My Eighty-third - bouillabaisse and paella -100 Meals You Never Thought You Would Eat Pureed - Recipes for Head and Neck Cancer patients

My Eighty-third - bouillabaisse and paella -100 Meals You Never Thought You Would Eat Pureed - Recipes for Head and Neck Cancer patients

New England is to seafood as Iowa is to pork and Kansas City is to beef.  So, this blog will contain a lot of seafood recipes.  New England also has pockets of great ethnic restaurants, and I have to say that I miss both bouillabaisse and paella.  No they are not the same; however, for puree, they have they same common problem - lack of tongue flexibility.

But let's back up why it should be on the list.  I'll start with steamed mussels.  I love steam mussels in butter, parsley and white wine (not a fan of licorice flavor).  This was one of my favorite summertime treats.  No one else in my family liked them, so I could make it when everyone was out for the evening.  Nothing like sitting on the back porch listening to the birds, while peeling muscles from the shell . . . reminds me of a song . . . but I digress.

OK, start adding more seafood, spice, and some starch and you have the seafood stew which is either  bouillabaisse and paella.  Now there are a thousand variations based on local catch and ethnic preference - mussels, clams, crab, lobster, fish, scallops, shrimp, cockleshells, urchin, etc.

In full disclosure, my friend are vastly better at making bouillabaisse and paella, than I am.  I'm the type of guy that would buy these dishes at a restaurant, because at home I would make a giant pot, that no one else would eat, and I would be eating it for weeks . . . 

Bouillabaisse and paella are both dishes that are popular for family sit-down dinners.  So don't be afraid when you go to your family gatherings.


RECIPE:
Get fingers wet pulling meat off shells
dump in blender
add water
screen blend


GET FINGERS WET
Ok, let's get to the heart of the issue - removing all the inedible shells and skins.  No, normally we are smart enough to remove shells and skins of seafood before we eat them.  However, there is always that stray piece, that we catch with our nimble tongues which we have to force back through our lips and spit into a napkin.

Lip-sippers and tube-eaters don't have this luxury,  so the first thing we need to do is manually remove all the clam shells, shrimp skins, crab shells, etc.  Second we need to look through the broth for any loose shells and large pieces of sand. No, I didn't say this was going to be easy, and this meal is not for the most frustrated caregivers.  I view this meal as the reward for the "Near the end" of the journey dinner.  

SCREENING
I highly recommend screening the puree.  Especially for tube-eaters.  Most wire screens will work.  Some wire, flour screens might be to fine a mesh to allow acceptable pieces of meat and tomato through.  What we are looking to do is catch shrimp shells and get lost in the broth and we failed to fish it out.  Shrimp shells also seem to avoid blender blends like little ninjas . . . just saying.

WATER
The amount of water is more about how nibble your tongue is, or how thin you want your tube puree.  I recommend that you go very thin on your first batch, at least until you have mastered it.  The nice thing about wither recipe is that you can make any size batch you want from 1/2 cup to a full pitcher.

DOWNSIDE
With any seafood, the aroma might not be appetizing.  Seafood tends to be a love/hate smell

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