Personal Chefs

No kidding. We have our own personal chefs these days. A delightful and talented twosome, Naomi (put the emphasis on the first syllable) and Sam, newlyweds who are staying with us while they hunt for a suitable apartment, having been married in the UK (her home) before moving to Berkeley to pursue doctoral studies (she) and a job (he).

They seem to think they need to pay back our hospitality with home cooking. I can't decide whether to confess to them that we just love having youngsters in the house and that they are a treat all by themselves, thereby giving up our personal chefs, or just let them keep cooking for us. They are very good cooks; so far, we have remained mute.

Last evening's meal is a case in point. Salmon and corn chowder from epicurious.com. About an hour before we were ready to eat, Sam and Naomi disappeared into our kitchen, popping their heads out from time to time to ask, "Where do you keep your...?" or "Do you have...?" while My Beloved and I sat at our leisure in the living room, snacking on crackers and cheese.

In that short time, they produced the chowder and a marvelous blackberry pie (more on that tomorrow). The chowder was hearty with sweet corn and potatoes, and fragrant with salmon and dill. Sam even sneaked a little smoked paprika in there toward the end, lending both color and another savory layer of flavor. It was one of the very best chowders I have ever tasted and here's the kicker - they had never made the recipe before. They just winged it and hit a home run on the first try. Ah, the cocky courage of youth!

So, you can see our dilemma. Come clean and lose the chefs, or continue shamelessly to use their sweet guilt? Any opinions?

What Would Peter Do?

Miso. What the heck is miso, anyway? My blogging friend, Peter of Cookblog, uses it quite a lot in his cooking, which I have always admired, so I decided to find out and perhaps start using it myself. One of the best things about blogging is the new ideas I get from fellow bloggers.

I have had miso soup in the past - who hasn't? - but never really knew what it was. That seems a shame, since I lived in Japan for nearly a year and enjoyed many a bowl of miso soup, then and since.

It's a seasoning but, even more, it's a protein-rich natural ingredient to many dishes. Peter mentioned having used it to slather on his salmon, along with some maple syrup before broiling and I thought that sounded pretty good. After a lengthy search in my market, I discovered where they keep the miso and brought a little tub home in triumph with a nice piece of wild coho salmon. I always have maple syrup since I got spoiled by the real thing many years ago and have never looked back.

Slather and pour. Flip. Slather and pour again. Grill on the Jennair, grill pan or broiler until just short of done in the center. Plate next to some red winter chard that has been garlic butter-steamed. The miso added a mildly salty flavor while the syrup brought the dish to the sweet side, a tasty teaming with the slightly bitter-but-savory/buttery chard. The colors were great together, too, although the photo doesn't do justice to the rich orange of the salmon.

Now that I have my little tub of miso, I am set for serious explorations. If you have suggestions for what to try next, I'm all ears. What would Peter do?

The Designer's Dinner

Sometimes, just the colors of foods are enough to satisfy.

I was assembling another of my hobo packets, this time using skinless salmon fillets, thinly sliced shallot, yellow peppers and, to satisfy the color wheel, little thin green beans and broccoli with frilly green tops, what my younger brother used to call "trees."

Tucked 'way down underneath was a spoonful of giant Israeli couscous that had been cooked in chicken stock - slippery little pearls soon to be bathed in salmon essence - and sprinkled over the top was a little lemon pepper seasoning.

Color combinations like this delighted me back when I was a florist for several years and they still do, now that I'm designing dinner instead of flower arrangements. Sometimes, I assemble dinner just by how it will look, rather than pairing tastes and scents.

Wrap it all up in parchment paper - which, by the way, was a cosy, satisfying brown - and slide it into a 350 degree oven for 15 minutes (3 minutes too long - it was a little more done than I like) and you've got dinner fit for an artist's palette as well as his palate.

Attitude Adjustment

Tiger-striped with sweet-hot sauce, this salmon was a wonderful soother for My Beloved, who had dragged in from The Week From Hell at work, starving and frustrated and ready to call it quits.

While I would be happy to have him cut back or even retire fully, I don't want him to do so on such a sour note. So, when he called from the road to explain what a crappy day and week he had had, I was glad I had some lovely salmon on hand.

Cousin Jan introduced us a while back to Sartain's Menu Sauce, a locally made sweet-hot sort of sauce that works equally well on chicken, meat and fish. I liberally painted both sides of a fillet of salmon and set it aside for about half an hour while I prepped the rest of the meal, then grilled it, non-skin side down first, on the Jenn-Air (I have despaired of having a summer this year so didn't haul out the barbecue and brave the 60-degree, windy evening). After about five minutes, I flipped it to the skin side and let it rip for another five minutes or so, until it was sizzling happily where the skin meets the flesh. My Beloved likes his fish rare, so I cut it down the middle and slid his off the skin, leaving mine to obtain near-opaque perfection.

By the time he had worked his way through grilled corn, tiger salmon, green beans and cherry tomatoes, his attitude had swung back toward the cheerful again. He's a resilient soul.

Panned Salmon

Usually, when I buy a nice piece of wild salmon, I either grill or poach. Occasionally, when I'm in the mood and the weather cooperates, I'll plank. But, for some curious reason, I had never tried simply frying salmon in butter.

The idea came to me when I had a taste of salmon confit when we went to Greystone with cousin Jan and her pal Judi. I had never even thought about making confit with salmon - this one was made with clarified butter. One of those memorable bites.

So, with the idea of buttery salmon in mind, I got out my trusty wide frying pan, melted a little pat gently into the bottom, added a few fingerling potatoes and started them cooking for perhaps 10 minutes before sliding in a nice fillet of wild salmon, skin side down. The fish cooked for perhaps 5 minutes before I flipped it; had I been in the mood for crispy-skinned salmon, I could have left it on that side longer. Because I wanted just the fish itself this time, I flipped it after those few minutes and removed the now-loosened skin along with the dark flesh that runs just under the skin.

Continued cooking both little spuds and fish, still on medium-low heat and turning once more, until the spuds were tender when pierced and the raw fish's sponginess gave way to a firmer feel when prodded with a clean finger. It's important not to burn the butter, so watch it carefully - browned butter is good; black butter is bitter. The fish continues to cook a bit even after you remove it, so best to take it off the heat before it becomes too dry.

The resulting fish was my definition of perfect, nicely browned and crispy-buttery on both sides, still moist inside and with the very thickest part still ever-so-slightly rare. And so simple to do - no grill to clean, no weather worries, no big sloppy pan of hot water to discard. Just roll the potatoes onto the plate, add the salmon and a little green veg and you've got dinner. I won't hesitate in the future to pan my salmon.

The Scent Lingers

When spring was reluctant to come but we were still aching for grilled food, I decided to use the Jennair grill for the fresh asparagus spears. Then, hungry for the taste of sizzled salmon rather than the quieter poached, I threw that on the grill, too.

I rolled the asparagus around in a little olive oil to hasten the grill marks while not overcooking the spears. The salmon went on just as it was, skin side down first, as it's then easier to flip when the time comes.

When they both came off the grill, I squeezed half a lime over them, which brightened all the flavors.

After dinner, I cleaned the grill and the spittered counter tops, ran the spent lime rind down the GDU, bundled up the garbage and took it outside, but the scent of grilled salmon still lingers in the house. Not such a bad thing, really.

The First Swallow of Spring

Here in California, we are spoiled. Not only is our soil fertile and our ocean plentiful (with the exception of certain overfished species) but we get to barbecue early here. Memorial Day is a month away and already we did our first planking of the year while other parts of the country are still awaiting green leaves and, in some cases, even the melting of snow.

We discovered planking about five years ago at an art and wine festival we attended on a whim. While waiting in line for a hot dog, I noticed there was no line waiting for the guy who was preparing planked salmon, so I suggested to My Beloved that we give it a try. Rarely have I tasted anything so simple yet divine. I begged for the "recipe" from the chef and he very kindly obliged me.

I've written about planking before and you can read that here, if you'd like. I can recommend it highly - it keeps the fish (or scallops, poultry) deliciously moist and tender while imparting a lightly smoky flavor to the meat. The plank shields the meat from the fierce heat of the coals and yet dinner is ready in fifteen minutes or less.

I'm not sure if the swallows have returned to Capistrano yet, but we are already swallowing our favorite summer dinner.

Rub Conversion

I've been slow to jump on the rub bandwagon, generally preferring the fresh flavors of foods to dominate and not usually being a lighthouse customer, but a few months ago Sam and Naomi gifted me with a bottle of Penzey's Northwoods Fire seasoning and last night I was looking for something a little novel to do with my fresh Coho salmon.

I searched epicurious.com and found an interesting-sounding recipe for Salmon Steak with Orange-Balsamic Glaze (did I mention that I had two oranges left from the ones Cookiecrumb and Cranky gave me?) but the comments were just so-so. Then, I had the idea of first rubbing the salmon with the Northwoods Fire before marinating it as described in the recipe. Oh, baby, was this ever a hit! The Northwoods Fire gave it a little heat, the marinade mellowed and sweetened the blaze, and the grill did the rest. Served with some bright green broccoli and, yes, those are baked potato chips you see on the plate (not homemade), it was a major feast.

Reluctantly Rubbed Salmon

I used a fillet of salmon rather than a steak and it worked fine.

1 nice piece of wild Coho salmon, either steak or fillet
Penzey's Northwoods Fire Seasoning* to taste - I used a light rub, just enough to cover all sides.
1/4 cup orange juice and the zest from the orange
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1 Tbs olive oil
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 Tbs. finely chopped fresh rosemary (use less of the dried kind)
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Vegetable cooking spray

Rub the salmon on both sides (mine had the skin still on) with the Northwoods Fire. Let it stand while you combine all the other ingredients except the cooking spray in a zip top plastic baggie or a pan. Add the salmon and smoosh it around until all sides are in contact with the marinade.

The original recipe calls for marinating an hour in the fridge but I'm impatient and my salmon was nicely fresh so I just left it on the counter for about 15-20 minutes while I set the table, fed the dog and heated the Jenn-Air grill (I'm sure a grill pan would work great, too) and sprayed it with the cooking spray.

Remove the salmon from the marinade, drain it briefly and slap it on the hot grill, skin side down first. Cook for about five minutes, then flip and the skin should peel right off in a single sheet. You can discard it or save it for 'cracklings.' Continue grilling to desired doneness; one nice thing about a fillet is that one side is thicker than the other so I can give My Beloved his favored seared-on-the-outside-rare-on-the-inside piece at the same time as I get my cooked-through-but-still-moist portion.

This dish was so delicious that I'll be rubbing all kinds of meats from now on! That sounds vaguely naughty, doesn't it? Oh, well, converts are always the most intense believers, aren't they?

*The Northwoods Fire is a blend of paprika and hotter peppers, salt, yadda, so you could approximate it if you prefer, but I'd recommend just getting this lovely stuff from Penzey's.

Balloons and Confetti

I'm on a planking roll these days - planked a chicken a few days back and did some nice coho salmon last week for a lunch party with the Cousins. I always seem to make too much food when we are having company, hence the salmon salad today.

It's not really a recipe, rather a study in color. Crisp green Romaine lettuce base, cold striped coho middle and a sprinkle of colorful onion confetti red and green, a curl or two of baby yellow sweet pepper, a few cheerful balloons of cherry tomatoes and a drizzle of brown balsamic vinaigrette. Fresh, bright, perfect for a fall lunch. What shall we celebrate?

East Coast Fish

This doesn't look like much - the restaurant, Friends & Company on the Boston Post Road in Madison, Connecticut, was dark - but it was one of the best meals I enjoyed back east. Simple but full of flavor, a nice piece of salmon was encased along with green beans, slices of red bell pepper and chunks of redskin potatoes in a sheet of parchment paper and baked. Opening the parchment to release the fragrant steam is like opening a gift - delicious anticipation! I might have added a little dill to the mix but even without it, this was a great way to prepare moist, perfectly cooked fish. I've never tried this technique at home even though I have a big box of parchment paper languishing in my drawer - this will be inspiration for a number of simple summer meals!