Dinner and a show, 49 West

George Watson joined us last night for soup and salad and then we went for jazz to 49 West.

Dinner:

• A lovely fish soup, based on a recipe from somewhere for a haddock soup: chicken stock and white wine, leeks, haddock fillet, some cream. My rendering: a quart fish stock from bonito flakes, 1 or 2 cups white wine, leeks stir-fried in wok plus a garlic scallion, all simmered for 20 min. or more; then added a cup of heavy cream, a cup of coconut milk, several grinds of black pepper, 5 tbsp. of Thai fish sauce; add in 2 medium fillets of smoked catfish to heat through and a cup or two of chopped arugula; at serving, 1/2 - 1 cup chopped basil and mint. Amazingly good soup. It's worth noting that a day and two days later we enjoyed this soup as leftovers. Perhaps even better than fresh cooked. But note that fish was not reheated to boiling, only to quite hot - and quite delicious.
  
• An update from the pasta smoked fish and asparagus salad from the day before: add some freshly stir-fried garlic and asparagus, along with also stir-fried smoked shad, toss in the previous left-over salad into the wok and briefly blend together. Add 1/2 cup dill sour cream dressing from another meal and mix. Serve over fresh salad greens - could have used a little dressing for the greens. It was all delicious.

At 49 West it was Joe Byrd's 72 birthday. Playing with him was a wonderful youngish (July 22, 1955 in Elizabeth, NJ) jazz guitarist, Joshua Breakstone.