First things first, I entered my Orecchiette with Ramps and Fiddleheads recipe into the Spring Pasta Competition over at Italy Magazine. There are a lot of other delicious sounding entries to check out. Oh and don’t forget to vote:-)
Also, Sticky Gooey Creamy Chewy gave us a Yummy blog award. While we don’t participate in memes, I wanted to post a link to her truly yummy blog to say thanks!
I knew I was going to be home late from work today and was trying to figure out what I could make that wasn’t going to have me eating at midnight. I decided to do some kind of seafood and it was either going to be prawns with a tamarind sauce, or salmon… whichever was cheaper/fresher at Wholefoods.
I got there and they had the end pieces of bigger fillets on sale for $4.99 a pound. SCORE! I’d originally thought about having it with some baby mizuna greens, but on the way to the cashier I saw a little yucca sitting there all by its lonesome just begging to be cooked. More on this in my next post…
While I love having most fish prepared simply with some olive oil, a dash of salt and lemon for squeezing, salmon has a bit of a “taste” and I didn’t much care for it as a kid. I’ve grown to like it, but it’s still not one of my favourite fish.
Among salmon’s redeeming qualities are that it’s got a ton of oil if you get the right cut, it’s easy to find and it’s farmed (although there’s some debate as to the ecological impacts of fish farming), so you don’t have to worry about depleting the ocean’s supply.
When you buy salmon, in addition to checking for freshness (firm, glistening meat), try to get cuts that come from closer to the head as they tend to have more oil that will keep it moist. You can tell where it’s from by looking at the shape, the cut’s near the tail are shaped like the letter “D” when viewed in profile while the cuts coming from near the head are shaped like a the letter “P” when viewed in profile. You can also usually see more marbling of fat in the pieces from near the head.
Getting back to that “taste” that salmon has, I think of it kind of like lamb. It’s not so unpleasant as to make it inedible, but it’s not something I look forward to tasting. Despite this, I love lamb and I’ve found ways to mask some of the “taste” without covering up all the other good qualities of the meat. Using lots of aromatics like garlic and mint really help. I thought I’d try out the same technique on my salmon.
The glaze is decidedly Japanese with its sweet miso and sesame base, but the garlic, cilantro and mint add a wonderful fresh Southeast Asian element that really makes this dish. The combo of flavors is quite unique and I’d imagine it would go well on all kinds of things (grilled eggplant, grilled squid, lamb kabobs, etc).
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