Ask Amanda: Seeking Smoked Fish
Zaytinya's avgotaraho is a Greek specialty of cured roe.Photo by Greg Powers and Audrey Crewe.
Q:
I'm having a major love affair with cured/smoked fish right now —
and I can't think of many great uses of it on menus in DC. Any ideas?
Amanda says:
I'm with you on smoked and cured fish. I love it. And lots of
restaurants around town are curing their own fish with delicious
results.
One of my favorite preparations around town is chef Ron Tanaka's
house-cured trout, served with a crunchy tangle of shaved fennel, a
bright tangerine vinaigrette and toasted hazelnuts at Cork Wine Bar.
Over lunch the other day at Tabard Inn,
I sampled my dining companion's lovely plate of house-smoked salmon and
smoked trout rillettes. And I'm a fan of the hoecakes, a small Southern
cornmeal cake, topped with house-cured salmon, caviar and dill creme
fraiche at Art and Soul.
Chefs all over the country have been using hay to smoke meats, fish and more. The Washington Post recently ran the recipe for Ripple's hay smoked bluefish pate. The restaurant's chef, Teddy Diggs, also does hay smoked mackerel with olive oil potatoes and salsa verde.
You can find salt-cured sardines at 2 Amys with bread and butter, and tea-cured salmon with scrambled eggs at Teaism during breakfast.
For one of the more interesting takes on the theme, give the avgotaraho
at Zaytinya a try. Like bottarga, this briny Greek delicacy is made from cured
mullet roe that's been dried, coated in beeswax and then sliced.
Have a question about dining out in DC? Ask Amanda.