happy valendive day! yes valendive! i received a huge box of endives from californian endive farms yesterday which inspired me to make small endive boats for valentine day. since we are going to a ballet tonight, there's not enough time between work and ballet to sit properly in a restaurant and have a nice dinner. so i decided to make dinner tapas style that we can make them ready within 10-20 mins and then leave the house.
our first course is very similar to the one i made a couple of years ago (pomegranate endive salad) but this time with avocado, heirloom tomatoes, and cilantro. i chopped them all into tiny pieces to make it like a salsa and added salt pepper, lime juice and olive oil for the taste. it's nice to leave the salad in a bowl for a couple of minutes before serving it in the endive boats. they get the flavors better.
another inspiration i had today was because of having appointments in japan town, which gave me the chance to stop at the japanese supermarket afterwards and get some yummy ingredients. therefore our second course is a katsuo tataki sashimi. katsou is a very meaty fish and has a very special aroma. i marinated it with slices of garlic, ginger, green onions, and soy sauce for a couple of hours and then served it sashimi style. our third course is a reinvention of rotate sashimi using the scallops i bought at the japanese market. i sautéed the scallops briefly in hot butter, and added some lime juice, wasabi and soy sauce to it.
and the fourth course is grilled shrimps. i marinated them in some lime juice, olive oil, saffron, salt and pepper. then grilled them for five minutes on each side. the fifth course is a pear and cheese salad in the endive boats. the combination of pear and goat cheese make them a perfect dessert and the endives give them a fresh flavor and it's easier to have the endive bites. hope you also enjoy a magnificent valentine's day. nousheh jahn!
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