Salmon Season

The Copper River salmon are here! These fish bring with them much fanfare, as they are the first fresh salmon we get for the year. And they are delicious. Expensive, but delicious.

I bought a small piece of salmon the other day to try out this recipe:

Poached salmon with peas and mushrooms

I used shitake mushrooms instead of morrels. It was AMAZINGLY delicious. Since I only had a little salmon, I defrosted some halibut we had gotten from friends after their fishing trip in Alaska and threw that in as well. It was also delicious. Basmati rice and an arugula salad from the garden. Definitely a meal to serve next time we have guests over. Which will hopefully be during salmon season!

Catching Up

My menu plans for last week kind of fell apart. It happens. I go to the grocery store, I buy food for the week, but then things happen and for whatever reason we end up eating out.

Tuesday I made Italian Wedding Soup from Cooks Illustrated. It was ok. I am convinced if I make enough different kinds of soup, I will eventually find one I like (Cooks Illustrated does have an excellent cream of tomato soup recipe). I also made an arugula salad. I love arugula. This salad was delicious, I will definitely make it again: Pear, Arugula and Pancetta Salad from Epicurious.

Wednesday I needed to use the leftover meat (a combination of ground pork and ground beef) from the meatballs in the Italian Wedding soup. So I made burgers, with sauteed mushrooms (which I had bought for a meal the previous week that we never made) and some left over provolone cheese. They were quite delicious actually.

Thursday I went to an auction, where dinner consisted of several glasses of wine.

Friday we ate at the local taco truck. I love the taco truck.

Saturday we had BBQ at a friends’ house after spending the afternoon helping them lay sod. There are now three BBQ places in Ballard. This one was pretty good. They did have good greens.

Sunday was Easter dinner at another friends’ house. I brought gougeres.

Tonight I made roasted salmon, which was supposed to be on the menu last week but never seemed to happen. It was really good, and super fast and easy. Best of all (from Adam’s perspective) only two dishes to clean! I’ve experimented with a lot of different ways of cooking salmon, and I have concluded that roasting is really the best.

Fried Fish and Raw Fish

I tried a new salmon recipe this week. I usually broil it or poach it or if we have a whole fish, grill it. This time I fried it. A little olive oil heated to high, throw in the fish and sprinkle with salt, turn the heat down a bit and fry for 3-5 minutes per side depending on thickness. It was really tasty. I made a lemon cream sauce to go along with it, but it didn’t quite turn out. It tasted fine, but I don’t think I simmered it enough because it never thickened. We also had a kale salad. Have I mentioned how much I love kale? It was delicious. Especially delicious for lunch the next day with some cold salmon thrown on top. Yum.

Last night we had dinner with mom and friends at the Dragonfish Cafe. It was fun, not the best sushi I’ve even had (lots of rice, no a lot of fish), but it was more about the company than the food last night. Tonight there are rumors of pizza (“American” pizza, per mom’s request. Not “Italian” pizza.)

Pork and Salmon

But not together…

Tuesday I felt like I got hit by a bus. I stayed home sick, but after spending all day on the couch, I was feeling useless so decided to go ahead and make dinner anyway. I typically do our menu planning on the weekend and make one grocery store run either Saturday (if I remember, because that is when they have free wine tasting at our grocery store!) or Sunday. I usually only plan 5 meals per week, to allow for unforeseen circumstances like spontaneous nights out, or as was the case this week, me being sick and not feeling like eating. I planned a full menu this week however, with lots of perishable veggies, so decided it would be best to cook. I think in my febrile delirium I thought this would be a good idea. In retrospect, Adam would have been much better able to make dinner. Ah well.

Tuesday night we had pork stir fry, from Cooks Illustrated. I love this magazine, because it explains why you do the things you do when cooking. I hate their website though, because they charge you $30 per year for internet access. Even if you already subscribe to the magazine! So you cannot have a link to the recipe (unless you subscribe). I cannot tell you if it was any good, because I am still congested and cannot actually taste anything. I’m having it for lunch today. If I can taste it, I will let you know. It’s easy to make, it just requires a lot of small bowls for prep, like any good stir-fry.

Sichuan Stir-Fried Pork in Garlic Sauce from Cooks Illustrated

For the pork:

12 oz. country style boneless pork ribs

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 c water

2 tsp rice wine

2 tsp corn starch

Cut the pork into 2 inch pieces after trimming excess fat, then cut each piece into 1/4 inch matchsticks. Mix water and baking soda and soak pork for 15 minutes. Rinse well, pat dry with paper towel. Combine rice wine and corn starch, add pork and toss to coat.

For the sauce:

1/2 c low sodium chicken broth

2 Tbsp sugar

2 Tbsp soy sauce

4 tsp Chinese black vinegar (or 2 tsp balsamic vinegar and 2 tsp rice vinegar)

1 Tbsp sesame oil

1 Tbsp rice wine

2 tsp ketchup

2 tsp fish sauce

2 tsp corn starch

Whisk all ingredients together, set aside.

For the stir fry:

4 cloves garlic, minced

2 green onions, white and green parts sliced

2 Tbsp Sriracha sauce (aka rooster sauce) or chile garlic paste

6 oz. shitake mushrooms, stemmed, sliced thin

2 stalks celery, sliced thin on the bias

4 Tbsp vegetable oil

Combine garlic, white parts of onions and chile paste, set aside. Heat one Tbsp oil in non-stick pan over high. Add mushrooms, cook until soft (3-5 minutes), then add celery and cook until crisp-tender (3-5 minutes). Remove from pan. Add remaining 3 Tbsp oil to pan, add chile-garlic sauce. Stir 30 seconds. Lower heat to medium-low, cook pork until no longer pink (3-5 minutes). Add sauce, increase heat to high and cook 1-2 minutes until thickened. Add veggies, toss to combine. Sprinkle with remaining sliced green onions. Serve with rice (or Adam requested crunchy chinese noodles next time, with water chestnuts instead of celery).

Last night was salmon with cucumber relish (also from Cooks Illustrated so I will transcribe the recipe for you here):

Oven Roasted Salmon from Cooks Illustrated

Skin on salmon filets

Olive oil, salt and pepper

Place baking sheet (lined with foil to make you dish washer happy) on the bottom rack of your oven, and heat to 500 degrees. Meanwhile, coat salmon filets (1 1/2 thick) with olI’ve oil, salt, pepper. Turn oven temp to 275, place salmon on pre-heated baking sheet, and cook 9-13 minutes.

Top with cucumber relish:

1 Tbsp chopped shallot

1 cucumber, peeled, seeded and diced

1 serrano chile, seeded, ribs removed, diced

2 Tbsp fresh mint, chopped

1 Tbsp lime juice

1/4 tsp salt

Combine all ingredients, let sit 15 minutes. Adjust seasonings with additional salt and lime juice.

I have made this before. It is delicious. They have several other relish options, which are also tasty (you might be able to link to this one). On the side we had broccolini with sesame vinaigrette. I’m constantly looking for new ways to make veggies tasty. Again, I was too congested to tell you if this was good. I can tell you it was spicy.

Valentines Day

We don’t go out for Valentines Day. It’s crowded. It’s expensive. You have to wear shoes. And really, I’m a pretty good cook so the added value to going out as opposed to eating in is pretty minimal. Plus, if we stay home we can usually drink a bottle of wine for less than the price of two glasses. And I do like wine. This year’s V-Day menu courtesy of Bon Appetit Magazine:

Scallops with wild mushrooms and polenta

Arugula salad with caramelized onions, candied walnuts and goat cheese

Strawberries with zabaglione (yeah, I didn’t know what that was either)

The verdict? Scallops were amazing. Definitely adding those to the “things to make when we have dinner guests who eat both seafood and mushrooms” list. The arugula salad is one of my favorites. The strawberries were good, but I would have preferred whipped cream. The zabaglione was nothing special. It took awhile to put everything together, but it was a lot of simple steps. There was nothing complicated about this meal. And many of the steps can be done a day in advance.

We then proceeded to snuggle with Wylie on the couch, finish off a bottle of wine and watch the Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Next. Swedish dramas are always very romantic.