Glazed Salmon

I should probably blog something.

Ingredients

• Salmon accouterments:
• Salmon fillets (we used about 6oz per person, 12oz total)
• 1/2 tsp brown sugar
• 1/4 tsp kosher salt
• scant 1/4 tsp cornstarch
• pepper
• 1 tsp vegetable oil
• Glaze:
• 1.5 tbsp brown sugar
• 1.5 tbsp pomegranate juice
• 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 1/2 tbsp mustard
• 1/2 tsp cornstarch

Preheat the oven to 300. First prepare the glaze. Mix all the ingredients in a microwave safe container and microwave about 30 seconds, then stir and microwave another 10. Just get it boiling, basically, so the cornstarch will thicken a little. You can do this on the stove, but why bother?

Pat the salmon fillets dry, and sprinkle with black pepper. Coat with the brown sugar, salt, and cornstarch mixture. Heat 1 tsp vegetable oil in a pan until just smoking. Cook 1 minute on the flesh side, then 1 minute on the skin side. Then take it off the heat and cover with the glaze. Be careful - if it's hot (it should be), the glaze might pop a little. Throw the whole thing in the oven. Did I mention the pan should be oven safe? Because yes, it should be. Bake for 7-10 minutes, until a thermometer in the deepest part of the fillet reads 125ish. Remove and serve.

Thoughts: Really good. I would experiment with different glazes, though, too - possibly some kind of miso or asian barbecue? Anyway, the salmon was cooked perfectly. I might go a LITTLE less long on the flesh side and a LITTLE longer on the skin side so that the skin is crispy, but we can think about that.

Disaster Index: a solid 1/10

Salmon with Fennel and Pernod

This is what magic tastes like. CLASSY MAGIC. From Bon Appetit.

Ingredients

• 1.5 tsp crushed fennel seeds
• 1/2 stick butter, softened
• 2 tbsp minced red onion/shallot
• 1 large fennel bulb with fronds -- bulb sliced into 1/4 inch pieces, fronds chopped
• 2 salmon fillets
• 2 tbsp Pernod

Make compound butter: In a large non-stick skillet, cook fennel seeds over medium-high heat until fragrant, about 1.5 minutes. Transfer to a small bowl and let cool. Mix in  butter, shallots/onion, 1 tbsp fennel fronds, and whatever salt and pepper you want. 

Melt 1 tbsp of this mixture into the same skillet over medium-high heat. Add sliced fennel and 1/4 cup water. Cover and cook until fennel is tender, about 8 minutes. Uncover and let cook until fennel is brown, another 2 minutes. Remove fennel from skillet and set aside.

Season salmon. Add the rest of the compound butter to the skillet and let it melt. Add salmon, skin side down. Cover and cook for 5 minutes. Turn salmon over, add 1/4 water to skillet. Cover and continue cooking another 5 minutes. 

Slide salmon over to one side of the skillet and add the cooked fennel back in. Add Pernod, some more butter, and the rest of the fennel fronds. Heat through.

Serve with the rest of the butter on top of the fillet.  

Thoughts:

UGH DELICIOUS. This was our first foray into cooking salmon and it was the best-cooked salmon I've ever had. I give all credit to BA. I would eat this all the time if it weren't so complicated. Dan says it was amazing and he's right. Not much to say here. Go make this. Dan edit: we actually used the salmon cooking instructions from Serious Eats. It yields a really crisp salmon skin that is super delicious. I don't think we actually cooked it 5 minutes and flipped with water. I think we cooked it just like the Serious Eats post.

Disaster Index: 1/10 but actually like -2/10. Can we do that? We just did.

Gratin Aux Fruits De Mer Et Rutabagas

This was an invention, based partly on Julia's recipe from Mastering the Art and based partly on a Rutabaga Gratin recipe we found elsewhere on the internet.

Julia's recipe sounds odd to the modern American ear because she basically mixes canned salmon with bechamel and bakes it. I guess you'd have to have been there.

As Julia describes it, a gratin is more or less a quiche without the crust, but none of her gratin recipes call for egg, so I suspect that this is more her way of thinking about it than an actual rule. Typically, a gratin is a layered dish of bechamel, filling, and cheese, which is then baked. OKAY FINE SO IT'S A CASSEROLE. WHAT. WE'RE FROM THE MIDWEST.

Ingredients

• 1.5 lbs of rutabagas, peeled and sliced thin (we used a mandolin attachment to our Cuisinart)
• .25 lbs frozen spinach, thawed and squeezed of excess moisture
• 8oz salmon (we used fresh, with directions to follow, but smoked would be better!)
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• other vegetables you want to add, chopped - we added the chopped stalks of puntarella we obtained - the leaves of a variety of chicory - which added a subtle bitter flavor that worked well here.
• ~1c whole milk
• 3tbsp butter
• 3tbsp flour
• 1.5c gruyere cheese or similar
• thyme, oregano, other herbs you want, salt to taste

To start out with, the fish. If you're using fresh, place the fish in an oven-safe container of some sort that can be covered - we used a stainless steel pan that has a (partly) oven safe lid, but you can use foil if you don't have this. Sprinkle thyme, oregano, pepper, and any other herbs you want on the fish and pat down to make an herb crust. Place in a 250 degree oven for 20-30 minutes, until it's cooked through enough that you can flake the salmon into pieces.

When that's ready, preheat the oven to 350.

Make the bechamel by cooking the onions (and other vegetables, if using) in butter. Add any herbs you want. When they're softened, add flour and stir to cook for a minute. Then add the milk and bring to a boil. It should thicken considerably. You want a "medium consistency" so you may have to thin the bechamel at this point.

At the same time as you're doing that, set some water to boil. When it boils, add the rutabagas and let boil for 4ish minutes (3-5, depending on how thinly you sliced them). Drain.

In a 9x9 baking dish, add some of the bechamel/vegetable mixture and spread over the bottom. Add a layer of half the rutabagas, then a layer of half the salmon, more bechamel, half the cheese, ALL the spinach, the other half of the rutabagas, the other half of the salmon, the remainder of the sauce, and the remainder of the cheese (in that order, bottom to top). Pack down lightly as you go to make sure everything is settled.

Bake in the middle of the oven for 30-40 minutes, until bubbling on the sides and golden brown on top. We went 40 minutes then broiled the sucker to get browning, but it worked. Allow to cool for at least 10 minutes before you try to eat it.

Thoughts: This turned out well, particularly considering it was at least partly invented by us. I would say that a bit more salt would have been nice - the rutabagas really absorbed the salt we added. Also, smoked salmon would have worked slightly better, although this was good. This was sort of an unusual dish for us. I will say that it was better the second day, when everything had a bit more time to adequately congeal. Also, this allowed us to use a ton of the items from our farm share, so that's always a plus.

Disaster Index: 1/10