Fast and furious salmon

I'm sure I'm not the only one who is feeling burdened by this new summer heat. Nor am I the only one enticed to spend all her free time in the wonderfully cool, AC-equipped bedroom rather than in her sweaty, humid kitchen. Still, I couldn't imagine forfeiting my time in the kitchen just over some oppressive heat. And besides, we can easily reduce the time we spend in the kitchen by making simple, healthful dishes that don't require hours of lengthy prep or long, slow simmering to create. Hence the following dish that I whipped up for lunch yesterday. One pan, minimal prep, muy bueno!

Salmon fillet with mushrooms and onions
(serves 2)

- 1 large salmon fillet, skinless
- salt, freshly ground pepper, and red chili flakes to taste

- 1 tablespoon butter
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1/2 large vidalia onion, chopped
- 1/2 lb. (about 1 cup) white mushrooms, cleaned, destemmed and sliced
- 3 dried red chiles, or 1 fresh red chile, destemmed
- 2 sprigs fresh oregano, thyme, marjoram, or za'atar (wild oregano - I used my windowsill plant), or 1 tsp. dried herb of choice
- 1 lemon

1. Rinse the salmon fillet and pat dry. Sprinkle generously with salt, pepper, and chili flakes, and set aside. Place oven rack on top shelf and turn on broiler.

2. Heat the butter and olive oil in a large oven-proof skillet over medium heat until melted. Add the onion and saute a few minutes, until they've softened a bit. Add the mushrooms and the whole chiles and continue cooking, lowering the heat to medium-low, until the mushrooms have released their liquid and the onions are transparent. Stir in the herb of your choosing.

3. Slice half of the lemon thinly and lay the slices on top of the salmon fillet. Raise the heat to high and clear a space in the skillet to slide the fillet in, making sure it makes contact with the skillet bottom.

4. Cook for about 4 minutes, or until the bottom and sides of the fillet are opaque. Remove the skillet from the stove and carefully place it on the top rack of the oven. Broil for about 5 to 10 minutes, depending on your desired temperature (I did 5 minutes for a perfect medium-rare).

5. When finished, carefully remove the skillet from the oven (beware, it will be very hot!) and squeeze the remaining half lemon all over. Discard the whole chiles and serve the salmon and vegetables alongside a simple arugula salad.

A condiment occasion

One would think my full-time job as a cook might slow my pace of home-cooking, but not so, sir! Yesterday I spent exactly the entire day in the kitchen, made two new spice blends (a fish spice and some Ras El-Hanout), used the latter to make homemade harissa, made a pickled red onion condiment, and also whipped up some parsley butter with loads of garlic. Also, I oven-dried some tomatoes to use in my harissa. Here's the aerial view:


You may be asking yourself, what's this harissa stuff? Well, it's a sauce typically used in North African (ie. Moroccan, Algerian, Tunisian) kitchens for many purposes, such as flavoring meats, brightening soups, mixing into cous-cous, etc. The uses are rather infinite because it's so damn tasty. The number of recipes for harissa are just about as infinite, but mine is a blend of the following (makes about 1 cup):

1/2 cup ground hot red chilis
1 teaspoon chopped garlic
1/4 cup sun-dried tomatoes (I used my oven-dried ones)
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/2 cup water
2 teaspoons Ras el Hanout **
2 tablespoons olive oil

Note: you'll want to strain this blend through a fine-mesh sieve before serving to extract all the chili pepper skins and seeds.

** Ras el Hanout translates from Moroccan Arabic to "head of the shop" and refers to a spice mixture comprised of the best products the shop owner has to offer. So, again, many different variations on this tune. Mine has cumin, saffron, cinnamon, turmeric, ginger, black pepper, and loads of medium-hot paprika.

After I had played mad-scientist with my spices for long enough, I made a simple dinner of grilled steak strips placed on pita bread to showcase my new repertoire of condiments: the still hot steak got a slight schmear of parsley butter, then a pile of pickled onions, then a drizzle of my extra hot harissa.

Accompanying the main was a salad of thinly-sliced fennel bulbs, sectioned oranges, and baby greens, seasoned simply with olive oil, salt and pepper, and a light sprinkling of chopped parsley.


Oh, and there was plenty of vino! Dan contributed a shiraz, and Steph a syrah - both totally hit the bulls-eye of appropriate meat-pairing wines. And both were mercilessly drained by the end of the evening!