Thursday, February 10, 2005

Guest Blog #2: Ghetto Salmon.

We are obsessed with salmon. It helps that you can buy it whole, and cheap, from the market downtown. It's fun! You get to bring home a whole fish (well, minus head and tail and guts and stuff) on the bus all wrapped up in paper, and then you get to cut it into fillets of the right size when you get home and put them in the freezer, but save one out for dinner that night. I never knew that fish that fresh smells like the ocean, not like fish.
Scare yourself up some salmon. Make it good. Fatty salmon seems best. If the fat oozes out the side of the salmon as it cooks, you win.

Coat both sides of the salmon with some salt and a shit-ton of pepper. You want it to be crusted with pepper. Coat the salmon with olive oil.

Heat a big-assed skillet (I used a 12" saute pan for two servings) real hot. Leave the skillet dry, the oil will come from the fish. Drop the fish in flesh-side-down. Let it smoke and sizzle and do that wonderful thing it does. After a while, the fish will begin to lift and you'll be able to peel it and flip it over. Sear the skin side in the same fashion.

Pull the fish out of the pan when it's almost done and place it on a cookie sheet or whatever and place it in a ~300 degree oven. You want the fish to be half resting and half cooking. Sort of somnabulating. Eyeball it.

Now comes the good part, use a non-stick pan at your own peril.

Gaze lovingly at the fond in your pan. Then, dump in one shallot (minced), a couple-three heads of garlic (minced), some parsely (chopped) and some thyme (chopped). Swirl them around a bit then add 1/2-1 cup of white wine. I used E&J Gallo Rhine-in-a-jug. Scrape the fond off the pan w/ your spatula (use one that can withstand high heat, I've melted more than my share) and reduce the wine. Reduce it lots, a big pan and high heat helps. Pinch some salt into the sauce as well, but not too much as reduction concentrates the flavor. Reduce aggressively! Make it as small as you can and still have enough left. High heat is your friend.

Finish with a gob of butter.

Put the sauce atop the fish and enjoy. Mmmmm, crunchy and saucy. Life is good.

We served it with Eggplant patties w/ tomato, basil, and mozzarella. Also boiled red potatoes w/ salt, pepper, parsely, thyme, and butter. Hopefully, L. will post her recipe for the eggplants.


The eggplant recipe was not that good. My grill does not get hot enough, I don't think. I need to figure out a better way to grill. Basically:
Slice eggplant. Salt and pepper both sides. Grill until it looks kind of done - if you cut the middle open it should be kind of smooth on the inside. Top with a slice of mozzarella and let it melt a little bit before you take it off the grill. Add a basil leaf on top of that, and a slice of tomato on top of that, or the other way 'round, whichever you prefer. Grind one grind/pinch of salt and one grind of pepper on top and serve.

Boiled red potatoes don't merit their own recipe but I think everyone should eat boiled red potatoes with butter all the time anyway. Just boil them and put butter on them. Don't take the skins off.