Pot of Gold

Use your Midas Touch to make a luscious rock cod stew

I love fennel. I often announce that at parties and then I wonder why people try to get away from me.

Anyhow, fennel is a great spring vegetable. It’s available at other times of year, but it’s in season locally right now. I saw some on the shelf at Whole Foods looking all bright green and jaunty, and I decided I had to make a fish stew with fennel, tomatoes, potatoes, and rock cod.

Shopping

Now, Whole Foods being Whole Foods, the fennel cost $4.37 for two bulbs, which is literally one penny less than I paid for a pair of clogs when one of those Shoe Pavilion places was going out of business. But there I go getting off track. The fennel was organic, which was some consolation.

A five-pound bag of organic red potatoes at Whole Foods isn’t too bad—$5.99. Our regular grocery store may have cheaper ones, but they’re not organic, and potatoes that are grown with chemicals just suck those toxins out of the soil. They are one of the “Dirty Dozen” fruits and veggies, which tend to have a lot of chemical residue on them if they’re not organic. Like I always say, it doesn’t seem worth poisoning your family to save a few bucks.
 

But I decided I needed to go turbo Cheapskate on the other ingredients in the stew.

The veggies I had to buy—leeks, onions, garlic—I grabbed at Safeway because those particular vegetables have natural pest control and therefore aren’t sprayed much. Buying them organic is basically paying for a marketing campaign, not a healthier product. This is fine, if your motto is why pay less.

I have to admit that I wanted to put saffron in the stew, and headed over to a Mexican grocery store because I thought I remembered seeing saffron really cheap. I was practically trembling with Cheapskate joy when I found a package of saffron for 99 cents, after just having seen a container about as big as a Good n’ Plenty for sale at Whole Foods for $6.99. Now, a lot of you are already shaking your heads, I know—this stuff I bought is not at all the real thing. When I opened it, it smelled like sour socks. As I found out afterward, the cheap stuff is generally just safflowers, and really, the only resemblance it bears to saffron is its orangey red color.

Cooking

So, when you make this stew, which I strongly advise, just cut up enough potatoes for about six people and boil them for five minutes in salted water. Take them out and save the water. Then warm some olive oil in a big, wide pot, and sauté one or two leeks, one or two onions, and a few cloves of garlic (all chopped up, of course), as well as a big piece of orange zest and some herbs that you like. (Sniff some basil, fennel seed, lavender, marjoram, rosemary, sage, savory, and thyme. If you like how they smell, throw ‘em in.) When your sautéed vegetables are soft, add a couple cups of wine and cook to reduce by half. Then add two cans of tomatoes, the potatoes, those two high-priced bulbs of fennel cut into wedges, a small handful of chopped parsley, and a big handful of Niçoise olives (check out Trader Joe’s; they’re cheap and quite good). Pour in enough potato water to cover, bring to a boil, and simmer for about a half-hour.

You can stop here and go plain veggie, or you can dazzle your friends and family by adding a couple of pounds of cut-up rock cod and cooking a few more minutes until the fish is tender and white. Rock cod, or Pacific snapper, is decidedly cheap fish. I hate it on its own, but it is just amazing in soups or stews. Check it out this week at Lucky for the low, low price of $4.99 a pound, and make a stew that is liquid gold.

Now, aren’t you so glad I love fennel? See you next time with more cheap talk from the Cheapskate Gourmet.
 

Posted at 09:36 AM in Cheapskate Gourmet | Permalink