My Eleventh recipe - Swordfish Dijonnaise -100 Meals You Never Thought You Would Eat Pureed - Recipes for Head and Neck Cancer patients

My Eleventh recipe for the new cookbook - Swordfish Dijonnaise

This recipe is dedicated everyone that ever worked at the Versailles Restaurant in Lexington, MA. 

Although the Versailles restaurant was sold to Bertucci's more than a decade ago, most of the recipes are still locked in my head.  Before I started working there, I was pretty much a yellow mustard-kind-of-guy.  Working in a french restaurant, gave me a chance to taste different kinds of mustards.  

I was a waiter there while in college.  The cooking area was quite accessible by the waitstaff, so I often watched the Chef's prepare the food.  The chef's used to joke that I was a chef-wannabe.

One of the most common employee meals was chicken dijonnaise with saffron rice and julienne vegetables.  Lucky for us today, Whole Foods had a sale on fresh swordfish, so I made a seafood variation.  Swordfish is very easy to puree, and I have had great success with a regular blender. (Before I got my Vitamix)

This is the first recipe that I would drop in the category of SPECIAL DINNER.  Most of the recipes so far have been comfort foods,  one of the big losses for eating pureed food is not being able to eat "fancy" foods for celebrations like anniversaries.

1 Swordfish Dijonnaise

or

1 unit. grilled swordfish or chicken

1 unit turmeric rice

1 unit sauteed vegetables

Dijon Mustard

Heavy cream

dash of white wine

too much olive oil

SWORDFISH

Nearly any white fish will work - haddock, cod, flounder, etc.   I recommend buying fresh fish instead of frozen, as it is easier to puree.  No need to season the fish before you grill it.  You will add the mustard to the blender.

MUSTARD

Mustard is one of the spices that most oral cancer survivors can still taste during treatment.  Remember to start "Light", because you can always add more mustard later.  Warning, It might also burn open mouth sores.

TURMERIC RICE

Cook the rice with some mild onion, turmeric, and salt and pepper.  Pretty simple recipe really.  If you can afford Saffron, add it.  Saffron is one of the most expensive spices in the world.  The nice thing about turmeric rice, is it makes the puree a bright yellow,  which is far better than the typical grey meals of the other recipes.

VEGETABLE

You don't have to get fancy and julienne the vegetables, unless you have two people eating and one wants a plate of food, while the other has a bowl.  Typically, I use root vegetables like carrots, rutabaga, turnip, etc.  Although the Versailles would blanch the vegetable first,  for this recipe, I typically cut up the vegetables and toss them into the rice while it is cooking. Keep it simple!

PUREE

Place the swordfish, rice, vegetables in the blender.  Add mustard, heavy cream, and additional water.  Although Swordfish Dijonnaise sounds fancy, it is really a simple recipe.  Hence, the reason the chefs often made it as the employee meal of the shift.

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