Salmon

On Wednesday night I had a salmon dish from Cuisine Magazine.  Salmon is probably one of my favorite fishes and this was a fun and different preparation.

Here's the stuff for the cured salmon.  Salt, adobo sauce, brown sugar and salmon.  The adobo, sugar and salt got combined and then rubbed on the fish.

  The cured salmon ready to go into a 225 degree oven for about 45 minutes.

Here's the stuff for the sauce and the garnish.  The sauce was made up of the corn starch and butter, sugar, wine and garlic.

The final mixtures.

The stuff for the pineapple rice.  Sugar, crushed pineapples, pineapple juice, butter, onion and rice.

The onions and rice get sauteed off in the rice.

The crushed pineapple and pineapple juice get added in.

The completed salmon.

The completed sauce.

The completed rice.

The final plate.

A sandwich for dinner

I'm sure you're saying, A Sandwich.  Yes I really made a sandwich for dinner last night.  Making a sandwich for dinner really isn't my thing, but I decided to do it anyway.  Ironically enough, after all my talk of fancy food at work, one of my coworkers asked me if I ever made sandwhiches.  Now I can answer that question with, yes.

All the sandwich fixins.  Tuna, kalamata olives, green pepper, onions, tomatoes and the baguette.  The dijon, olive oil, salt, pepper and red wine vinegar was for a vinaigrette dressing.

I chopped the kalamata olives, sliced the onions, and cut rounds of the tomatoes and peppers.  On the right hand side you can see the vinagirette and in the middle is the hollowed out bread.

The finished product, it was delicious.

Food photo dump

Yep, been a bad blogger again.  Anyway this is a post to catch up with what I've been doing in the kitchen over the last five days.

Since there are so many photos I'll save you the big long description of everything. 

The first set of photos is adobo marinated pork chops.
Second set is bacon wrapped turkey tenderloins
Final set is pan roasted sea bass and mashed potatoes.

Chili

Yes I know it's totally the wrong season, but such is life.  Besides ask my mother, I'm a bit weird when it comes to chili.  This version was a pretty simple one from Good Eats 2:  The Middle Years from probably my favorite Good Eats episode ever.  But I digress.

First part of the dish, homemade chili powder, we've got ancho chile powder, dried oregano, garlic powder, cumin, cascabel chile and a pasilla chile.

The whole chiles were toasted a bit in a cast iron skillet.  At the end all the ingredients went into a spice grinder to make the concoction in the second pic.

 All the stuff for chile.  Salt, grapeseed oil, beer, salsa, beef stew meat, tomato paste, chipotle, cumin and tortillas.

The beef got seasoned with a bit of the salt and then seared off in the oil.

After searing the beef the beer went in to deglaze the pan.

After the beer reduced for a bit the rest of the ingredients went in a simmered together for about 90 minutes.  The recipe called for a pressure cooker but a low and slow simmer worked really well to.

The final product.  This was a very awesome version of chile, as should be evidenced by the fact that I have no leftovers.  Smoky, but not too spicy, it was perfect for someone who's not into super spicy food, like me.

Asian Invasion

I love Asian food.  Probably a big reason why southeast Asia is probably at the top of my list of parts of the world to visit whenever I find to travel incessantly.

Tonight's dish isn't really true Asian food, but it's definitely Asian inspired and that's good enough for me.

 Here we've got the stuff for the chili dipping sauce.  Rice Wine Vinegar, Ginger, Lime, Sugar and Chili Garlic Sauce.

Here's the stuff for the condiments.  When eating Asian cuisine it's commonplace to have a large number of condiments to season your food as you see fit.  Here we have mint, peanuts, carrots, cilantro and lime. 

 Here's the seasoning for the beef.  Salt, Sesame oil and home made Five Spice.  Five Spice is simply a mixture of Cinnamon, Star Anise, Fennel, Pepper and Cloves.

 The second part of the beef seasonings, Chili Garlic Sauce, Sugar, Sherry, and Shallots.

The last bit of prep.  The Flank Steak, Green onions and Water Chestnuts.

Here we have the beef that is mixed with the seasonings and ready to go into the pan and the second picture is the chili dipping sauce ready to go on to the heat briefly.

The beef hits the pan.

The beef completely seared off, ready for the sauce.

The completed beef part of the dish.

The completed dipping sauce.

 The final plating.  The beef went on top of Boston Lettuce and was designed to be eaten all together with whatever condiments you choose.