Blackened Salmon Salad, Two Ways

It's be a rough few weeks here in More Cheese More Chocolate land. Matt and I suffered a huge loss a little over a week ago, and cooking, let alone blogging, haven't been much of a priority. (Thanks to my big brother for filling in a little while I've been gone!) We spent many, many days surrounded by family and friends and ungodly amounts of comfort food, with nary a vegetable in sight. While the outpouring of support in the form of home-cooked meals was completely overwhelming, there comes a time when you're ready to stop eating platefuls of meat and bread and you no longer want to be surrounded by a dozen varieties of cookies, brownies, and cakes.

When I returned to Minneapolis a few days ago I was excited to get back into the kitchen, and a big salad was at the top of my list of things to make. I had originally planned on making a niçoise salad, but when I realized that my co-op didn't have tuna steaks my plans changed a bit. My focus shifted from my list of ingredients for niçoise salad to random things that sounded good and seemed to fit together. The next thing I knew I was making blackened salmon, crumbling blue cheese, and slicing new potatoes. This salad base would work well with steak or chicken in place of the salmon, and the vinaigrette could easily be swapped out for blue cheese dressing.

The base of this salad consisted of green leaf lettuce, spinach, boiled new potatoes, roasted red peppers, cucumber, green pepper, and blue cheese. For a dressing I drizzled it with olive oil, red wine vinegar, and a little lemon juice.

Blackened Salmon

Adapted from Real Simple

Preheat the oven to 400.

For the salmon spices I combined 2 teaspoons paprika, 2 teaspoons cayenne, 1/2 teaspoon thyme, 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder, and 1/2 teaspoon salt in a shallow bowl. The cayenne came flying out of the bottle when I was measuring it, so I probably had a little more than 2 teaspoons and it was very hot. If you're not that into spicy foods you can reduce the cayenne by half or more. This spice mixture will coat 3-4 servings of salmon.

Melt a couple tablespoons of butter in a small saucepan, remove it from the heat, and stir in the juice of 1/2 to 1 whole lemon. Transfer the mixture to a shallow bowl.

When the oven is nearing 400, heat an ovenproof skillet over medium-high heat. Dip the salmon in the lemon butter and then in the spice mixture to coat. Cook the salmon on the stove for about 2 minutes per side, and then transfer the skillet to the oven for about 8 minutes to finish the cooking. Place the salmon atop the salad and eat, eat, eat.

The second salad had more of a Mediterranean twist with green leaf lettuce, tomato, cucumber, olives, sliced pepperoncini, and a lot of crumbled feta. The dressing was a vinaigrette made up of one part dijon mustard, one part red wine vinegar, and three parts olive oil.

Leftover salmon topped off the salad, and it was delicious.

Fried Rice with Soy-Ginger Salmon

Strange things have been happening around here lately. For one, the temperature has been at or above 32 degrees the last few days. That's not normal for January in Minnesota. A year ago yesterday the high was -6, and I don't think the temperature was above freezing for the entire month of January. Also a little strange, but in a totally awesome way, is my new eye doctor who serves you lattes while your eyes are dilating. Well, the doctor doesn't actually go behind the counter to steam the milk, but someone in the office whips up custom drinks while your pupils expand. I will never go to another eye doctor again.

Even stranger than warm temperatures and lattes at the eye doctor is this desire I've had all week to eat Asian food. I frequently crave Mexican food and sometimes french fries, but I generally have little desire to eat any kind of Asian food. In the last week, though, I've had pho once and this fried rice with salmon twice. Three times in one week. Unbelievable!

If Matt had his way we would probably eat at Chinese buffets five nights a week, but Chinese (with the exception of cream cheese wontons and soup) and buffets are not really my thing, so he's generally out of luck. Maybe it's a sauce thing. I'm not a huge fan of meals drenched in thick sauces, and Matt could live on sauces and condiments alone. At any meal you can find a minimum of three sauces surrounding his plate. When we go to restaurants he orders two kinds of dressing with his salad because two condiments are certainly better than one.

Getting back to the point, I was flipping through a cookbook a few days ago trying to figure out something to do with a piece of salmon and a soy-ginger sauce jumped out at me. I decided to take advantage of it, whipped up the sauce and marinated the salmon. I started cooking some brown rice to go along with the salmon, and before I knew it I was making fried rice. The only thing missing was some fortune cookies, but even without them it was a really good dinner.

The recipes I used for both the fried rice and the sauce for the salmon came from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything. I cut the recipe for the sauce in half and left out the scallions because I didn't have any, and I combined elements from two fried rice recipes to make the one below.

If you follow these amounts it should serve 3-4, or it will serve 2 with leftovers.

For the salmon:

Salmon

1/4 cup soy sauce

1 tbsp rice vinegar

1 tbsp dark sesame oil

1-1/2 tsp sugar

1 garlic clove, minced

1-1/2 tsp grated fresh ginger

Black or white sesame seeds for a garnish (optional)

For the fried rice:

2 cups cooked rice, chilled

3 carrots

1 cup or so of frozen peas

2 eggs, lightly beaten

2 tbsp soy sauce

1 tbsp dark sesame oil

1/4 cup of some type of neutral, high-heat oil (I used sunflower, although Bittman is not a fan of it. He recommends peanut, grapeseed or corn.)

Salt & pepper

Preheat the oven to 350. Combine all of the ingredients for the sauce in a bowl. Pour about half of the sauce over the salmon in the dish you're going to bake it in. Stick the dish in the fridge to marinate until you're ready to bake it.

I was making brown rice, and while it was cooking I decided to make fried rice out of it. You're supposed to use rice that has cooled for a few hours, but since I didn't want to wait until 10 o'clock to eat I threw a few ice cubes in when it finished cooking and stuck it in the fridge. That's what a real chef would do, right? I thought so.

Cut the carrots into small discs or roughly chop them.

Steam them until they can be pierced by a fork but still have a little bite to them, maybe 5 minutes. Remove them from the heat.

In a large fry pan heat the oil over medium-high heat and then add the carrots. Sprinkle them with salt and pepper, and turn the heat up to high.

Cook the carrots, stirring occasionally, until they start to brown. It should take several minutes.

Once the carrots are done add in handfuls of rice, breaking it up as you add it to prevent clumping.

This is a good point to put the salmon in the oven, when the rice has about 10 minutes to go. It might be helpful to set a timer so you don't get sucked into the rice and overcook the salmon.

After you've added all the rice, make a well in the center...

...and pour in the eggs.

Scramble them a little, and then stir it all together.

Really grainy photo, but check out those scrambled eggs!

Add the peas, the soy sauce, and the sesame oil.

Stir everything together and let it cook for a few more minutes to warm up the peas. Make sure you scrape up the bits that get stuck to the pan - it's the best part.

Spoon some rice into a big bowl and top it with a piece of salmon. Drizzle some of the remaining sauce over the top and sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Pistachio + Dill Salmon

One of the best things about going home (besides being in the middle of nowhere, efficient air conditioning and free laundry) is my mom's huge stash of cooking magazines.  No, she does not hide them under her bed as one might imagine with a stash of magazines.  They get piled up at the far end of the kitchen table making it convenient for me to grab a bunch to flip through as I watch countless episodes of Bridezillas.  While perusing the August issue of Bon Appetit I came across a recipe for Salmon with Dill-Pistachio Pistou.  I'm not exactly sure what pistou is, but I know I love it.  I tend to gravitate toward some combination of dill, lemon, capers, and grainy mustard when cooking salmon, and although this recipe contains dill, it is far different from my ordinary preparations.  It's nice and fresh, and it only takes about 5 minutes to prepare.  

Pistachio + Dill Salmon

From Bon Appetit

Salmon for 4

1/2 cup pistachios, shelled and toasted

1/3 cup chopped fresh dill

1/3 cup chopped green onions

1/4 cup olive oil

Finely chop the pistachios.

Combine the pistachios, green onions, dill, and olive oil in a bowl. 

Mix will.

Serve atop grilled or baked salmon.  

Grilled Mustardy Salmon

My summer officially began Friday morning around 10:45.  I celebrated by making a stop at the salon, watching an episode of Grey's Anatomy, and reuniting with my old friend, white wine.  Yesterday I spent the day driving home, making a quick stop in Iowa City to pick up some salmon, and then sat around and watched my mom cook dinner.  

I insisted on using the grill since I don't have the opportunity to grill in Minneapolis, and I also insisted on using some kind of mustardy sauce.  My mom happily obliged and dug out this tasty recipe for the fish.  

2 tbsp chopped fresh dill

2 tbsp whole-grain dijon mustard

1 tsp grated lemon rind

2 tbsp fresh lemon juice

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp ground red pepper

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 lb. salmon filet 

Here lies our Coho salmon sans the skin that my mom skillfully sliced off.  

Combine the first six ingredients in a bowl.  Add a little oil if it's too thick.  Brush it on the fish and fire up your grill.  Or oven.  Or microwave.  Not. 

Grill it on each side for maybe 3-4 minutes.  It was deeeeeeelicious.  

Spice Crusted Salmon & Root Vegetable Chips

Thanks to the dense fog that is preventing me from driving into town to see my friends, I'm able to post for the second time today.  For dinner tonight we had salmon with a spice & hazelnut crust and root vegetable chips with a horseradish dip.

My mom came up with this delicious spice mix.  It was about 2 tablespoons each of coriander, fennel, and mustard seed.  She started out by toasting them all for 10 minutes or so.

And then she crushed them.  A food processor would probably do the job, too.  Once they were crushed she threw in about a half cup of toasted, coarsely ground hazelnuts.  There was plenty of this mixture to coat two big pieces of salmon, so you could make a much smaller batch or store a bunch of it for another day.  It would be good on chicken, pork or any other fish, too.

While my mom was making the spice mixture, I made a horseradish dip for the chips.  I used between 1-1/2 and 2 tablespoons of prepared horseradish, about 3/4 cup sour cream, a couple tablespoons of white wine vinegar, and salt & pepper.  You can add more or less sour cream & vinegar to get to the level of spiciness that you prefer.  You could easily substitute plain yogurt or creme fraiche or any combination of them for the sour cream.  

For the chips you can use whatever root vegetables you have on hand.  We used potatoes, sweet potatoes, parsnips, and beets.  Start out by peeling everything but the potatoes.  Or if you have some strange aversion to potato skins, go ahead and peel those, too.  If you have a mandoline, this is a great way to put it to use.  Otherwise you can make more rustic chips and slice the chips by hand.  Be very careful when using a mandoline or you can end up with a little bit of a mess and a little less of your index finger.

Just kidding.  That's the post-beet mandoline.  I hope that didn't just spoil your appetite.  

Once all the veggies are sliced, toss them in a big bowl with olive oil to coat and salt & pepper.  You can also add any spices you'd like.  Sometimes I add dill.  Sometimes rosemary.  Tonight we added a little malt vinegar, but it turned out that we didn't add enough to taste it when they came out of the oven.

Here are the sliced beets.  Are they lovely?

Here's another picture of them with bad lighting.  I kind of liked the picture, though.  It looks like two big eyes.  Or tie dye.  

Bake the chips at 400-450 until they're browned or done to your liking.  Check them every 5 minutes or so to stir them, flip them, and/or season them.  

Moving right along, here is our wonderful salmon.  Before coating them with the crust mixture my mom brushed it with a very thin coat of olive oil.  Once coated, it was just baked alongside the chips.  

Here's the salmon when it came out of the oven.

And here is everything ready to eat.  It was all really, really good.  The crust was a great alternative to the usual lemon & dill preparation I do with salmon.  The chips were awesome as well.  I love horseradish, and the dip worked well with both the chips (especially the beet ones) and the salmon.  

Brain Food

In the middle of out first week of finals, Matt and I were really craving salmon.  We somehow managed to drag ourselves away from the Federal Rules of Evidence for long enough to enjoy some brain food.  Along with the salmon we had roasted butternut squash and rainbow chard in honor of Day Without a Gay.  I do what I can to show my support.

I started out by halving the squash, placing it face-down in a pan with a little water, and roasting it for about 45 minutes. 

For the chard I chopped up the stems, set them aside, and then chopped up the leaves and the bacon.  The chard would have been totally fine on its own, but at the time I just had to add some fat and cholesterol into our otherwise healthy meal.  Sue me.  So I crisped up the bacon in a pan, set it aside, and drained most of the grease from the pan.  In that same pan I sautéed the chard stems with a clove of garlic for about 8-10 minutes until the stems were starting to soften.  Then in went the greens with a few tablespoons of water, and a few minutes later it was ready to eat.  


For the salmon I very artfully sprinkled on some capers, topped those with lemon slices, and stuck it in the oven for 10-15 minutes.  

And voila, a delicious dinner.  Let the record reflect that it was enjoyed by all.  Ha!  Evidence jokes.  Hilarious, I know.