Honey-Peppered Salmon, Honey

This week's nueva receta was for our anniversary dinner, so we turned of course to a few of the more romantic titles in our cook-book book case. And since it was on a Friday after my Thursday rowing, we looked for seafood recipes.

While I was looking through Booty Food (yes, that is a real book), Pam found a simple recipe in our early edition of InterCourses. Regular readers of this blog will know that both are full of delicious and delectable ideas for cooking together. In this case, Pam found a very simple recipe for salmon that I was able to prepare on my own with minimal effort.

Honey-Peppered Salmon starts with salmon steaks, which I purchased at Kyler's Catch. On Friday evening, I simply whisked together the following in a flat-bottomed bowl:

• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 T honey
• 2 T Dijon mustard
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 t cayenne pepper
• 1/2 t dried cilantro (the recipe calls for ground coriander)
• 2 T lemon

We had been invited to festivities on campus, and I should have prepared this marinade before heading out, but it worked out well anyway, since this was easy to prepare and required leaving the salmon steaks in this marinade for only 30 minutes, at room temperature.

The recipe calls for baking the fish, 6-7 minutes on each side, at 350. I had started with a cold oven, so it was going a bit slowly. So after about a dozen minutes, I turned on the broiler. The result was a delicious, slightly caramelized glaze -- hot and sweet! We will definitely try this again.

These sweet, peppery steaks brought out the very best in an ordinary Shiraz from Yellow Tail.

Six-Minute Chocolate Cake - The "Espresso" of Cakes!

So, James had a birthday on Sunday. I baked him a cake, but he was away most of the day taking a train from Baltimore to Providence, Rhode Island where Paloma and I picked him up. It was almost 9:00 p.m. when we met the train, and then we stopped for a bite to eat, so it was close to 10:30 when we got home - past my bedtime. I had to work the next day, so the cake sat until after our Cinco de Mayo Celebration on Monday.

I found the recipe in the Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home cookbook. The editors say they got the original recipe from a 1976 House & Garden magazine. It is quite simple, and really only takes about 6 minutes to whip together.  Mixing of ingredients is done directly in the pan in which it is cooked.

The recipe calls for:
1 1/2 c. flour
1/3 c. unsweetened cocoa powder
1 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
1 c. sugar (I used a little less - about 3/4 cup)
1/2 c. vegetable oil
1 c. cold water OR brewed coffee (regular readers of this blog will have no problem guessing which one I chose!)
2. t. vanilla extract
2 T. vinegar

The dry ingredients were sifted directly into an ungreased 9" round cake pan. Then everything else, except the vinegar, was poured into a 2-cup measuring cup, then poured and mixed with the dry ingredients. Once the batter was smooth I added the vinegar (I used one tablespoon of Espresso-flavored vinegar; and one tablespoon of dark chocolate-flavored) and mixed well. It baked at 350 for about 25 minutes. It was such a dark brown color it was almost black after it baked.

The recipe also includes directions for an optional glaze, which I also made.

Ingredients are:
1/2 pound bittersweet chocolate (I had to re-read that several times, yes 1/2 pound, which was all I had in my cupboard)
3/4 c. hot milk
1/2 t. vanilla

The chocolate was melted in a 300 degree oven then mixed with the other ingredients. It was not so much a "glaze", but rather a blob of bittersweet chocolate. I could not figure out why it called for so much chocolate, I ended up using only a tiny fraction of the "blob" to frost the cake. I added some confectioners sugar to the top of the cake, along with a bit of ground cocoa, coffee, and sugar. The cake had a rich flavor, not too sweet, and was enjoyed by us both (alas - poor Paloma did not get to partake).  James is taking the rest over to his Social Justice League meeting today.

Maryland Day!

Bloggers sport their Maryland Day gear

Maryland Day was last Monday, April 28. We celebrated a day early for the simple reason that we somehow got the date wrong. We got out our trusty Dishing Up Maryland cookbook and found a simple recipe for Zucchini Fritters with Thyme. We still had some shredded zucchini in the freezer from last year's farm box so it was a perfect choice.

I began by sifting together 3/4 c. flour and 1 t. baking powder and then added two eggs, and 1/4 c. milk. Once these ingredients were combined I added the thawed zucchini, 2 t. dried thyme,  and 1 t. pepper flakes. When the batter was well mixed I dropped tablespoons-full onto a hot griddle with olive oil, and cooked like pancakes until done. We served these topped with plain yogurt. They were quite flavorful and filling.

See also Black Bean Fritters

No-Recipe Chicken Noodle Soup

We had chicken, and we had noodles, and no other ideas for dinner last night, so I decided to try my hand at a "stone soup" version of chicken noodle soup. I used some of the herbs and vegetables that James had bought for the pork chops he prepared on Tuesday, along with some other ingredients I found in the kitchen. I started with two boneless chicken breasts which I diced and cooked. Meanwhile I chopped some carrots, celery, mushrooms, onion, and garlic; and boiled some fettuccine noodles. I drained the pasta, than used the same pan to cook the soup. I put the cooked chicken, some prepared chicken broth, and some water into the pan, then added the noodles back in, along with the diced vegetables, and some fresh herbs. I brought the soup to a gentle boil, then let it all cook for about 15 minutes. I removed the herbs and ladled into bowls. This was delicious. Some of the best soup I ever made, in fact.

Dishing Up Chops

I include the cover of Dishing Up Maryland for this post, in part because I could tell right away that this was going to be a dinner that looked much better in person than it would in a photograph. I also want to draw attention to what is shaping up to be a very nice part of our cookbook collection -- both on our shelf and in our church's online store.

The selection of Tuesday's dinner menu started last week, when we decided to add a package of Farmer's Choice pork chops to our weekly order of delicious, organic milk from Crescent Ridge Dairy. We turned to the Dishing Up Maryland book when looking for a way to do justice with this pork that began with local grain fed to free-range, local pigs.

The only pork-chop recipe in the book begins with recommendations to shop the Greenbranch or Whitmore farms in Maryland -- this is a volume that celebrates local food! Of course, adjusting to our own locale was perfectly appropriate.

The recipe calls preheating the oven to 350 and then nearly splitting the chops lengthwise to form little pockets -- for the small, boneless chops we had, this was a bit of a challenge. I seared these in a small amount of EVOO and then set them aside. I added a bit of butter to the pan (indispensable cast-iron, of course) where I cooked finely chopped onion, celery, and apple. Here Snodgrass has specific apples to recommend, but I used what was in our fruit basket. Once the onion was soft, I added some cubes of wheat bread and salt, pepper, rosemary, thyme, and sage. I had never used fresh sage in my life. I had no idea what I was missing! I then added chicken broth (she calls for beef or vegetable) and dried cranberries and stirred until it looked like stuffing.

Rather than try to toothpick the chops back together, I spooned the stuffing in snugly, and set each chop on its side in a baking pan. I then baked for about 25 minutes. These chops were thin; otherwise the recommended 45 minutes might have been required.

We each enjoyed two small chops with some basmati rice left over from a recent burrito night, and considered it a complete -- and delicious -- meal. The stuffing was amazing and will give me plenty to think about in November, as I plan the Thanksgiving stuffing. I am very glad Pam found the high-karma dried (albeit sweetened) cranberries at Trader Joes. Had I gone with Craisins, we would not have known how delicious this stuffing could be. Of course, with a 45-minute cook time, blanched fresh cranberries would also have worked.

Overdue Chicken

It has been almost a month since the equinox, which we did celebrate with a dish from our Wicca Cookbook. We have fallen a bit behind on our once-a-week recipe concept, and I have fallen even further behind in my blogging!

I modified the recipe for Divine Skewers (p. 82). It calls for marinating chunks of chicken and then grilling them, along with bell peppers, to cook on a grill. In the recipe, cherry tomatoes are to be added to the hot skewers about halfway through the cooking process.

Not having set up our grill yet this year, I opted simply to cook the marinated chicken in our indispensable cast-iron skillet, adding the cherry tomatoes halfway through. Somehow, I completely forgot to include the peppers, which we had in our freezer from last year's farm box.

The result (served over rice): fantastic! The marinade is easy to prepare, a bit unusual -- I have never used yogurt in a marinade -- and the key to the success of this simple dish. To prepare it, the following is simply placed in a blender and pureed, as they say, until smooth:

1/2 cup plain yogurt
1 onion, quartered
3 large cloves onion, chopped (I used a small handful from the farm-box stash in our freezer)
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice (I think I cheated here and used some from the bottle we keep on hand)
1-inch piece fresh ginger,  peeled and chopped (never cheat with ginger!)
2 teaspoons vegetable oil (I used EVOO, and will try to think of a good flavored oil to use next time)
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
1/4 teaspoon ground red pepper
salt and pepper to taste

We might need to try this recipe again in a couple weeks, as we made a bit of a pagan calendar mistake! It is probably no surprise that the The Wicca Cookbook is arranged according to the wheel of the year, with a section for each cardinal date, and a section in between for each cross-quarter date.

Image: The Mother House of the Goddess

We started browsing in the Equinox section of the book, and did not realize we had skipped right over the Beltane heading. So look for a reprise of this recipe, on or about May Day!

Whaleboater's Salmon

Rowing Whaling City

One of the many advantages of my whaleboat hobby is that it brings me close to the New Bedford seafood markets on a regular basis, and there are few places in North America better for finding seafood. So after filling in with the Sireens on a crisp, beautiful morning, I headed over to Kyler's Catch, where I had picked up some delicious cod just a couple of days ago.

This time my mission was salmon, and though no wild salmon were on offer today, the organic farm-raised was offered at a good price, and was billed as "fishy" -- which is what I think fish should be!

We had decided to modify a rather complicated salmon recipe from Cod and Country, since we did not have the time or inclination to brine and smoke the salmon in the way Barton Seaver suggests. That will be a summer project, I promise!

Rather, we transformed the salad recipe he calls "Smoked Salmon Panzanella with Feta, Dill, and Grapes" into something we might call "Sweet Creamy Broiled Salmon with Cool Toppings."

Not extremely photogenic, but nicer than most. It looked better without the toppings, but certainly tasted better with them!

Turn to page 215 in Seavey's book (which I hope you will purchase if you love seafood and care about the sea) to learn what he would do with some wild-caught salmon and a couple days to prepare it. What we did was quite simple. I brushed oil onto a cookie sheet and put it in the oven (already at 350 because Pam was making her amazing cornbread) for a few minutes to warm it. Then I placed the salmon fillet -- skin-side down on the hot pan, and brushed oil onto the top. I then sprinkled it liberally with dill weed (the fresh dill suggested by Seaver would probably have been even better).

As the fish cooked for ten minutes, I whisked together equal amounts of plain yogurt, orange juice, and olive oil, along with just a smidge of salt. After 10 minutes the fish looked almost done, so I finished it by rebrushing the oil and then placing it under the broiler for 3 minutes. I did not char it -- just gave it a very nice texture. At our plates, we placed seedless grapes (cut in half lengthwise) on top of the fish, spooned the yogurt mixture over it, and sprinkled with crumbled feta.

In addition to the hot corn bread, Pam steamed some organic green beans that she had blanched and frozen during last autumn's harvest from our CSA at the Colchester Neighborhood Farm.

Paired with a rather ordinary red table wine, this was a delicious land-and-sea meal.