Archive for the 'fish' Category
I did the food styling for a summer food photo shoot for FFWD today, which meant props like summer salads and sangria.
One of the most photo-friendly salads I know is the brown & wild rice salad with dried fruit, parsley and chopped pecans, of which there was plenty left over for dinner. I picked up a filet of salmon this morning, so when the photographer left after 6, all I needed to do was slap it on a cookie sheet and spread a bit of hoisin sauce, straight from the jar, on top, then bake it at 425F for 10 minutes, and dinner was done before the news headlines were over. (W didn’t like the hoisin salmon as much as the pesto salmon.)
I emailed my friend Robyn for her sangria recipe - the one she’d mix up and we’d drink on the stoop of our apartment on Cambie Street in Vancouver. Trashy but yummy. (The sangria, not Robyn. Then again…
She makes cheater sangria at restaurants by ordering a bottle of Orangeina and the house red, and mixing them in her glass.
Robyn’s Cambie Street Sangria
You’ll need:
Cheap red wine
Fruit juice of some kind (Five Alive or any citrus blend)
Orange pop or 7-Up
Lemon, orange and lime slices
The ratio is 1 part juice, 1 part pop, 2 parts wine. Lots of lemon, orange and lime slices, plus chunks of other fruit and berries if you want.
The last time she made it, she made orange crush and citrus juice ice cubes, to keep it cold without getting diluted.
Share on Facebook
May 07 2008 | fish | 6 Comments »
I have decided to clean out my freezer. First to go was a filet of salmon, which I pulled out this morning to thaw. Then when a CTV news reporter and camera came to talk to me about the CBE’s Nutrition Policy, they wanted some quick footage of me in the kitchen preparing something healthy. So there I was, looking all angelic with my slab of salmon, bowl of greens, grape tomatoes, barley and zucchini. Good thing they didn’t show up on rib night.
Which explains why my filet was cut into three pieces - that was a little action for the camera. Normally I would have just cooked it in one piece. Either way.
Now, pesto is something that I wouldn’t have normally had a bottle of in the fridge even a year ago. But since discovering the Pesto, White Bean & Chicken Stew, and that Willem loves it, I now have a jar in the fridge most of the time. It’s easy to find, on grocery store shelves alongside the pasta sauce. I buy the Classico pesto stuff; nothing fancy. Tonight when I pondered what to do with the salmon, I made it easy on myself and slathered a spoonful of pesto on top of each filet. W appears to like salmon already (although like other 2 year olds he enjoys doing a food preference about-face once in awhile) but I figured spreading it with pesto would be akin to spreading a dog’s medicine with peanut butter. It worked.
The best thing about fresh salmon is that it takes 10 minutes to cook: at 425F, 10 minutes per inch of thickness, which usually means about 10 minutes. It’s that easy. You might see ‘Roasted Pesto Salmon’ on a menu or in a cookbook and think it sounds mighty complicated, but it’s absolutely not. It doesn’t even require a recipe. This is all you need to know: 1) put salmon filet(s) skin-side down on a cookie sheet; 2) slather with pesto (sun dried tomato pesto would be good, too); 3) roast at 425F for about 10 minutes per inch. A lot of recipes instruct you to cook salmon until it flakes easily with a fork - at that point, it’s overdone. It should flake easily along the thinner edge, but still be moist and meaty in the middle. Yum.
With it the leftover grainy salad from last night; I have this thing about serving salmon with grainy salads. Not sure where that comes from. I guess it’s just that while I’m at it, I may as well be doubly virtuous.
Share on Facebook
March 13 2008 | fish and vegetarian | 3 Comments »
I’ll never understand why battered frozen fish pieces are considered a convenience food. How convenient are they, when they take 25 minutes in the oven vs. 10 for a fresh fillet of salmon? This is real fast food.
I adore asparagus, and my favorite way to cook it is to roast it until the tips turn dark and crunchy. It occurred to me that both could be done at once; the asparagus started (on a rimmed cookie sheet, drizzled with oil and sprinkled with salt and pepper) and then pushed aside to make room for the salmon during the last 10 minutes of cooking time. But we had lots of both, so after 20 minutes in the oven, we slid the salmon on its own sheet onto the rack above. Easy peasy. I threw some brown and wild rice in a pot to boil for 45 minutes (I always cook both together since they have the same cooking time, and in lots of water, like pasta, to make things easy) to be sure W would actually eat something on the table, but he scarfed down his third of the salmon filet before starting in on ours. The asparagus, however, was a no go. More for us.
Roasted Balsamic Glazed Salmon and Asparagus:
Preheat the oven to 450F.
Snap the tips off your asparagus wherever they naturally break. I used two small bunches. Drizzle a cookie sheet with canola or olive oil and spread the asparagus out on it, tossing it around to coat with oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and pop in the oven.
Place your salmon fillet skin side down on a foil-lined sheet (or if it’s small, wait to put it on the sheet with the asparagus). In a small dish, stir together 2 Tbsp. brown sugar or honey, 2 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar, 1 Tbsp. grainy mustard and 1 tsp. sesame oil. Spread over the salmon.
After about 20 minutes (depending on how thick your asparagus is and how well done you want them) push them aside and add the salmon to the pan, or slide the sheet with the salmon on it onto the oven rack above (or below) it. Cook for 10 minutes per inch, until it flakes around the edges.
Print Post
Share on Facebook
February 18 2008 | fish and veg | 1 Comment »
