Pretty healthy for tex-mex!

My dad stopped by a few weeks ago and brought me some salmon that he caught on a recent trip to Alaska. When you catch the fish, they basically filet it and flash freeze it so it’s still incredibly fresh when you eat it later.

At first I was going to just grill or sear the fish to really let the fresh salmon flavors shine, but then my creativity got the best of me.

I’ve made a lot of fish tacos, but a lot of times the fish is fried which is delicious but not healthy and definitely hides the fish flavor. So I thought I would keep these tacos very simple with just a few toppings.

While the tacos were absolutely outstanding, what I did with the salmon skin was even better.

Salmon Tacos

Yield: Makes 6-8 tacos

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

1 pound salmon, skin removed and seared
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
Flour Tortillas
Avocado, sliced thin
Salsa

Marinated Red Onions
1/2 red onion, sliced very thin
1 lime, juice only
1 teaspoon Kosher salt

Spicy Sour Cream
1 cup sour cream
1 jalapeno, diced (remove seeds for less heat)
1/2 lime, juice only

Helpful Equipment:
Silpat mat (for skin)

Directions:

1) For marinated onions, slice them thinly and toss them with lime juice and salt. Let them sit for at least 15 minutes before using.

2) Mix together ingredients for sour cream.

3) Remove skin from salmon and, optionally, cut the skin into strips and lay out on a silpat mat.

4) Sprinkle skin chips with oil and salt and bake at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes until very crispy.

5) For salmon, rub with olive oil and season well with salt and pepper. Sear on medium-high heat in a large skillet for about 3 minutes per side, until it's cooked through.

6) Using some small/medium flour tortillas, add a spoonful of salsa and sour cream. Lay in a piece or two of salmon (or some salmon skin). Top with avocado, cilantro, and marinated onions.

The Toppings

There’s really nothing to these tacos and you can throw them together in under 30 minutes. The toppings are where it’s at though.

I started by jazzing up some sour cream by adding some fresh jalapenos and lime juice to it.

Dice that pepper.

If you want the sour cream to have some some real heat to it, leave the seeds and guts in the jalapenos, otherwise you can just scoop them out before dicing the peppers.

Stir these into some sour cream with a squeeze of lime juice.

This stuff is fantastic on tacos.

Tasty stuff.

Marinated Onions

One of my favorite toppings for tacos is simple marinated red onions. The key to these is to slice them as thin as you can. No need to use a professional slicer or anything, but just take your time and get them thin.

Toss them with some lime juice and salt and let them sit for a few minutes. The onions will get slightly soft as they marinate and will be really delicious.

One of my favorite toppings

In my house, tacos without avocados is a pretty big no-no.

Also good to have.

The Salmon

Salmon comes in many different shapes and sizes these days depending on how you get it. I prefer to buy salmon with the skin on because it keeps it a bit fresher (I think) and I also think the skin is delicious (more on that in a minute).

But for tacos, step one is slicing the skin off the filets. This isn’t too hard if you have a decent knife. You can just run it under the filet and the skin should peel off pretty easily.

Straight from Alaska!

For the actual salmon, just rub each filet with some olive oil and season them well with salt and pepper on each side. Then just sear them over medium-high heat for about 3-4 minutes per side. Salmon, like most fish, will cook pretty quickly and you don’t want to over-cook it or it will get really dry.

The total time it’ll take to cook depends a lot on the thickness of your filets so just keep an eye on them and start checking on them after they’ve been cooking for 6 minutes or so.

When the salmon is done, just dice it up into big pieces that would fit nicely in a taco!

Try not to overcook it!

The Skinny

The first time I had salmon skin was actually at a sushi place. They were charging like $5 for a roll with salmon skin in it. I thought this was very inventive and a great use for a piece of the fish that most people probably just throw away.

Oh… and it also happened to be delicious. It’s one of my favorite rolls now and I order it every chance I get.

I quickly learned how to reproduce it at home.

The key to doing this correctly is to cut the skin into strips and use a nonstick mat (like a silpat mat). I’ve made these without the mat and they still work (parchment paper is another option), but you really need something like that or they will just stick pretty badly to the baking sheet.

So just lay out your skin pieces and drizzle them with oil and give them a good sprinkle of kosher salt.

The skinny.

Bake these guys at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes until they are very crispy. No need to turn them or anything, just let them bake.

Normally, I eat these just like this. Little salmon chips!

It may sound weird, but they are seriously addictive and use a piece of the fish that most people discard.

These are seriously delicious.

The Tacos

I think you know the story from here on out. Basically just spread some of that delicious sour cream mixture on a tortilla and maybe a spoonful of salsa. Top with a few piece of salmon, some cilantro, avocado and some of the marinated onions.

A salmon taco!

If you want to get crazy, you can put the salmon skin right in a taco! While I made a few all skin tacos, a better way to do it is to just put one or two salmon chips in with a normal taco which makes it nice and crispy.

An all skin taco was great also though.

My favorite.

The next time you get your hands on some salmon, consider the taco. It’s about as healthy as a taco can get and is super-flavorful. It’s also a good way to stretch out what can be an expensive cut of fish.

But seriously, salmon skin. Sounds weird. So delicious!

Healthy!

One of the things I knowingly sacrificed when we moved to Colorado was easy access to fresh seafood. Sure there is some good seafood here if you catch it yourself (trout, etc.), but it’s not like there’s a huge seafood market where I can just take my pick.

Luckily, I befriended a shop owner around here though that flies in fresh seafood occasionally. It’s definitely pricey, but you can tell that it’s super-fresh and sometimes it’s worth the price.

A few weeks ago she called me about some really fresh wild caught salmon that they got in. After seeing it (and smelling it), I couldn’t pass it up.

I wanted to do something pretty light with it and so I came up with a really simple citrus glaze that totally rocked. It ended up being one of the healthier meals I’ve made recently. And totally delicious.

Citrus Glazed Salmon

Yield: Serves 2-4.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 50 minutes

Ingredients:

1-2 pounds fresh salmon fillet (I like about 5 ounces per person)
1 Cup orange juice (glaze)
1 lime, juice only (glaze)
1 lemon, juice only (glaze)
2 Tablespoons rice wine vinegar (glaze)
1/4 Cup brown sugar (glaze)
2 scallions, chopped (glaze)
2 inches fresh ginger (glaze)
2 cloves garlic (glaze)

Quick avocado Salad:
2 avocados
1/4 red onion, minced
1 jalapeno, diced
Handful of cilantro, minced
1 lime, juice only
Pinch of salt

Directions:

1) For the glaze, add ingredients to a small pot and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Stir continuously until sugar is dissolved.

2) Simmer on low for 20-30 minutes until glaze is reduced to 1/3. Strain sauce. It should be a light syrupy consistency.

3) For salad, finely dice all ingredients except avocados and mix with lime juice. Set aside.

4) Grill salmon, skin side up, over high heat, for about 3-4 minutes. Flip.

5) Once flipped, start brushing on glaze. Continue to brush on glaze until salmon is finished - about another 3 minutes.

6) Serve salmon with rice and avocado salad.

Preparing the Glaze

With really good seafood, you don’t want to overpower it with anything too heavy. This glaze is nice and light but the flavor is really fresh. It’s perfect for summer.

Not pictured: scallions.

Add all the ingredients to a small pot and get this simmering over medium heat. You don’t need to worry about dicing up the ingredients really small.

Just toss everything into the pot and strain out the big stuff at the end.

Smells amazing!

Make sure to stir this regularly so the sugar doesn’t burn on the bottom. Eventually it will dissolve though. You’ll want to simmer this for about 20 minutes probably so it reduces to about 1/3 of it’s original volume.

Then you can strain out the ginger/scallions/garlic and you’ll be left with a really flavorful but light syrup which you can glaze the salmon with. It looks kind of brownish, but trust me, it smells really fresh and citrusy. You’ll love it.

Like a thin syrup...

The Salad

I decided to serve the salmon with a light avocado salad and some rice. The avocado salad was basically just my standard guacamole recipe, deconstructed. So I mixed up some red onions, cilantro, jalapeno, and lime juice and used that as a topping for fresh avocados.

Guacamole: deconstructed.

The Salmon

The fish that I had was awesome. I almost wanted to just eat it raw it was so fresh. The color was out of this world. I haven’t had salmon this good in a while.

Beautiful thing.

I cut the salmon up into three pieces (about 5-6 ounces each), and grilled them.

The key with cooking salmon this fresh is to not overcook it, whatever you do.

I cooked mine for about 3-4 minutes per side on a really hot grill. Start the fish skin-side up. Then once you turn it, start adding your glaze on the top of the salmon. Keep brushing the fish with the glaze every minute or so until it’s done cooking.

It should develop a nice light coat of the citrus glaze on top as it cooks.

Don't overcook this!

About 6-8 minutes of total cooking time is all you need for these. In the wider sections of my fillets they were a bit medium rare in the center but that didn’t bother me at all. In fact, I liked them to be a bit raw.

The only other thing I served these with was some good brown rice.

If you want to get fancy, after your rice is cooked, add about a teaspoon of melted butter to a coffee cup and swirl it around. Then pack in some rice into the coffee cup.

The old rice trick...

When you flip these over on the plate you’ll have these perfect little towers of buttered rice.

This was my final plate with the salmon, avocado salad, and rice.

Fantastic meal.

Delicious.

The glaze was really light on the fish. You can barely see a shimmer on it. Nothing too heavy. You could definitely taste it though. It was a bit sweet and had a great citrus flavor that goes really well with fish.

If you don’t have a grill, you could pan sear your salmon for the same result. Again though – just don’t overcook the fish!

If you’re lucky enough to have access to fresh salmon, give this a shot!

There's fish in there.

This dish was hard for me to make. I had the idea in my head and I was determined to give it a shot, but there was a very serious problem.

The problem was that smoked salmon is one of my favorite foods of all time. I don’t like to mess with it. I like it very simply on crackers or a bagel. Why would you do anything else with it?

Besides that, it’s not the most economical thing in the stores. Four ounces of it can easily set you back $8-$9.

Don’t screw it up, I kept telling myself.

It was really hard for me to just call the whole quiche off and eat the salmon straight. But I pulled through. I made the quiche and it was good. The key to it is to make sure you don’t try to challenge the salmon flavor. Just let it do its thing and add a few other simple ingredients to accent the flavors.

Smoked Salmon Quiche

Yield: A 9 inch quiche

Prep Time: 45 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour 45 minutes

Ingredients:

Pie Crust:
1 Cup + 2 Tablespoons all purpose flour
8 Tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, cold and cubed
1/2 Teaspoon salt
3-4 Tablespoons ice water

Quiche Filling:
6 eggs
1 Cup Milk
1/2 Cup heavy cream
4 ounces smoked salmon
4 ounces goat cheese
2-3 Tablespoons chives (or dill)
Pinch of salt and pepper

Helpful Equipment:
Food Processor, for pie crust

Directions:

1) To make crust, mix together flour and salt in a bowl or food processor. Then cut in cold butter until it resembles pea-sized pieces. Add a few tablespoons of cold water and stir together or pulse a few times.

2) Turn out dough and press it together to form a tight ball. Wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes at least.

3) Roll dough carefully (use lots of flour) into a 12 inch diameter. Transfer the dough to the 9 inch pie dish.

4) Add parchment paper to the bottom of the pie and fill with a few cups of dried beans.

5) Pre-bake the crust at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes. Let cool.

6) Mix the eggs with the cream and milk. Whisk together well. Add a pinch of salt and pepper.

7) Layer salmon, goat cheese, and chives in the bottom of the pie crust. Add half of the egg mixture.

8) Add the last of the filling ingredients followed by the last of the egg mixture.

9) Bake at 350 degrees for 45-50 minutes until set in the center.

10) Let cool for a few minutes prior to serving.

Making the Crust

This is my standard pie crust recipe, but if I’m making it for a real pie I add in a pinch of sugar also. You can definitely buy pie crust pre-made, but I enjoy the process of making it and think that the homemade versions are generally better even if they aren’t always as pretty.

To get started, mix your flour and a pinch of salt in a bowl or food processor. Then cube up your cold butter and cut it into the flour. You can either pulse it a few times in a food processor or just mix it in with your fingers.

You can also use your fingers.

Once the butter is mixed in, add a few tablespoons of ice cold water and mix a bit more. You’ll end up with crumbs basically.

This scares some people I think because it doesn’t appear to be a dough at this point, so they add more water and that’s a bad idea.

You should end up with crumbs, like this.

Dough?

If you press these together a bit, you’ll notice that the crumbs stick very nicely to each other. After all, there’s a lot of butter in those there crumbs!

Eventually you should be able to mold the crumbs into a tight ball of dough.

Dough!

Wrap this guy in plastic wrap very tightly and refrigerate it for at least 30 minutes, preferably an hour though to make sure it’s really nice and cold.

Then, roll out the dough slowly. Use flour to keep the dough from sticking to the counter. It’ll probably crack some but just work slowly and try to keep it rolled in a circle. For a nine inch quiche, you’ll probably want 12 inches of pie crust.

Then just carefully plop it into your dish.

Tricky business.

As you can see, there’s some cracks in mine and it isn’t even all around. I cut off the parts that overhang and use it to patch up the missing parts. It almost always works out well.

I tried to form a kind of pretty edge around the crust, but mine definitely has a “homemade” feel to it.

The good news is, the hard part is over!

Some patchwork was necessary...

Pre-baking the Crust

I’m not sure if this step is entirely necessary, but I always pre-bake my crust a bit for quiches. To do this, just line the pie with some parchment paper and add a few cups of dried beans. I use the same beans every time which I just store apart from my cooking beans.

It's a bean pie!

Bake this guy for 10-12 minutes at 350 and it should be slightly firm, but probably not browned at all which is perfect.

Let it cool a bit while you make the filling!

The Quiche Filling

I kept my filling pretty straightforward. Some of the ingredients (salmon, goat cheese) are a bit pricey though.

Finally the good stuff!

To fill the quiche, I like to add about half of my filling into the bottom of the pie crust. Just kind of evenly distribute the ingredients.

How pretty is that salmon?!

A salmon layer.

Then mix your eggs, cream, and milk together well and add a pinch of salt and pepper. Pour half of that on top of the filling. Then add the rest of your filling ingredients (more salmon, goat cheese, etc). Then finish it off with the final bit of egg mixture.

Doing this in phases will create layers of sorts in the quiche so the goodies are evenly distributed throughout the quiche.

This guy is ready for the oven!

Ready to bake!

Bake the quiche as 350 degrees for 45-50 minutes. It should be slightly firm in the center. If you’re unsure if it’s cooked all the way through, use a tester to check the center for any uncooked egg.

If you can help it, let this cool for a few minutes before slicing it up.

All finished!

I was very happy with the flavors in this quiche. The eggs were nice and fluffy and the smoked salmon flavor was intense, which I was hoping for. The goat cheese just adds another level of richness.

Was it hard for me to rip up 4 ounces of delicious smoked salmon and pour eggs all over it? YES.

But I’m glad I did.

Perfectly cooked!

I’ve almost (almost!) worked my way through all of our wedding presents. I think we actually did a really nice job of registering for things that we will actually use in life. Some of my pans are already a bit worn which I take as a good sign!

One of the presents that I’ve had in the back of my mind for a while now was a bamboo steamer we received. I knew that I would use it and it would be awesome, but I just couldn’t pull the trigger. Dumplings would be the obvious choice (I’ll make those later now that I’m warmed up), but I wanted to start with something even simpler.

Steamed fish is pretty hard to screw up because even if you overcook it, the moisture keeps it really tender. I served this with a really delicious roasted veggie side and some good crusty bread. It was a hit!

Steamed Salmon w/ Roasted Veggies

Yield: Serves 4.

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 50 minutes

Ingredients:

4-6 ounces of nice salmon per person. I bought about 1.25 pounds (20 ounces) of salmon and it was perfect for 4 servings.
Some greens to layer in your steaming pot
Salt and pepper

Roasted Veggies: (Adapted from Whole Living Magazine)
2 medium fennel bulbs, sliced
1 red pepper, sliced
1 orange pepper, sliced
1 can (16 ounces) chickpeas
1 pound seedless red grapes
2 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and pepper

Helpful Equipment:
Bamboo steamer

Directions:

1) For the veggies, chop them all in slices (except the grapes). Try to keep them in fairly thick slices since you're going to be roasting them on pretty high heat.

2) Toss them with some olive oil and salt and pepper.

3) Bake at 425 degrees for 30 minutes. Stir them a few times throughout the cooking process to make sure they are cooking evenly.

4) For the fish, remove the skin by sliding a sharp long knife along the skin. Try to remove it as close to the skin as possible.

5) Take a pair of tweezers and remove any pin bones in the fish or at least warn your diners that there will be bones in the fish.

6) Cut the fish into 4-6 ounce pieces and salt and pepper them. Layer them over a bed of greens in your bamboo steamer and set the steamer over a pot of simmering water.

7) Steam for 10 minutes (or longer depending on fish thickness).

8) Serve everything as soon as possible!

The Steamer

Like I said, I used a nice bamboo steamer for this dish, but it’s not necessary to have one of these to make the dish. It’s just a heckuva lot easier if you do have one.

If you don’t though, here are two other methods you could use to steam the fish:

1) Make a Steamer – It’s a bit of work, but using instructions like these you can get creative and make a steamer that holds your fish and produces steam. The problem with a system like this is that it isn’t terribly efficient. The steam doesn’t really cook the fish as it rises. But it will work.

2) Wrap it in parchment – You can also just wrap the fish in parchment paper with some salt and pepper and bake it at 350 degrees for 10 minutes or so. The parchment will seal in any moisture from the fish, effectively steaming it. I’ve made fish like this a few times and it’s always really good.

All of that said though, this steamer was the easiest thing to use ever.

Before we get into that though, let’s talk about the roasted veggies.

Yep. Those are grapes.

This might look like kind of a weird assortment of veggies, but trust me, the flavor combination is out of this world good. I was obviously really skeptical about the grapes. Will they explode? Will they burn? The answer is neither really, but they are tasty and go well with the other flavors.

Because we are roasting these guys, keep them in fairly large chunks. For the fennel, cut off the green stems and cut it down the center. Then remove the inner core and roughly slice the layers.

Everything else should be pretty standard to slice up. Just add everything to a large bowl and toss it with the olive oil and salt and pepper!

Very interesting flavors.

Lay this out on two baking sheets and bake it at 425 degrees for about 30 minutes. Be sure to stir it a few times as it cooks to make sure it cooks evenly.

Fishy Business

For this recipe, I bought a nice piece of salmon and cut it down myself. If you have a friendly fishmonger they might take care of this for you, but I consider it good practice.

To take the skin off the fish, take a sharp (preferably long and thin) knife and slowly run it down the length of the fish between the skin and the meat. The skin should separate pretty easily. Then you can chop your salmon into four even pieces!

Don’t forget the pin bones! Salmon almost always have a series of inter-muscular bones called pin bones. The only reason it wouldn’t have these bones if it was processed for you already. These bones are usually about 1 inch to 1 1/2 inches from the back side of the fillet. If you want to provide your guests with a flawless salmon eating experience, take a pair of tweezers and pluck out all the bones.

If you’re me and feeding a some hungry people, just warn them that there will be some bones and skip this step.

Pin bones suck.

Season each piece of salmon well with salt and pepper and lay them in your steamer on a bed of greens. Spinach works well for this or just any salad greens that you might have.

I already love my steamer!

What about the Skin?

You know me… I hate wasting stuff. Salmon skin happens to be one of the things that I hate wasting more than other things because you can make delicious salmon chips out of it!

Just slice the skin into strips and add them to a hot skillet with a bit of oil. Cook them for a few minutes until they are really crispy and golden brown. Then drain them on a towel.

Everyone will look at you funny until they try them. There will be no leftovers.

For the adventurous...

Back to the veggies

The veggies definitely take the longest to cook, so you want to start them first. When they are done they’ll be a mix of textures and flavors that is just really wonderful. The fennel goes well with the fish and the grapes are kind of sweet.

I’m making this mix again for sure.

The grapes were actually really good.

Cooking the Salmon

Once you have the fish cut into appropriate pieces, it’s dumb simple to cook assuming you have a steamer. Just stack the steamer up and set it over a pot of simmering water. After about 10 minutes the fish should be perfectly cooked. It might take a few minutes longer depending on the thickness of your fish.

I even served it with some of the wilted greens that it steamed on.

Crusty bread is a good side also.

I served it with some crusty bread that I toasted a bit.

This was a very healthy and simple dish to make. I made it on a week night actually.

I liked the fish the best, but Betsy was a big fan of the roasted veggies. I think I caught her sneaking some later in the night…

When someone tells me that they built their own bar, I usually assume it’s gonna be a rickety thing made mostly of cardboard because that’s probably how my bar would look if I made it myself. Rex, however, is no slouch. His bar is made of beautifully stained wood. It has a resin-coated finish. It has foot stools. He even has his own MegaTouch.

Rex was going to grill some seafood and you guys conveniently voted for seafood. So we had a lot of seafood to grill.

Prepping the grill...

Seafood is delicious grilled (what isn’t?) but it can be a bit tricky just because it’s a delicate subject. It can quickly become overcooked and then it gets chewy and not the best. A few quick tips to remember about grilling any seafood:

Seafood Grilling Tips

- Cook most fillets over medium heat. The hottest part of the grill will just burn them.
- Don’t leave the grill! Even big pieces (like the salmon below) only take a few minutes to cook through on the grill.
- Be careful if you’re using butter or oil to flavor the fish. Flare-ups can get nasty.
- Try to only turn the fish once if you can. If you turn it more than that it might break up on you.

Grilled Lobster Rolls

Ok. I’ll admit that a good amount of this post is all Rex, including these guys. I had definitely never grilled lobster before, but it turned out perfectly.

Wait... we're gonna do what now?

Basically, just slice the lobster tails down the middle, brush them with some melted butter and throw them on the grill! You’re gonna want to keep an eye on these guys so they don’t burn!

Craziness.

After about a minute, flip them over and brush with some more butter. You’ll know they are done when they turn a nice bright red color.

These are getting really close. I’d guess total cooking time was 2-3 minutes at the maximum.

Butter + grill = flames

These ended up in one of the better sandwiches I’ve had. I think I could’ve eaten about four of these.

For the full lobster roll recipe, check out Rex’s post.

I have no words for this sandwich.

Grilled Clams with Prosciutto

So this was my addition to the meal. I’ve been wanting to grill clams for awhile now basically because it’s one of the easiest ways to cook them.

Cleaning Clams

Anytime your cooking clams you need to clean them. Most people know this but it’s a good reminder. If you don’t clean them well, some of your clams will have some sand and grit in them which won’t kill you but will also not make for a perfect clam eating experience.

I know this because I didn’t do a very good job of cleaning this batch. I was in a rush and there were a few with some, umm, texture to them.

Basically, to clean them, just stick them in a big bowl of fresh water for 30 minutes to an hour and that should flush out most of the sand.

Once they are clean, the grilling process is really simple. Just throw them on a hot grill!

Attack of the clams!

Close the grill and after a few minutes they should open up. When they open, they’re done! Don’t overcook them or you’ll end up with a piece of rubber in a shell. Also, if any clams don’t open after 5 minutes or so, just throw them out. They aren’t good.

You could top these with cocktail sauce or just a spritz of lemon if you wanted. I added some bits of proscuitto to each clam which, in short, led to a flavor explosion.

Salty and delicious.

Rex and I ate I think about 30 of these. They were delicious.

Grilled Salmon with Mango Salsa

Again a Rex concoction. I just took a few pictures to round out the grilled seafood medley experiment.

One more seafood thing...

Rex has a good method for grilling salmon. Grill it skin side down last and then you can use a spatula to just lift off the flesh and leave the skin right on the grill.

If you’re adventurous (we were), you can flip the skin on the grill a few times and it’ll crisp up and form a salmon skin chip like what they serve in sushi rolls. Very delicious.

The fish itself can (and should) be served with this mango salsa situation. Again, for the full recipe, I direct you to Rex’s post.

Not shabby for bar food...

See that last photo there? That’s the bar that he made. Definitely not cardboard!

If there’s one thing this grill session did for me, it cemented in my mind that I’m never living anywhere again where I can’t have a grill. They are just too amazing!

Hopefully, this seafood medley gave you some ideas for the next time you grill out!

This one pot dinner also happens to be pretty quick to make. The salmon and rice go great together and the only tricky part is making sure not to overcook anything.

This photo doesn’t really do this meal justice because of my haphazard plating, but it’s healthy, fast, and good eats.

Hmm... Not my best photo.

Salmon and Rice Dinner

Yield: Serves 4.

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 45 minutes

Ingredients:

4 5-6 ounce salmon fillets
3/4 Cups shallots or onions, minced
1 1/2 Cups basmati rice
3 1/4 Cups low-salt chicken stock or water (may need to adjust this)
1 bunch broccoli, or 2 Cups broccoli florets
1-2 Tablespoons olive oil

Glaze:
1/4 Cup fresh lime juice (about 1.5 limes)
2 Tablespoons lime zest
2 Tablespoons honey
2 Tablespoons fresh cilantro
2 Tablespoons soy sauce (or to taste)

Helpful Equipment:
Dutch Oven

Directions:

1) Mince up cilantro, zest and juice lime, and then whisk everything together. Chop broccolini and onion or shallots for the rice.

2) If you purchase a larger piece of fish (instead of pre-cut salmon fillets), remove pin bones and remove the skin.

3) Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

4) Heat up oil in dutch oven (it’s important that your dish can go from stove top to oven).

5) Once oil is hot, add shallots or onions and sauté them until they are soft. Then add rice and stir it into onions for a few seconds until it’s hot.

6) Next add stock and then bring the mixture to a simmer on the stove top. Once it’s simmering, add the lid and stick the pot in your very hot oven for about 10 minutes.

7) After 10 minutes, pull the pot out. The rice should be mostly cooked. If it’s dry, add another 1/4 Cup of stock or water to the dish.

8) Season all your salmon fillets with some salt and pepper and then put them down into the rice.

9) Finally, add broccolini, to the pot and then drizzle about 1 Tablespoon of sauce over each fillet.

10) Cover and return it back to the oven for about 8 minutes.

11) Once the salmon is cooked, drizzle the rest of the sauce over the dish and serve it up!

From a Bon Appetit Oct. 2009 recipe.

Making the Glaze

There’s only a few things you need to actually prep for this dish, the sauce being the first thing I prepped. You’ll need this stuff for the glaze.

Simple ingredients for a sauce.

Basically, just mince up your cilantro, zest and juice your lime, and then whisk everything together. Taste this and adjust it to your tastes. I actually added a bit more soy sauce than the original recipe.

A very good glaze.

Other Prep Business

Besides the sauce there are just a few things to address. First, prep your broccolini. If you haven’t used broccolini before, it’s great for this recipe because it cooks a bit faster than normal broccoli. You can by all means use normal broccoli if you want though. I would just make sure your florets are fairly small to make sure they cook evenly.

You could use normal broccoli oviously.

Also, chop up your onion or shallots for the rice.

Finally, let’s address the fish. You can definitely buy salmon fillets already cut, but I got a larger piece and decided to cut it down myself. The benefit of doing that is that you can cut the pieces to size. So if Betsy wants a smaller piece I can cut a 5 ounce piece for her and a 7 ounce piece for me. Also, I think the fish usually stays a little fresher if it’s in larger pieces.

Good color on this guy!

If you do get a larger piece, you’ll have two things to address. First, pin bones. These guys are medium sized bones that run throughout the length of the fillet. You can definitely leave them in if you’re in a rush, but it’ll make for a better dining experience if you remove them before cooking. This is actually kind of hard to do if you don’t have the right tools. Here’s a good tutorial on how to do it. If you have a nice butcher they might do it for you also!

Your cut will most likely come with skin on. Take a sharp knife and just run it along the back of the fillet to separate the skin from the meat.

I don’t really have good tools for removing the pin bones and forgot to ask the butcher to do it for me, so my pieces ended up a bit mushed. That’s okay though. They’ll still cook up nicely for this dish.

Go for about 6 ounce pieces.

Cooking the dish

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Then heat up your oil in your dutch oven (it’s important that your dish can go from stove top to oven). Once your oil is hot, add your shallots or onions and sauté them until they are soft. Then add your rice and stir it into your onions for a few seconds until it’s hot.

Kind of like risotto.

Next add your stock and then bring the mixture to a simmer on the stove top. Once it’s simmering, add the lid and stick the pot in your very hot oven for about 10 minutes.

After 10 minutes, pull the pot out. The rice should be mostly cooked. If it’s dry, add another 1/4 Cup of stock or water to the dish. Then, season all your salmon fillets with some salt and pepper and then wedge them down into the rice.

Makes for easy clean up!

Finally, add your broccolini, to the pot and then drizzle about 1 Tablespoon of your sauce over each fillet.

Good flavors happening here.

Cover this guy and return it back to the oven for about 8 minutes. It cooks really quickly so keep an eye on it. When I made it I cooked it for about 10 minutes and my salmon was just a bit overcooked in my opinion.

Once the salmon is cooked, drizzle the rest of the sauce over the dish and serve it up! I’m sure there’s a better way to plate this dish so it’s really pretty, but I was starving so I just kind of tossed it all on a plate!

Better than it looks!

The dinner was great. The salmon was good, the broccolini was cooked but still had a bit of a bite to it that I like. The rice was very flavorful and it may have been my second favorite part of the dish.

My absolute favorite part of this dish though? One pot. Easy clean up!

What I hate is when I get two thirds of the way through a bag and reach down expecting a perfectly dip-able chip, only to find this disaster.

You are no longer salsa worthy.

What am I supposed to do with you, Mound of Crumbles? I cannot dip you. I cannot put cheese on top of you. You are useless!

Or are you?

Chip Crusted Salmon

Yield: Serves 2.

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 35 minutes

Ingredients:

1 Cup of tortilla crumbs
1/2 Pound cut of salmon
1 Tablespoon of fresh rosemary
1 lime
1 Teaspoon kosher salt

Cucumber Salad
Cucumber
Sprinkle of lime juice
Fresh Mint

Directions:

1) Put tortilla crumbs in a bag and crunched them up even more to make a sort of tortilla chip crumb topping

2) Added about 1 Tablespoon of fresh rosemary and the juice from one lime to about 1 Cup of crumbs.

3) Add 1 Teaspoon of kosher salt to the bag.

4) Lightly oil a baking dish and laid salmon in it.

5) Sprinkled some salt right on the salmon and then start packing on the tortilla crumbs!

6) Bake at 350 for about 15-18 minutes.

7) Serve fish with a cucumber salad: chopped cucumbers, a sprinkle of lime juice, salt, and fresh mint.

I decided that instead of trying to make these things something that they are not, I would just embrace them for what they are: crumbs.

So I put them in a bag and crunched them up even more to make a sort of tortilla chip crumb topping. This is also a good way to take aggression out for all of the tortilla crumbs of the past!

Really let them have it.

Now we're talking.

I decided to use these crumbs to coat a nice piece of salmon, but I think you could probably use it on chicken also and it would be great. Because I chose fish, I got some herbs and a lime and added those to the party.

I added about 1 Tablespoon of fresh rosemary and the juice from one lime to about 1 Cup of crumbs. I think for fish, fresh dill would have been a better choice, but I had some rosemary around so that’s what I used.

I also added 1 Teaspoon of kosher salt to the bag.

Breadcrumbs?

Then I lightly oiled a baking dish and laid my salmon in it. I sprinkled some salt right on the salmon and then started packing on the tortilla crumbs! One cup of crumbs was more than enough for a 1/2 pound cut of salmon.

Half way home.

Baking the Salmon

I let mine bake at 350 for about 18 minutes and it was still a bit medium rare in the very center which is perfect for salmon. You’ll need to adjust depending on the thickness of your cut though. Mine was from the end of the salmon fillet so it wasn’t very thick.

The tortilla chips do a great job of keeping in the moisture of the fish and also getting crunchy and delicious.

After a trip to the oven.

I served my fish with a cucumber salad: chopped cucumbers, a sprinkle of lime juice, salt, and fresh mint. The salad worked great with the fish.

Success!

I’ve made this recipe before with crumbled potato chips and I think it’s even better with potato chips. I think you could use any original flavored tortilla or potato chip though and get a good result. I’m not sure I would venture into the Cool Ranch world or anything…

What’s strange is that now I kind of look forward to the crumbs, because it means I get to make something delicious rather than just eat chips and salsa all day…

I browsed through the new Bon Appétit a week or so ago and I must say I was really impressed. I think it was maybe the best issue I’ve seen so far this year. Lots of really interesting recipes in it and cool summer time party ideas. If you don’t subscribe already, this issue might be worth a look the next time you are browsing the magazine section or something.

This was a dinner that I made using a salad and salmon dish out of the magazine. Absolutely delicious and darn healthy!

Healthy!

This salmon is packed with flavor because it is actually cooked wrapped in fresh bay leaves and lemons. The wrapping keeps it super moist and the flavor of the bay leaves is really incorporated into the salmon but not in an overpowering way. As always, I don’t recommend buying the farm raised stuff. It isn’t worth the few bucks in savings in my opinion.

But before we cook the salmon, let’s talk about that pretty salad!

Fennel and Arugula Salad (From Bon Appétit)
(Serves Four easily)

- 1 large fennel bulb or two small/medium sized bulbs
- 5 Ounces washed arugula
- 1/2 Cup pitted Kalomata olives
- 1-2 Cups Shaved Parmesan

Dressing:
- 3 Tablespoons lemon juice
- 1 Teaspoon red wine vinegar
- 1 Teaspoon anchovy paste (I didn’t include this because I was sharing the salad with a vegetarian and it was fine.)
- 1/2 Cup extra virgin olive oil
- Coarse salt

Not so hard to prep after all.

My fennel bulbs were a bit smaller than normal so I went with two of them. Also, I freakin’ love the stuff so I wasn’t worried about having too much. To prepare, chop off the green stems and the root end and then slice down the middle.

There will be a small semi-leafy core in each bulb that you should cut out with a paring knife. Then turn the 1/2 bulb so it is flat (face-down) on the cutting board and dice horizontally to make the slivers.

The completed deal.

Add these slivers to your arugula and olives (which should just be sliced in half and de-pitted if they have pits).

In a separate bowl, whisk together your dressing ingredients and then add that to your salad. Top the salad with shaved Parmesan cheese and some crushed black pepper. You can make this an hour or so in advance if you want.

Lookin' good!

The Salmon. Ok. This salmon was delicious but I paid quite the price (in pain) for it that you can easily avoid. The original recipe calls to wrap the salmon in fresh bay leaves and lemon and then grill the whole package. I, however, do not have a grill handy, so I decided to try it in the oven. This was a mistake.

Turns out that bay leaves are very strong. I actually knew this, but it just didn’t occur to me that if I was cooking 50-60 bay leaves, the fumes created by that might burn like Hades. That is one reason why doing this outside on a grill is a fantastic idea!

But if you think you can handle the fumes then by all means try it in the oven I guess. Let me warn you though. It is not worth it. My nose and eyes burned for like two hours.

GRILLED Salmon Wrapped in Lemon and Bay Leaves

- 2-3 packages fresh bay leaves (The original recipe calls for 4, but I only used a little over 1 package when I made my version.)
- 6-7 lemons, sliced into thin rounds
- 3 pounds center cut salmon (I only used about 1.5 pound cut. I still don’t know why you would need 4 packages of bay leaves.)
- Kosher Salt
- Olive oil

For the prep on this guy, I must admit that mine was a bit sloppy. Trust me trust me trust me. If you were actually grilling this fish, you would need to have a fish grilling basket to keep everything contained.

Also, I thought the best way to show how to prepare this for cooking is to do a little animated piece.

I’m not even going to tell you what temp to cook this in the oven because it seriously shouldn’t be done. On a medium heat grill through, it should take about 15-20 minutes per side or until the skin is crisp and the internal temperature is 135 degrees.

It will probably look much better than this:

At this point my eyes were on fire.

The second reason why this dish would be much better on the grill is that the skin on the salmon would get very crisp. That didn’t really happen in the oven.

A healthy meal!

Once I got past the intense bay leaf fumes, the salmon was actually delicious. It was moist and flaked apart. Even though the bay leafs were really strong, the salmon only had a hint of bay leaf flavor. The salad was killer also. The arugula and fennel paired perfectly with the fish.

The moral of the story: If you have a grill and want to try something original, this is a good dish. In the name of everything sane, do not try this indoors!

This fennel and orange salad fit the bill just fine.

Orange and fennel work.

This was a really simple salad that only required three main ingredients. It takes about 5-10 minutes to make (although it is better if you make it an hour or so in advance). It is completely refreshing.

And yes, I bought tangelos instead of oranges. I’m not really sure how I did that and didn’t recognize it until I got home. It’s cool though, you can use either. It is a bit sweeter with tangelos.

The makings of a killer salad.

The recipe for this couldn’t be easier.

Fennel and Orange Salad (from How to Cook Everything)

- 1 Pound fennel, approximately 2 medium-sized bulbs
- 3 oranges or in my case (doh) tangelos
- 1 lime, juice only
- Pinch of salt
- 2 tablespoons fresh chopped cilantro

Fennel may seem a bit intimidating if you’ve never prepared it before, but it is really simple. Chop off the top and root of the bulb, then slice in half lengthwise. Pop out the center core section of the fennel and then slice the sections as thin as you can get them. If you have a mandoline, this will be even easier.

Deconstructing the fennel.

Add these fennel sections to the juice of one lime and one orange. The other two oranges you want to prepare like this.

Orange you glad I showed you this?

Once you have the circular wedges, I chopped them in half again just to make them a bit easier to eat. Toss this all together with the cilantro and the fennel and let that marinate for as long as you want (up to 12 hours would be just fine).

The longer this sits the better it will be.

I made up a quick batch of couscous and also pan-seared a section of wild-caught salmon to finish off this salad.

Add some salmon for good measure.

This is one of those salads that you can make in just a few minutes, but leaves you feeling refreshed and good to go. I have a suspicion that this salad, maybe chopped a little finer, would also be awesome on a fish burger of some sort (tests pending).

Definitely give this a shot if you are looking to beat the now Summer heat.

For each battle there are two ingredients. Each competitor gets to pick an ingredient. This battle’s ingredients: Anchovies and Oyster Mushrooms.

The chosen ones.

These ingredients are tough. First, neither of them are ones that I have used a lot. Second, when I have used them I usually eat them in their most basic form. I love anchovies on a bit of toast. I love oyster mushrooms sauteed in butter. Using them as ingredients is tricky. Third, oyster mushrooms have a pretty mild flavor and anchovies have a stronger flavor that I was worried would overpower the shrooms.

Fourth, I really wanted to find some fresh anchovies, but it turns out that these are not easily available this time of year in DC. All the markets I checked out only had ones that were preserved so that is what I had to go with.

All that in mind, after thinking about it for a few days, I came up with two things I wanted to try. First, an appetizer: Anchovy, Mushroom and Salmon Mousseline.

A mousseline is a pate that is processed with cream and egg white. You can use many different kinds of meat to make it. I have never made one before but I’ve been interested in them ever since reading Michael Ruhlman’s “Charcuterie.” The recipe in the book is actually shrimp based and makes a slightly larger pate than I wanted. So I reduced the amounts a bit and substituted anchovies for shrimp. I also planned to add in a bunch of oyster mushrooms to try to get some of their flavor to come through.

Anchovy, Mushroom and Salmon Mousseline

- 1 Tablespoon butter
- 7-8 ounces oyster mushrooms
- 1 Tablespoon kosher salt
- 10 ounces of anchovies (the original recipe calls for 1 pound of shrimp, but I tried to tone it down a bit because anchovies can be strong in flavor.)
- 1 large egg white
- 1 Cup heavy cream
- 1 Tablespoon basil (optional)
- 6 ounces of salmon (I found some great wild caught salmon. I’m not a big fan of the farm raised stuff.)

The important part about making the mousseline is to make sure that everything is very cold. This will help it all combine. Following Ruhlman’s advice, I put my processor bowl and blade, along with my anchovies, in the freezer about 20 minutes before I was ready to go.

Meanwhile, I added my butter to a sautee pan and added my mushrooms to the pan which I roughly chopped.

Chopped and sauteed.

After about 5-7 minutes these were cooked. You then need to chill these before you get started.

Once you have all your stuff ready and cold, put your anchovies in a processor with the salt, half of the mushrooms, and egg white. Once it is processed, then slowly add in your cream until everything is combined. I actually had to do mine in two batches because I only have a small processor.

Gray matter.

Once I processed all of my mixture, I wanted to use the other half of the cooked mushrooms to give some texture to the dish. I folded them in after the mousseline was processed. So half the mushrooms were processed and half were folded in.

The whole time I was doing this, I was tasting the mixture and adjusting the flavors a bit. I was pretty worried about the anchovies overpowering everything.

Now. I needed to cook this stuff to have it set. If you have a terrine pan then more power to you. I don’t and I didn’t want to buy one just for this dish, so I read through the chapter on Pates in the book and Ruhlman also mentions that you can wrap your mousseline in plastic wrap and lightly poach it.

That sounded like something I could handle although I will say that it was far from easy.

First, I laid down a layer of cheese cloth on a baking sheet, and then a layer of plastic wrap. I added a layer of the mousseline, followed by sprinkling the basil, and then the salmon, which I cut the skin off of and cut into long fillets.

This is getting weirder and weirder.

This was not easy to roll up. Eventually though I got it rolled up with the salmon in the center. I tried to stay calm and work carefully and it ended up okay.

All rolled up.

Why the cheesecloth? Well, for starters I was skeptical that the plastic alone wouldn’t just fall apart in the water making anchovy-mushroom soup. Second, it is near impossible to handle a hot tube of mousse filled plastic. So I wrapped the cheesecloth around it and very tightly secured both ends with butcher’s twine.

Water tight is important.

This felt pretty sturdy so I thought I was ready to poach. I kept my water at about 180 and let this poach for about 30 minutes. It was at this moment that Betsy walked in to our anchovy smelling kitchen wondering what the hell I was doing.

It was at this moment, that Betsy became skeptical.

After I took my mousseline out, I encountered yet another problem with this dish. Ideally, you are supposed to weigh down the pate and refrigerate it. However, since I didn’t cook mine in a dish, I couldn’t really weigh it down because it would just flatten out.

I rigged up the following insanely complicated setup that would apply a bit of pressure to the pate while it chilled. And yes. Those are beer caps and a piece of aluminum foil.

What?

The next day I was anxious to try this. I unrolled it and pulled out some tiny toasts to serve it on along with some arugula that I thought would work to lighten the spread up a bit.

I give it a rating of not bad.

As the caption says, I give this an honest rating of not bad. It was actually better than I thought it was going to be. The flavor was pretty good. The texture was a bit runny though and I think there is some rule that it is hard to make gray food appetizing. And unfortunately, this turned out gray which I think was due to the mushrooms. As I feared, the anchovies also completely overpowered the mushrooms.

I’m glad I made it though. It was a challenge, but gave me some confidence that hopefully I can use to make another one in the future.

The second part of the meal I wanted to make was a bit more classic: Anchovy and Mushroom Pizza.

I chose pizza because I thought that was maybe the best bet of getting the mushroom flavor to come through a bit.

I don’t want this post to go on forever so I’m not going to detail exactly how to make pizza dough. I’ve detailed it before in this post, so maybe check that out if you are interested.

Once I had my dough made, I decided that a white pizza would be a good option to show off the anchovies and mushrooms.

I drizzled about 2 Tablespoons of olive oil on my crust and then topped it with a few ounces of ricotta cheese and mozzarella cheese. I also added about 4 ounces of mushrooms and 6-8 anchovy fillets which I chopped into quarters and distributed evenly. I topped it with some pepper and basil.

To really do this right you need a pizza stone and peel.

Piled high.

In the oven for 18 minutes at 500 degrees and I was very happy with the results.

Out of the oven.

I topped the pizza with a few leaves of arugula. The tartness of the arugula worked perfectly with the other flavors. I thought this pizza was fantastic and guess what?! I could taste the freakin’ mushrooms which was really my only goal. The anchovies added a nice flavor and saltiness, but the mushrooms stayed nice and whole. Betsy, myself, and a friend devoured the whole pizza in a few minutes.

Worked out great.

One more photo for good measure.

A good slice of pie.

So that was my take on these fairly difficult ingredients. Thanks for reading this battle. Be sure to check out Ryan’s and Sheila’s creation before voting. You can vote below or on their page. Both sites link to the same poll and you can’t vote more than once.

Voting is set to close on Tuesday at noon!