A little chutney love

When I made dinner the other night I figured this post would be about the awesome curry seasoned grilled salmon I was making. I picked up some fresh Pacific chinook at the market, a glistening pink fillet that seemed like it had just been plucked from the ocean. However you'll notice in the picture there is no salmon. No pink. There is some glistening going on in that dish, though. Not to say the salmon wasn't good. It was pretty fabulous. But what really impressed was the chutney that went with the salmon. Apples and dates, a little seasoning and a splash of this and that and a piece of really good salmon suddenly filled our mouths with a wonderful sweet, smoky, savory flavor explosion.

I've made a couple of different chutneys recently to go with dinner, and before I ever made one I (wrongfully) assumed they'd be somewhat complicated to make. What a fool I was. This recipe off of epicurious couldn't have been easier...or faster. One of those reward to effort things that totally favors the former. I can see pairing it any number of things besides salmon. Pork tenderloin comes immediately to mind. Also some spring lamb wouldn't be a bad idea. The main thing is to make extra, because you'll be wanting to spoon this stuff directly onto your happy tastebuds!
*** *** *** *** ***
Broiled Salmon with Apple-Date Chutney
from: Bon Appétit | November 1997

Yield: Makes 2 servings

ingredients:
2 1-inch-thick salmon steaks (each about 6 ounces)
4 teaspoons olive oil
1 1/2 teaspoons curry powder

2/3 cup chopped red onion
3/4 cup chopped peeled tart green apple
1/4 cup chopped pitted dates
2 tablespoons apple juice
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar

method:
Heat 3 teaspoons oil in heavy medium skillet over medium-low heat. Add onion and sauté until onion begins to soften, about 3 minutes. Mix in apple, dates, apple juice and remaining 1 teaspoon curry powder. Cook 2 minutes longer. Mix in vinegar; simmer 1 minute. Season chutney to taste with salt and pepper. Remove from heat.

Prepare medium hot fire on your grill. Brush each salmon steak with 1 teaspoon oil. Sprinkle each with 1/4 teaspoon curry powder, salt and pepper. Grill salmon until just opaque in center, about 5 minutes per side. Meanwhile, heat remaining 3 teaspoons oil in heavy medium skillet over medium-low heat. Add onion and sauté until onion begins to soften, about 3 minutes. Mix in apple, dates, apple juice and remaining 1 teaspoon curry powder. Cook 2 minutes longer. Mix in vinegar; simmer 1 minute. Season chutney to taste with salt and pepper. Transfer salmon to plates. Spoon chutney alongside and serve.

Cooks note: I bumped up all the ingredients for the chutney by about a third. I wish I would've made more!- bb

"Hello doctor, this is BB's heart calling..........."

My last four dinners before last night: Ragu Antica (a post on that saucy wonder in the next week, I promise) with beef, pork, veal, & chicken liver; a perfect grilled burger & fries from Castagna Café; slow roasted pork shoulder with potato salad & bacon; leftover slow roasted pork shoulder. Throw in a few sides of wine, cocktails, and desserts. What I first notice about that list is that I had better schedule an angioplasty before my heart explodes out of my chest. Second, last night's craving for some sort of fish...anything but red meat...shouldn't come as any surprise. Hence, the picture of the broiled salmon you see above. I got the recipe from epicurious, which in this age of C-boy and his 8 month old world of distraction has become my quick, go-to source for new inspirations. It seems lately that even finding time to look through the cookbooks collecting dust on my kitchen shelf takes too much time. With epi I can sit at "work" and figure out what will be on my plate that night. This isn't a plug for epicurious, it's more of a confession of my own laziness and lack of time management.

Trying for the healthiest alternative I searched "broiled salmon". Now, I know that nothing is easier than broiling salmon. I just wanted to see what other ideas were out there. How I started out with such good intentions and ended up with two salmon fillets slathered deliciously in a tarragon butter sauce should come as no surprise. Apparently it is time to acknowledge that I have zero self-control. I'm just hoping that those Omega-3's that supposedly infuse salmon with its health giving powers can counteract 3 tablespoons of butter. At least I added to the health quotient with that pile of collard greens you see lurking behind the fillet. I'll blog the recipe tomorrow for those, which turned out to be perhaps the best collard preparation I've had. I'm sure it had nothing to do with the fact that I sautéed then in pancetta fat........oh, god, help me..............
*** *** *** *** ***
Broiled Salmon with Tarragon Butter
from epicurious/Bon Appétit

yield: 2 servings; can be doubled or tripled

ingredients:
3 tablespoons butter
1 1/2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
Fresh ground pepper
2 1-inch-thick salmon fillets
Salt
1 1/2 tablespoons minced fresh tarragon or 1 teaspoon dried, crumbled

method:
Preheat broiler. Melt butter with lemon juice in small saucepan over low heat. Remove from heat and add generous amount of pepper. Arrange salmon skin side down on broilerproof pan. Brush with half of butter mixture. Season with salt. Broil without turning until just cooked through. Transfer to plates. Add tarragon to remaining butter. Spoon over salmon and serve.

Salmon Tikka: phat, not fat!

Sure Jamie Oliver's overexposed. And yes it seems you can't look at a bookstore's cookbook shelf without seeing another tome from him with his carefully tousled hair and doughy mug staring out at you. BTW- have you noticed how much weight he's put on since his Food Network days? For someone who espouses healthy eating in children he has the look of a guy on a one man crusade to decimate the fish and chip population of the world. Hell, I'd be worried about letting Colman get too close to him for fear he might take a bite out of him! Taking all that into account, I have to admit that I still like the guy. He still has that "don't take this all too seriously" charm, and I respect his work with kids. Plus, the dude can undoubtedly cook. I came across his salmon tikka recipe on the Washington Post food page, made it last night for w and I while the lad slept, and we loved it. Very flavorful, about 20 minutes start to finish, and I was gobsmacked about the work/reward ratio. In other words, as my British friends would say (if I had British friends, that is) it was a doddle!

"I won't stop banging on me drums until I get a whole fried halibut,
some bangers and mash, an order of chips and 3 bloody liters of ale, you pikers!"

*** *** *** *** ***
Salmon Tikka
adapted from Jamie Oliver

serves 2
ingredients:
2 naan breads
1 fresh red chilli
½ a cucumber
1 lemon
4 tablespoons natural yoghurt
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
a few sprigs of fresh coriander
2 x 1/2 lb. salmon fillets, skin on,scaled and bones removed
1 heaped tablespoon Patak’s tandoori curry paste (I couldn't find the tandoori and used the regular Patak Madras curry paste. worked just fine- bb)
olive oil

method:
-Preheat your oven to 110°C/225°F/gas ¼
-Pop your naan breads into the oven to warm through
-Halve, deseed and finely chop your chilli
-Peel and halve your cucumber lengthways, then use a spoon to scoop out and discard the seeds
-Roughly chop the cucumber and put most of it into a bowl
-Halve your lemon and squeeze the juice from one half into the bowl
-Add the yoghurt, a pinch of salt and pepper and half the chopped chilli
-Pick the coriander leaves and put to one side

-Slice each salmon fillet across lengthways into three slices
-Spoon the heaped tablespoon of tandoori paste into a small dish, then use a pastry brush or the back of a spoon to smear the tandoori paste all over each piece (don’t dip your pastry brush into the jar!)
-Heat a large frying pan over a high heat
-Once hot, add a lug of olive oil, put the salmon into the pan and cook for about 1½ minutes on each side, until cooked through

-Place a warmed naan bread on each plate
-Top each one with a good dollop of cucumber yoghurt and 3 pieces of salmon
-Scatter over a little of the reserved cucumber, chilli and coriander leaves and finish with a squeeze of lemon juice

And I sayeth unto you, eat and be happy!

Have I ever told you, from a fresh food perspective, how smug I am to live where I do? Within 2 hours of Portland, and usually much closer, we have access to incredible fresh, organic produce. Pasture raised chicken (and their attending eggs), pork, and beef. Some of the craziest pinot noirs on the planet. And over on the coast fresh Dungeness crab, the most amazing oysters you'd ever hope to slurp down, and wild caught salmon at ridiculously cheap prices. Do you really need any more reasons to move here? I thought not.

I was thinking about this the other night while I was eating this incredibly good salmon dish out of one of my food bibles, the Dean and DeLuca Cookbook. You know how those of the Christian faith lean on their Holy bibles when they need solace and inspiration? They know when they read it that they will get the guidance they need. And I am all for it. To each his own. Especially since that is exactly how I feel when I read the DandD Cookbook. Its words never fail to provide comfort, and its pages are filled with wonderment that seems as if it was handed down from on high. Or at least from author David Rosengarten's pantry shelves. So it was with this recipe, where a simple fish, the ultimate symbol of Christianity, was led to its higher purpose when mixed with the parts of a cloven hoofed pig and other bits of God's great earth, ending up on my plate and leading me to sing its praises and proselytize to you, oh keepers of the faith, who only desireth to feed your constant hunger. So venture forth to your markets and commune with the shopkeeper, enter your kitchens as you would enter a place of worship, and take hold of your utensils with the two hands God has given you, and do good for yourselves and others! Amen.
*** *** *** *** ***
Broiled Salmon with Bacon, Wild Mushrooms, and Oyster Sauce
from David Rosengarten/Dean and DeLuca Cookbook

ingredients:
1-pound wild salmon fillet (you ARE buying wild salmon, not farm raised, right??-bb)
5 thin slices of smoky bacon (I used applewood smoked bacon from our local Zupan's. A bit thick but so good-bb)
1 cup very firmly packed, diced fresh shiitake mushrooms
1 teaspoon finely minced garlic
2 tablespoons minced fresh flat leaf parsley, plus whole parsley for garnish
2 tablespoons Chinese oyster sauce
Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg

method:
1- Pre-heat broiler. Season the salmon fillet well with salt and pepper. Wrap 3 of the bacon slices, evenly spaced, around the salmon filet. Place fillet on roasting pan, and place under broiler. Cook until just done, about 10 minutes.

2-While the salmon is broiling, prepare the sauce: Cut the remaining two slices of bacon into small squares. Place in a heavy saute pan over high heat. Cook until medium-brown, about 2 minutes. Spill out all but 1 teaspoon of the bacon fat. Lower heat to medium-high. Add the shiitake mushrooms, stir well, and sauté until mushrooms become golden-brown, about 3 minutes. Turn heat down to medium, and stir in garlic and parsley. Cook for one minute. In a bowl, combine the oyster sauce with 1/4 cup of hot water. Blend, and add to sauté pan. Cook one minute and season with the nutmeg.

3- To serve, remove the wrapped bacon from the salmon (you may discard the bacon, or use it as a garnish). Delicately slice the salmon along the natural separations, and divide among 4 plates. Top each with a quarter of the sauce, and with a flat parsley leaf for garnish.

This recipe yields 4 first-course servings.
##### ##### #####
one year ago today @ E.D.T.: meatloaf: tough photo but delicious results!

Keeping the body beautiful!

It's a continuing battle. Everything I like to eat seems to be conspiring against my admittedly half-assed attempts to keep my body in some semblance of shape. Cured pork products? Check. Pasta? Check. Burgers & fries? Check. And if I started to believe food "scientists" that all those calories in my favorite bottles of wine and pints of beer were really "empty calories" then I'd have to just give up, so I choose to believe that they got their science degrees from some mail order university on a faraway Caribbean island. Ah, rationalization!

But luckily for me, w has much more control, and actually considers food that is good for us on occasion. Or maybe she knows that more of me isn't necessarily better. For example she noticed the following recipe on Helen Rennie's great food blog Beyond Salmon. w cooked up this awesome meal using salmon instead of the listed sable (what is sable? according to the fish monger at New Seasons, it's the same as black cod...anyone know any different?). That's one of the things we like about Helen's recipes...they always list alternatives to whatever fish she's using, which is useful since she's an east coaster and the fish choices are a sometimes different than for us left coasters. This had great flavor and complexity, and with a side of chard and rice, I felt perfectly fine about that half-bottle of rosé I washed it down with!!
********************

Sable with Balsamic Orange Ginger Glaze
Fish substitutions: salmon, Chilean sea bass, halibut, steelhead trout, or pretty much any relatively thick fillets that are not too dense.
Serves 4

4 sable fillets without skin (6oz each)
2 Tbsp honey
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
2 tsp soy sauce
1 Tbsp orange juice
1 Tbsp orange zest
1 inch of ginger, peeled and minced
2 tsp oil
Salt and pepper

1. Preheat the broiler and wrap a broiler pan with foil.
2. Season sable generously with salt and pepper on all sides.
3. Combine honey, balsamic vinegar, soy sauce, orange juice, orange zest, ginger, and oil. Mix well and coat sable with this mixture. Sable should be only lightly coated, as too much of the glaze can burn under the broiler.
4. Broil sable 4 inches away from the flame just until browned, 3-5 minutes. Pour the rest of the glaze on top of sable and finish in the 425F oven until done. The total cooking time (broiling plus baking) should be about 8 minutes per inch of thickness. To test for doneness, separate the flakes in the thickest part and look inside. Sable is done when a trace of translucency remains in the center.
*Note: I did not forget to tell you to flip the fish. Cooking it only on one side allows for glaze to really caramelize on top.