Sesame Encrusted Salmon

In keeping with the quick dinner theme, here’s my lunch today. It took about 15 minutes from start to finish, including the side dish. The electricity for the neighborhood was out the whole time; but, its very simple to prepare and needs no special gadgetry.

salmon filet, skin on
white sesame seeds
black sesame seeds
2 tablespoons of dark sesame oil
salt

Wash and cut the salmon filet into steaks about 2.5 inches wide. Sprinkle steaks all around with salt.

Heat the sesame oil at high heat. Sesame oil burns, so getting the heat just high enough to not smoke but still sear the sesame seeds to the salmon is the key.

Lay out the white sesame seeds on a wide plate, enough to coat half the salmon steaks. Do the same with the black sesame seeds on a different wide plate. Take a salmon steak and press the left and right sides of the steak into the black sesame seeds. Carefully press the bottom of the steak into the white sesame seeds. You should now have a salmon steak coated on three sides, two black and one white. The skin side should remain clear of sesame seeds.

Place the coated salmon steak skin side down into the hot oil. Quickly repeat with all the steaks. Fry the salmon steak crispy on all four sides. After frying the top and bottom sides you may be able to turn down the heat of the oil, depending on how rare you want your steak to be.

Serve with a side of leafy greens and white rice.

Update: I finally got around to uploading the photo.

Sage Cream Omelet

You'll notice that most of my recipes are very low time investments. This has mainly been because of my job; but, now with the twins here its becoming even more important. This little tidbit can be prepared in about 10-15 minutes and feels really decadent. If you want to get elaborate you can add a lit bit of diced ham or onions; but, I suggest keeping the flavors simple and elegant.

In a saucepan combine over high heat:
a small handful of cut sage - I use pretty thinly cut strips of leaves
a sizable pad of butter
a dash of salt

Saute the sauce until the butter starts to give off a nice aroma (< 2 minutes). Don't let the sage brown much at all. Then add:
1/2 cup of heavy cream
liberal dash of dry white wine - sherry or cognac also works
black pepper to taste - optional

Reduce until really thick. If you've never reduced a cream and liquor sauce, stir constantly over high heat until the sauce is about 1/3 the original volume. Put aside.

Make the omelets by frying in generous amounts of butter. Use the cream sauce as a filling. Makes 2-3 omelets.

Adventures in Food, Wine Stewed Fruit

I'm a really big foodie. Pretty much all our vacations and excursions are based on food. I've scouted out much of the South Bay for years and know where to go for the best of most ingredients (anyone want some goose fat?). I'm also quite proud of my own cooking.

For many years I've cooked and have definitely improved over time. This may sound like bragging, and it is; but, I consider my own food better than most of even the finer restaurants. Sure, there are plenty of dishes I'd have a hard time cooking (e.g. baked alaska is something I've never tried to do.) Overall, though, I think my own cooking ranks pretty high. Presentation is not important to me, so I'll never make it in the restaurant business. I'm all about aroma, taste and texture.

With this in mind, I'll share a few recipes. A caveat, though: I almost never use any measuring utensils and hardly ever follow recipes exactly. All my measurements are just by eye. So any measurement I ever list will be a pretty rough estimate. Alter the measurements to your own taste. Please, any who read this and want to share their own recipes just point me to your own blog entries.

Hopefully this will be a regular post.

Let's start with today's dessert. Actually, it was yesterday's dessert; but, the resulting sauce lasts a couple of days and makes a mean milkshake.

Wine Stewed Fruit

a handful of tasty fruit - I've tried pears or black mission figs. That would be about six medium sized pears or 8-10 figs. Yesterday was local organic figs.
red wine - Really whatever left over red wine bottles you need to empty out. I had a half bottle of 2 month old bordeaux and about 20% of a bottle of 2 buck chuck to get rid of. That was about 3 cups.
sugar - About 3:1 ratio of wine to sugar.
lemon zest - Go ahead, use the whole lemon's worth of peel. It can't hurt and it makes the dregs much more light and refreshing.
a cinnamon stick

Clean the fruit. If the peal is harsh like a pear then peel it. If the skin is soft like a fig, keep it on. Keep the stem on the fruit since that makes it really pretty and easier to pick up after being cooked.

Dump all the ingredients in a sauce pan and bring to a boil. Turn the heat down to simmer, stirring occasionally. After an hour to 1.5 hours, depending on when you remember that you were cooking dessert, turn it off.

Serve either warm or chilled, with the soupy sauce. Make sure to keep the sauce and use it with anything creamy over the next few days. Its awesome stirred in with yogurt. Tonight I took the last fig and the lemon peel with a bit of sauce, put it in a blender with vanilla ice cream, and made a milkshake that totally rocked.

--e