salmon pasta salad

*  A +pound of freshwater coho salmon gently cooked and cooled. 

*  A half pound of pipe rigate pasta boiled to al dente. I thought it was shell pasta by viewing them through the window in the box but they turned out to be large elbow pasta with with one end opened and the other end nearly closed to appear somewhat like a snail shell. 

*  a sauce is prepared with the ingredients of tzatziki but also including tamarind paste and mango chutney. The tamarind is dark colored and shaded the mixture unpleasantly dark. I love the taste, but I could do without the coloration. 

Sauce: 

*  1/2 cup sour cream

*  1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt

*  1/2 diced English cucumber

*  1/8 teaspoon salt

*  1/16 teaspoon freshly cracked pepper

*  1/2 teaspoon coriander

*  1/4 teaspoon cumin

*  1 finely diced jalapeño pepper

*  1 clove scrapped garlic

*  1 finger scrapped fresh ginger (If the ginger root is a hand, then use a finger, the same amount of mass as the garlic)

*  two small carrots carefully Julienned 

*  three slices of white onion, heated in the microwave to reduce its sulfides. 

salmon and scallops

A wedge of salmon filet and three medium-large sea scallops are brought out of the freezer and allowed to settle to room temperature. Seasoned with salt and pepper and coated with prepared mustard. Fried at medium heat for a scant few minutes to produce a light caramelization. 

Orange lentils prepared earlier are reheated. 

A simple salad is prepared comprised of baby arugula, baby spinach, hothouse tomato.

Dressing:

*  A few tablespoons Japanese sake

*  A few drops Three Crabs fish sauce

*  A few tablespoons sweet mirin

*  1/2 teaspoon powdered ginger

* 1/4 teaspoon powdered garlic

salmon

Small salmon filet segment with steamed vegetables and Asian sauce. It's all about the sauce.

Asian sauce

In a small pan heat the following ingredients in small amounts that suit you and in combination your common sense instructs you are best:

*  soy sauce

*  sake

*  fish sauce (just a few drops, this stuff is gross)

*  mirin (the sweet kind, not the gross kind)

*  chile pepper flakes

*  garlic powder (or real garlic if you want to go that route)

*  ginger powder (or real grated ginger if have it and choose to bother)

In a small jar, shake:

* 1 level teaspoon corn starch

* 1/2 cup chicken broth

*  black pepper

Add chicken broth with corn starch to the other heated liquids. This will make the most amazing sauce you ever thought you could make. It goes with the salmon and the vegetables. 

Salmon removed before you imagine it is completely done, because that's the way we cooks roll. If it ends up too raw to suit you, it can always be zapped for a few seconds to correct and to no ill effect, but that never happens. 

Salmon

In the style of the miller and the spice agent who happily live together in my mind. 

A small amount of flour carries an approximate equal amount of mixed spices. The mixture is lightened very slightly with baking powder. The segment of fish filet was first dusted with this mixture, deemed too light a coating, so an egg was blended with liquid, drenched, then dredged again in the flour and spice mixture. This is the first time I ever used sake to thin the egg. It was there. Other than that I do not know why I used sake instead of plain water. I wanted to see. Conclusion: eh. 

salmon

going ... 

going ...

gone. 

Butter and lemon sauce, with a splash of old leftover Zinfandel, and with briny un-rinsed capers and finely diced onion in place of shallot -- a simple dressing that works as well on vegetables as it does on fish. 

While stationed at Barksdale AFB, for a few months my father was transferred to Eareckson Air Station, away from us, and how we did hate that. This followed specialized training at Boloxi which also separated us. Eareckson is an airport and a radar site on Shemya Island, second to the last of the Aleutian chain, before Attu and after Kiska. (It is actually more complicated than that, but those are the larger of the numerous islands in the area.) Family lore purports my father's vast and highly specialized grasp of electronics was needed there, ever the hero of all his own stories, but my suspicion is that he pissed off somebody really really REALLY badly. Whatever the case, from all reports it is a bleak outpost indeed. Fishing, wildlife and such is in great abundance there, and they did have quite a lot of all that at the mess,  but there is only so much a guy can reasonably take. Besides that, my father is not what you could call one of the great outdoorsmen. So the stint put the old boy off salmon permanently, and that's a shame. Odd though, his fondness for halibut and king crab remained unchanged. His stories of seals and bears and caribou and such held us all spellbound. To a boy the adventure sounded perfect. 

steamed seafood breakfast with vegetables

Since you have already proven you can fry bacon to perfect crispiness along with two eggs without breaking them over easy so that the whites are cooked perfectly, neither runny nor rubbery, while keeping the yolk penetrable by a toast corner, and do that while coordinating in other devices toast with butter and jam along with a pot of coffee and all that goes with coffee if it isn't plain black, like sugar and cream and vanilla or almond, cinnamon, what have you, and include with all that a huge pile of hash browned potatoes that dwarfs the plate or a bowl of grits or a side of polenta, mush, whatever, then you've already demonstrated technique superior to the technique needed here to steam up some seafood bits for a few minutes along with some vegetables and to use the steaming liquid to create a memorable sauce.

What? You don't do those things? Well, never mind then. Carry on.

It amounts to a slight difference in technique not mastery, an easing of technique, in fact, and an adjustment on attitude toward breakfast. And by breakfast, I mean that first meal whenever it occurs, in this case noon. Ha ha ha ha ha. Hey, it's Saturday.

Oh damnit. I forgot the saffron and the diced tomato I intended. Oh well, some other time.

I live in the center of the country with nary a seashore within 1,000 miles so all my seafood is frozen, or at least very cold. I used what I had which turns out to be my favorite things -- because what? -- would I buy things I don't like?

My steaming liquid included remnant white wine, onion, garlic, butter, and the shells and tails of the shrimp. There's a lot of flavor locked up in those carapace covers and it's a shame when it's wasted.

A mayonnaise was made just for this. That was the fun part. Three egg yolks into a jar along with the juice of one lime and a tablespoon of Dijon. Just for fun, I included a tablespoon of horseradish that I processed myself from a root a long time ago along with powdered ginger and powdered garlic, then used the immersion blender to incorporate 3/4 cup vegetable oil, slowly at first then more quickly as it went along. Salt and pepper.

For some strange reason unknown to modern science olive oil turns bitter when it's whipped. It can be worked in later, but it must be accompanied by a milder oil to prevent that from happening, or even butter could be used, clarified or not, but then you've set off into a whole 'nuther realm of other sauces beyond mayonnaise with their own official names. But it shows you pretty much anything goes.

Like a stir fry, except this is steamed, one small red diced potato first into the steaming pot, then carrot cut into discs, then finally the seafood. I had:

* salmon
* catfish chunks
* shrimp
* scallops
* oysters that were not frozen, the kind that come in a jar. A tub really, with a metal pull top. They're sort of gross, actually, without their shells.

All of that released more liquid than I was expecting which foamed up through the steamer and caused the items to boil as much as to steam. [Note to self: don't let that happen again.]

After all that stuff steamed, approximately 5 minutes:

Six tablespoons of the flavored mayonnaise was put into separate bowl. 3/4 cup of the steaming liquid was strained and whisked into the mayonnaise and then returned to the pot and whisked over moderate heat checking the temperature carefully not to exceed 180℉ / 82℃ and careful the whisk reached into the edges of the pot and careful to prevent the egg from setting. It thickened visibly while whisking. I kept lifting the pot off the heat to avoid scorching and boiling and checked the temperature throughout with an instant-read thermometer, a good one too, not one of those crap pocket thermometers. (at one time I had 5 pocket thermometers that all gave different readings.) All that took about 2.5 -- 3 minutes.

These pictures were taken in the moments between that up there ↑ going on.

salmon, imitation crab, fusilli

Asparagus cut into small pieces and cooked briefly in the pasta water after the pasta was removed.  Immediately doused in ice water to arrest the green color. 

Homemade mayonnaise.

fish sticks

Salmon fish sticks. I love the writing in that Revenge of the Nerds movie where the nerd is asked, "Don't you know what this writing on my hat means?" The nerd responds, "Malcolm ten?" Later, the nerds marvel at the dinner prepared at their hero nerd's house who is now a Bill Gates type character sold out to the success of nerddom and now a changed personality. The nerd hero asks over dinner, "What's wrong?" The nerd answers, "It's just that I've never seen fish before that wasn't in stick form." Fish sticks. Just the idea cracks me up. I vaguely recall my mom fixing them when I was in the first grade. She also heated breaded scallops. I picked off the breading revealing a white disk. I put my disks together forming a cylinder. I recall asking if scallops were really a snake that was cut up. My mom laughed and answered, "Yes." Suspicion confirmed, I lived with this untruth for an additional 16 years. Scene II: Cape Cod, oyster shack. The proprietor had a large poster behind the fish counter depicting various seafood items. I noted the scallops were pictured, as, well, scallops. I said to the owner, a rough looking fellow unshaven and with an unclean white apron and twice my weight, "Your fish poster is wrong," with all of the certainty of a twenty-one year old. The owner sneered, "Oh yeah? What's wrong with it?" He left off the "Punk" but it was implied. I go, it shows scallop like a clam and it's really a snake that is chopped up." He looked at me hard and pathetically, then laughed like I was totally retarded. Then carefully explained the truth and the details behind their preparation. I blame my mother.





* Lightly sautéed in coconut oil
* Madras curry powder, garlic powder, S/P
* The trick, if there is one, is to cook these minimally.
* I tend to over-season things, because that's just the way I roll.
* Hand-mixed mayonnaise, because once you discover the joy of hand-mixing mayonnaise, you'll never go back. This was made with olive oil, which is oddly traduced as being too strong for mayonnaise. This confounds me greatly and I dismiss the criticism as irrational, then proceed to load it up with other strong flavors, chiefly mustard, which I inevitably mix with mayonnaise anyway so I might as well put it in directly. Garlic and ginger.

diced salmon in miso

Diced salmon, diced onion and capers left over from salmon on sourdough breakfast. Lightly sautéed in coconut oil, placed in bowl before adding mixed light and dark miso, which imparts to the miso a delightfully rich unctuous goodness it would ordinarily lack.

Plus
* one crushed and finely diced garlic clove
* several cubes of previously frozen homemade chicken broth, up to eight cubes.
* chicken seasoning proprietary to Spice Boys, Denver
* extra sage, because I just love sage. Love it. Love it. Love it.

raw salmon on sourdough toast

Parents, hide your children.  The little darlings would not like this. 

Raw salmon on sourdough toast.

Pacific salmon from pre-packaged frozen filets. I picked one of the brightest filets in the larger package and carefully sliced, then diced by hand.

Anything, and I mean anything, is better than plain Philadelphia cream cheese, which seems to me a blank whiteboard upon which actual flavors are intended to be written. Therefore, I scribble away. Supplemented with my own handmade ricotta, which wasn't very much, along with commercial ricotta. But then ricotta is hardly much of a flavor improvement over Philadelphia, then is it? Therefore I fortified it with some incredibly strange raw Wisconsin cheddar which is, oddly enough, spreadable. So there's four different white spreadable cheeses and its cheesy flavor is not ordinary. Plus horseradish, and S/P.

The sourdough is toasted to about 85% toastiness because the bread goes Melba if you toast to 100%.

cubed salmon in coconut oil vinaigrette

The coconut oil is heated and the vegetables are barely cooked. The lime juice is added to complete the vinaigrette and the salmon is added at the very end and cooked briefly and barely using mostly carry-over heat. Served warm.

* rigatoni pasta
* two tablespoons coconut oil
* two stalks celery
* half an onion diced
* garlic clove cut in slivers
* mushrooms sliced (not cooked)
* half a bell pepper (not cooked)
* half a small zucchini
* juice of half a lime, added to coconut oil and vegetables after they're cooked but still in the pan
* salmon steak cubed, added at the very end, barely cooked through
* S/P

salmon with honey and ginger sauce

It's actually a lime sauce, but it's heavily flavored with honey and ginger and mustard. The oil is unsalted butter in which the salmon was gently sautéd. The salmon was cut into strips and lightly dusted with seasoned floured. Flour that was seasoned with S/P and some kind of Spice Boys proprietary hot mixture of powders. At least it says HOT on the little can. The pan retains some of the seasoning from having fried the salmon. The butter never got hot enough to burn so it was still in good shape to serve as the basis for the dressing. The same seasoned flour mixture that dusted the salmon is used for thin roux to form a sauce, or a gravy if you prefer, which is sufficiently interesting to also serve as a dressing for salad. It has everything it needs and more: oil (butter), acid (lime), sweetener (honey), umami (ginger and mustard), seasonings (S/P some kind of mysterious hot combination powder), in this case, it also has thickener (flour) which could easily have been corn starch or some such.

Some chefs count capsaicin as a whole 'nuther separate taste sensation, but this is disputed by scientists who say that it's an effect on nerve endings and not an effect on actual taste receptors. I consider it a separate taste and use it as such because in my opinion all taste sensations are effects and I don't care if it's sensed by nerve endings or taste receptors, oh, and my other reason is because I said so. However, if were taking a test in college I'd go ahead and bow to authoriTAH and answer the proper way expected because I'd have concern about my grade, but now I don't have such ridiculous and debilitating concerns so la la la -- LA --la la la in my world capsaicin is a taste.

I didn't pour the sauce over everything, I just kept dipping the vegetables and salmon sticks into it to varying degrees of thoroughness so each forkful was a little bit different in sweetness, mustardy heat, and KAPOW!, ginger.

Salad
* orange bell pepper
* cucumber
* tomato
* half a Romaine heart
* slice of purple onion.

Fish
* Pacific salmon sliced into stick shapes
* dusted with flour, S/P, hot powder
* fried in unsalted butter that doesn't burn on moderate heat

Dressing for both salmon and salad
* same seasoned flour that dusted the salmon
* grated fresh ginger
* teaspoon mustard
* 1 whole big juicy lime, or possibly two discouraging scrawny not so juicy limes.

salmon frittata

It occurred to me yesterday while making the salmon soufflé with lemon sauce that the whole thing would be a lot easier and faster in frittata form and better with a touch of sugar in the lemon sauce. Behold, the Pacific salmon frittata presented as a puffy omelet. Started on the stovetop and finished under the broiler. Warning to the wise, and if not to the wise then at least to the cautious, careful with that broiler. There's only one setting -- high -- so adjust the shelf as necessary, or risk your frittata going all splody and smokey on you. Plus salmon is such a tender flesh, it only needs a minute. The butter / lemon sauce with capers and a scant trace of sugar thickened with corn starch is outstanding, tart, salty, sweet, all at once, ginger, garlic, and fennel from the ceviche liquid, nom nom nom nom nom burp nom nom nom. What can I say? You might prefer something a little more yellow.

Pacific salmon

Look out! I'm becoming brilliant with sauces. A perfectly fine standby sauce for fish is butter with lemon juice and capers, especially sautéed fish because you already have the hot pan going. Oil + acid = vinaigrette, so it works for vegetables too. This sauce is elaborated with surplus liquid from the ceviche. No point in letting that go to waste. The ceviche liquid contains water, lime, ginger, fennel, and onion. About half a cup added to the sauté pan after the fish was removed. A half a lemon was also squeezed into the burnt buttery pan. It was thickened with a scant teaspoon corn starch, thus its alluring attractive glaze. Next time I'll add maybe 1/2 teaspoon of sugar or honey or something, just for another dimension, that'll be like WOW !

The vegetables are my new temporary favorite thing, zucchini with barely warmed tomato. Here, rounded with onion and garlic and presented on a bed of cut Romaine. The lemon, ceviche juice, butter sauce was substituted for dressing. So the plate is unified by the sauce, the fish with the vegetables.

Let's get scientifical for a moment, shall we? OK, here goes.

The great thing about Pacific salmon as contrasted with farm-raised salmon, is the diet and the exercise of the natural fish. Wild salmon has a varied diet. It's a naturally rich color, the result of feeding on shrimp. The pink in shrimp is carotenoid astaxanthin, an antioxident. Farm fish is dyed with a color from the chemical company Hoffman-La Roche. Search: [+cantaxanthin +salmofan +"Hoffman-La Roche] Wild salmon has the desirable levels of DHA and EPA from the Omega 3 fats. The human brain is 60% fat, half that fat is DHA. DHA stands for docosahexaeonic acid, for whatever that's worth, and EPA stands for Environmental Protection Agency. Just kidding, EPA stands for eicosapentaenoic acid, for whatever that's worth to you. The human body can make its own DHA and EPA from plant sources but the conversion of ALA, which stands for Alpha-linolenic acid, for whatever that's worth, is insufficient. Populations have been followed that used to have access to a steady diet of wild salmon. By carefully studying those populations once their access had been closed, it has been found the incidences of heart disease, diabetes, undesirably high cholesterol, and obesity increased dramatically from near zero to, well, A LOT! Search: [+"karuk tribe" +salmon +health], go on then, search, I said.

Wild fish is measurably cleaner than farmed fish. Farmed fish are fed an industrial diet. Their flesh contains significantly more toxins, including PCBs and dioxin than wild fish. Search: [+"farmed fish" +toxins] Farmed fish have a lot more fat on their bodies, but a lot less of the desirable omega 3s. They don't get much exercise. They're also stressed by overcrowding and a little bit sad, but now that's just me thinking it.

There is, however, this itty-bitty little teeny-weenie unresolved concern about mercury concentrating in higher orders along the food chain. The detectable amounts of mercury in wild salmon are negligible for adults, but uncertain for the developing brains of infants. For that reason, salmon should probably be avoided by nursing or pregnant women and infants. Fish oils purchased commercially are completely free of toxins and are good substitutes.

See? The lesson here is the same lesson as all the lessons; whenever industry interjects itself between you and your source of food, it goofs on it. It's the nature of industrial food. Why, it's enough to drive a person right back to the very basics, then in'nit?

Now, you're probably wondering, "Bo, how did you get so smart? What are you basing your information on? Huh? " I read books all the time, that's how. And then you probably want to go, "But how do you know its all true? Huh?" Because I said so, that's how.

End of scientificalness.

salmon salad

Salmon the boss of a friend caught. (Got more. Yay!)

* hand-made mayonnaise
* pre-washed greens
* enough cilantro and basil to rival the pre-washed greens
* mirepoix with mushrooms added cooked in olive oil and steamed with white wine.