Local (Opah) Fish & Shrimp Stew with Garlicky Rouille & Garlic Toasts for #4theloveofgarlic and Souper (Soup, Salad & Sammie) Sundays (+ a Giveaway)

I do loves me some garlic so when the awesome Camilla of Culinary Adventures of Camilla came looking for food bloggers to try the fantastic Garject garlic press from Dreamfarm to create a garlic-filled recipe, and then Melissa's Produce offered us a box full of garlic, I will confess I was in a bit of garlic heaven.

As my posting date fell on a Sunday (Easter Sunday no less) and Sundays mean celebrating soup for Souper Sundays here at Kahakai Kitchen, I knew I had to make a soup or stew with my garlic bounty. 

A couple of years ago, I tried Diana Henry's Nicoise Vegetable Stew with Rouille and I especially loved the garlicky French condiment. I decided to make a seafood stew using local fish (opah {moonfish} in this case), Kauai shrimp and a bounty of vegetables and make a variation of her rouille recipe. 

And of course there was garlic! In addition to the rouille (for which I used elephant garlic, 'roasted' and caramelized in the slow cooker), I added garlic to the stew and served it with the rouille spooned on top of grilled bread toasts, rubbed with a garlic cloves.

Local Fish & Shrimp Stew with Garlicky Rouille & Garlic Toasts
By Deb, Kahakai Kitchen--inspired by Diana Henry
(Makes 6 Servings)

For the Stew:
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 sweet onion, chopped
1 large leek, well-cleaned, trimmed, halved and sliced
2 large stalks celery, chopped
1 large carrot, chopped
2 small fennel bulbs, chopped
3 garlic cloves, crushed
2 Tbsp tomato paste
3 Roma tomatoes, diced
3 sprigs of thyme
2 bay leaves
a pinch of saffron threads
1.5 lbs of baby potatoes--red & yellow mix, halved or quartered depending on size
6 cups vegetable, shrimp or fish stock
8 oz fresh green beans, trimmed and cut into thirds
salt and pepper
2 1/2 lbs of firm, mild fish of choice, chopped and/or shrimp, peeled & deveined--tails removed 

To Serve: 
Garlicky Rouille (recipe below)
Garlic Toasts 

Heat the olive oil in a large, heavy soup pot over medium heat and add the onions, leeks, carrot, celery and fennel and saute for about 10 minutes-stirring occasionally to make sure nothing is sticking. Add the garlic and tomato paste and sauté for another minute, then add the thyme sprigs, bay leaves and saffron threads, and continue sautéing for another minute or two. 

Add the potatoes and the stock and bring to a boil. Reduce stew to a simmer and cook about 10 minutes--until the potatoes start to become tender. Add the green beans and cook another 10 minutes until beans and potatoes are tender. Remove bay leaves and thyme sprig stems. Taste stew and add salt and pepper as desired. 

Bring soup back up to just a boil, add the fish and shrimp and cook about 4-5 minutes until fish and shrimp are opaque and just cooked through. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed.

Serve stew in warmed bowls, topped with garlic toasts and a healthy spoonful of the garlicky rouille as desired. Enjoy!

Note: There is raw egg yolk in this rouille, so I used very fresh, local eggs. (It does make the soup even more special so definitely do it if you can get your hands on good eggs.) If you don't want to use raw eggs, omit egg yolks and olive oil and replace with 1 cup of good mayonnaise. 
 
Garlicky Rouille
By Deb, Kahakai Kitchen, adapted from Diana Henry
(Makes about 1 cup of Rouille)  
 
3 large elephant garlic cloves, *roasted until soft & caramelized & garlic pulp squeezed out of paper skins
3 egg yolks
4 tsp tomato paste
2/3 cup olive oil
1/4 tsp smoked paprika
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
lemon juice to taste
salt and pepper to taste
 
In a small mixing bowl, add the roasted garlic paste, egg yolks and tomato paste and mix together well. Add the oil, very slowly, just a bit at a time while continuously beating with a fork or hand mixer on low. Mixture should thicken and emulsify--don't add the next bit of oil until the previous oil is incorporated fully and the mixture has thickened.
 
Add the paprika, cayenne, lemon juice salt and pepper to taste, adjusting the seasoning to your liking. 

(*Slow Cooker Caramelized Elephant Garlic: It was humid out and I didn't want to bother with the oven, so I used the slow cooker. I chopped the clove in half, horizontally and placed it on a large piece of aluminum foil (I used 1 head per piece of foil). I drizzled exposed part of the cloves with olive oil and sprinkled with a bit of salt and pepper and added a few thyme sprigs. I closed up the foil into packets and placed in the slow cooker. I cooked it on low for 7 hours--until garlic was brown, soft and easily squeezed from the skins.)

 
Notes/Results: OK, this stew is really delicious and well worth the extra effort and steps of making the rouille. The garlic is present but does not overpower and the rouille adds flavor and a creamy texture as it melts into the soup. Roasting the elephant garlic makes it sweeter and more mellow and keeps the rouille from being too pungent. For the toasts, I just brushed the cut baguette with olive oil and toasted it in a grill pan until lightly crisped and browned, then rubbed it lightly with the cut side of a garlic clove. The whole recipe made me happy and made the most of the wonderful garlic we were given. 

About the Garject: I used the Dreamfarm Garject to crush the garlic for the stew and I have been using it for pressing garlic since receiving it. It puts my flimsy old garlic press to shame (probably why I never use that one!) as it is heavy, solid and essentially cleans itself with almost no effort with it's eject button. No peeling cloves or trying to scrub it out afterward. Bliss! It definitely has become a new favorite gadget! (You can see it in action here.)

Many thanks to Camilla for organizing us and to Dreamfarm for the Garject and Melissa's Produce for all of the garlic.

Visit the following blogs and bloggers to see the garlic dishes they created:

A Day in the Life on the Farm

A Kitchen Hoor's Adventures

Café Terra

Culinary Adventures with Camilla

Famished Fish, Finicky Shark

Kahakai Kitchen

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The Event Sponsors

You can find Dreamfarm: on the web, on Facebook, on Twitter, and on Pinterest.

You can find Melissa's: on the web, on Facebook, on Twitter, on Pinterest, and on Instagram

*Disclosure: Bloggers received complimentary items from Dreamfarm for the purpose of review and complimentary ingredients from Melissa's Produce for the purpose of recipe development. Dreamfarm also provided prizes for the rafflecopter free of charge. Comments are 100% accurate and 100% our own. We have received no additional compensation for these posts.

The Garject is an amazing tool and there is an opportunity for six readers to win one for themselves: Enter here!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Now we have some good friends in the Souper Sundays kitchen who shared some delicious dishes last week--so let's have a look!

Ali of Fix Me a Little Lunch made Vegetarian Asparagus Soup and said, "This might be the best tasting recipe I’ve ever made.  I did make my own veggie stock this go around, and highly recommend you do the same. I’ve been gathering mushroom stems, asparagus bits, onion peels, and leftover celery leaves and stems. I throw it all in a freezer bag in the freezer and then make stock once I have a full bag.  The stock gives this soup a really rich flavor.  I also used a leek.  So – it’s a very simple soup: veggie stock, asparagus, a leek, a few chives and some salt."

Judee of Gluten Free A-Z Blog shared Roasted Tomato Carrot Soup and said, "My Roasted tomato carrot soup is perfect. With just 3 major ingredients, it is rich in color, nutrients, and flavor. It takes about 5 minutes to prep the vegetables, 25 minutes to roast them, and 3 minutes to blend the roasted veggies with some vegetable broth. Of course this soup is naturally gluten free as are all of my recipes."

Mahalo to Ali and Judee for joining in this week! 

Souper Sundays is back with a new format of a picture link each week where anyone interested can post their soups, salads, or sandwiches any time during the week and I post a recap of the entries the following week.)

(If you aren't familiar with Souper Sundays, you can read about of the origins of it here. 

If you would like to join in Souper (Soup, Salad, and Sammie) Sundays, I would love to have you! Here's how...

To join in this week's linkup with your soup, salad or sandwich:

• Link up your soup (stew, chili, soupy curries, etc. are fine), salad, or sandwich dish, (preferably one from the current week or month--but we'll take older posts too) on the picture link below and leave a comment on this post so I am sure not to miss you.

On your entry post (on your blog):

• please mention Souper (Soup, Salad & Sammies) Sundays at Kahakai Kitchen and link back to this post.
• you are welcome to add the Souper Sundays logo to your post and/or blog (optional).

An InLinkz Link-up

 
Have a Happy Easter and a happy, healthy week!