Again, the leftovers spoke, supplemented by Gruyère from the store and thus was dinner made. First, a couple of onions, nicely caramelized, were transformed as if by magic into some pretty fab soup with the addition of the rest of the beef broth I made for the 10-grain risotto. I cut the marrow into pieces and threw that in, too. Now I know this is supposed to be subsequently baked in a little dedicated onion…
Category: Seafood
Often color is my jumping-off point for figuring out what to make for dinner; it’s my training, and a big part of what I do professionally. So Christine’s purchase of some sole combined with the braised cabbage already in the fridge (and the desire to try a variation on the cornmeal crust from last week) all led to this. Parsnips are incredibly sweet right now- one of the blessings of winter- so I steamed a…
John and Debi brought Tim (up for the weekend from FL) for a decadent dinner. I made the food; John brought the wine. That was the deal. Normally with multi-course meals I can see the dishes in my head beforehand, but in this case they were a little blurry until just a few hours before dinner. Most of it came out pretty well, though I had to scrap one course and I forgot to add…
Our local market has good fish, but the only kind we’ll eat is the wild salmon, since it’s not yet overfished and is safer to eat than other varieties. So we’re lucky that it’s just a mile down the road, but it means I have to work at coming up with new ways to make salmon (today I’m going to the better market 10 miles away for some variety tomorrow.) I rubbed this filet with…
Josie and Kees- of sambal oelek fame- and 2 of their 3 kids joined us for dinner. Kees brought a tortilla with sweet potatoes and chorizo, plus a spicy tomato sauce, and I smoked a side of salmon over our applewood since it was actually above freezing outside for the first time in what seems like ages. Other dishes included sweet potato “noodles” marinated in a Thai dressing (peanut butter, sesame oil, vinegars, sambal, soy…
Post-Chicago, something clean and simple was urgently needed. This is broiled mahi-mahi with a salt-dried sudachi zest crust over brown rice and braised fennel and turnip with some peach chutney on the side. I opened a really nice Lirac but I forget the info since we took the rest to Vermont and left the bottle there. I’ll fill it in later- it was just as good the next day with the lamb stew.
There’s nothing quite like having a fridge full of goodies to inspire well-rounded meals. This time it was wild Alaskan salmon and a variety of roots and greens that got me going. I broiled the salmon with herbs, 5-spice, and sesame seeds on top. A cubed turnip caramelized and softened with half an onion in olive oil, collards softened a bit with garlic, and I made a salsa with fresh orange juice, cherry tomatoes, avocado,…
A trip to the market for Thanksgiving-related items led to scallops, and a cauliflower, which is one of the first vegetables I’ve bought since May. The rainy day just seemed to want roasted cauliflower, and there’s something about the sweetness of scallops that seemed like a good fit. So I marinated the scallops in kimchi juice to make a sort of ceviche, but not really long enough to “cook” them (though I did try one,…
In the mood to play more with my new toy, I vacuum sealed some wild salmon with ginger, garlic, lemon thyme, 5 spice, and sudachi powder. Cooked for half an hour at 47˚C and served on brown rice with a kale-endive pesto, kimchi, and a tomato-blood orange sauce. The beauty of salmon like this is that it looks raw, yet pulls apart like cooked, and the vacuum really helps the flavors get into the fish.…
Chris & Sirkka gave us some fennel since ours is done, and it completely dominated this meal. Sautéed and then braised a bit to soften- with only oil, lemon, salt, and pepper- it was meltingly smooth, sweet, and sublime. The pan-roasted salmon (well-done by request) and mashed sweet potato/Japanese yam combination were fine, even delicious, but the fennel was on another plane entirely.