Monday, January 5, 2009

salmon with orange dressing

salmon and tossed salad with orange and ginger dressing plate
salmon and tossed salad with orange and ginger dressing plate  #2
salmon and tossed salad with orange and ginger dressing closeup
Is that salad a thing of beauty, or what?

The salmon was caught by my friends with their own two bare hands and a fishing pole with bait, but mostly with a fishing pole and bait. I guess I'll never tire of that joke. Anyway, for some reason, it's always a lot better when somebody you know catches it, drags it flipping and flopping onboard then, "whack!" delivers the coupe de grace, or so I'm imagining.

For the sauce and the dressing I used a small mason jar and started adding my favorite things that I thought would go nicely with both fish and salad.

* orange juice
* oil
* soy sauce (salty)
* honey (sweet)
* juice of 1/2 lime (tart)
* habanero sauce (hot)
* mustard (vinegary and emulsifier)
* salt / pepper
* corn starch (thickener)
* ginger powder (don't have any fresh, intolerable, I know.)
* garlic powder (don't have any fresh, intolerable, I know.)

Shook vigorously
Microwaved -- still too thin,
Tasted -- insufficiently sweet.

Added a little more corn starch for thickener
Added a little sugar for increased sweetness

Microwaved -- perfectly thick and sweet, but now too hot to pour directly over cold vegetables. So I added pineapple chunks frozen from fresh and used as ice cubes to cool down the mixture in an oversized salad bowl into which all the other ingredients would be tossed while the salmon fried.

Rubbed oil on the salmon. Fried flesh side down first, then flipped to skin side. To rush finishing the salmon on the skin side after searing for a few minutes I doused it with white wine to rapidly steam it to finish and to lift it off the pan. (I didn't want to tear it up getting it out of the pan so it was deglazed off.)

This is an incredibly good meal. Thank you, God, for letting my taste buds work. I only wish I could trust a restaurant to do as nice a job. Arrogant? Maybe so. But it's fact. I've never had fish and salad as good as I do myself at home, and it's not just Colorado chefs either, I'm referring to California, Washington, Hawaii, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maine, New York, Pennsylvania, Florida, Japan, Canada, Mexico, and many other seafood-oriented places. Although, I have to admit the bouillabaisse I had at Sacre Bleu (gone now) was incredible. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough seafood inside the bowl to make me happy.



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