the dough itself was thicker than preferred. If I had a pasta maker I am certain it would have been a much more delightful meal. Like most ravioli, this was filled with ricotta cheese, a cheese that is made from the whey (the liquid left over when the curd is separated from the milk.) The ricotta is usually mixed with something else--the recipe I found suggested chestnuts, which I had never cooked before. After the 45 minute boiling period, the chestnuts smelled positively vile, but when processed with the cheese, the smell vanished. Chestnuts have quite a sweet flavor, which complemented the ricotta well. I also added nutmeg and rosemary to the mix to ~spice it up~. Literally. The sauce was just melted marscapone and a pinch of sage. Marscapone is a cheese made from cream, and it is closer to cream cheese than a block cheese, with a very mild flavor.

This meal was simply put, hell to prepare. Making the pasta dough was miserable, simply put, and if I think I'm going to be making my own pasta frequently, I'll have to invest in a pasta maker that can get the dough as flat as it needs to be. The 45 minutes of consecutive stirring was also way too laborious for my liking, even if the sauce was one of the most heavenly things I've tasted in a while. Not to mention it's terrible for you. All in all, it wasn't the best meal for your average night in, but if I were ever given a larger group to entertain, I'd enjoy whipping it up again.

Up next is #5- Squash (Seasonal Californian.) And really, who likes squash?

Crustaceans are a prolific group of arthropods, defined by a number of characteristics, most obviously their strong exoskeletons and their gills. (All crustaceans have gills, even those that don't live in water, which is why land dwelling crustaceans, like pillbugs, must live in damp places.) Crabs are a specific group of crustacean with reduced abdomens and tails, as well as claws (usually.)

There are a zillion kinds of crabs (approximately), both freshwater and saltwater species, found all over the world in all sizes. A huge number of them are used in cooking, and since they are found in all parts of the world, they show up in the cuisines of many different culture.

Unfortunately for me, the French culture isn't so fond of crabs, so I stuck to Asian on this dish. There were a number of options, a lot of which were salads, and let's be real--throwing a bunch of stuff into a bowl and mixing it up isn't really cooking.

Also unfortunately for me, my dad decided to cook crabcakes this weekend (my grandparents were in town, so a spicy Asian crabcake wouldn't have gone over well with them. The leftover crab was then used for crab sauce the next night, and you won't believe what mom cooked the night after that (crab legs!!!! woo.)

So I am up to fucking here with crabs, hot damn. I wanted to try something different, so I went for the Japanese style of tempura. Tempura is a fried dish, but it is different in that the food is only battered, not breaded. The batter itself gets it's fluffy consistency from being kept cold until fried. I was quite frankly, scared shitless at the prospect of cooking it, if only because I was convinced I would overblend the batter or get it too warm.

The batter itself can be homemade but I bought the mix at the supermarket and I think for my first time, it was a much safer bet. The batter can be mixed a number of ways, either with water and ice or seltzer--I used seltzer because we have a ton lying around, otherwise I would have just gone for the crushed ice method. The food is then dipped in the batter, but not too heavily--you only want a thin layer so it stays light and crispy. I don't have a deep fryer, so I did my frying in a deep pan with about 1 1/2 inches of vegetable oil for about 3 minutes per batch.

For the items to tempura, I used king crab leg, which is sold precooked. I then boiled it to reheat it and removed the shell to batter the meat. Tempura is most often done to veggies, however, so I accompanied the crab with green peppers, asparagus, and broccoli. The tempura frying cooked all of the veggies wonderfully--the peppers were by far the most delicious part. The accompanying sauce was just rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, and fresh ginger.

So that's it for crab... thankfully. I've had enough of it this week to last me a good long while (or at least until ingredient 35, which is Dungeness Crab.) The tempura turned out really nicely, but it was way too messy and required too much stuff to be a frequent dish. up next is #4 Cheese (New American). I don't know what makes something "new" but I'm not so sure I really care. I'm looking forward to this one, as it's quite open ended.