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After applying some of the desired spice blend to the salmon (roughly 8 oz), I placed it in the oven, on a rack (so that the bottom dried out) at a paltry 270° for about 30 minutes.
This -=> REALLY <=- worked well.
I might try a brief skillet sear on the skin side next time, but even in my wildest dreams that's like a 5-10% hypothetical improvement.
Low & Slow turns out to be a really good way to prepare fish that is moist and juicy.
(Also fingerling potato, cherry tomato, and sweet onion, with basil and thyme. But you already know that ****.)
Salmon is pretty forgiving. Either a medium-high pan or 500° grill or 3-4" from a broiler for 2-3 minutes on a side (you can turn down the heat on the non-skin side too to make it less dry) will get you near-perfection. 2 minutes each side will leave it a bit rare in the middle, 3 on a side will be well done. 3 minutes on the skin-toward-heat side and 2 on the other is about right.
I typically do skin-up first, then flip, so the 'right side' looks nice, but it makes it hard to lower the temp for the 'right side'. I guess you could start out at the low end of medium for the non-skin and crank it up for the skin. Either option gets you crispy delicious skin. I find a little salt, pepper, garlic powder, and paprika rub on the skin is the bomb.
Q: What's better than being mauled to death by a pit bull?
A: Fish tacos and a margarita.
Q: What's better than being mauled to death by two pit bulls?
A: Fish tacos and a really excellent wheat beer.
I'm pleasantly surprised by how well this dish is finally translating into the midwest. My favorite part of travelling downtown to the transmitter at Sears Tower is becoming lunch.
we're slowly getting more decent taco/mexican places here, but they're usually pretty hipster, and weirdly expensive.
I tried on place near me, $15 for a quesadilla (which was actually just half a quesadilla......)
And it wasn't even that good, just chicken, cheese, and a gentle rumour of some spices.
I'm pleasantly surprised by how well this dish is finally translating into the midwest. My favorite part of travelling downtown to the transmitter at Sears Tower is becoming lunch.
There are enough immigrants in OK via Texas, there are many places that do this well.
Especially, when you hit the divey, grimey, back-alley type places where the even the wait staff doesn't speak english.
Location: Detroit (the part with no rules or laws)
Posts: 5,677
Total Cats: 800
The best Mexican food I've ever had was in the middle of NOWHERE Ohio. And I've been all over the country eating Mexican.
Best fish tacos are in San Diego. Which I think that might be where they were invented. Or maybe that's just what they told me.
I can always remember my area having a very big presence in the Mexican food game. I'm young though. As far as I know "Mexican town" in Detroit has been around as long as all the other ethnic groupings throughout the city.
Can't have German beer without going full German. Sauerbraten marinated for 5 days before cooking in the crockpot. Cheated on the red cabbage but the wife did nail the spaetzle this time.
New apartment, new kitchen, new playlist, new recipes. Feeling invigorated.
Tonight is upbeat-80s night. Journey, Redbone, Queen, The Scorpions, Van Halen, Foreigner, Twisted Sister, more Journey... You get the idea. The kind of music you hop up and down while listening to, despite the fact that you're wielding a knife. It needs to be suffieiently loud that you think "Am I damaging my hearing even more than I did as a DJ in the 90s? Yeah, probably."
Preheat oven to 400°F.
Big handful o' halved sprouts, one diced shallot, some chopped dried cranberries, a few cloves of minced garlic, and some fresh sage, chopped:
Toss the sprouts w/ some olive oil, the garlic, the shallot, and whatever seasoning blend you prefer. Transfer to a baking sheet, and then into the oven for 10 minutes while you prep the chicken.
Pound flat two breasts. They should be about 1/4". Fill with goat cheese and the cranberries (90s punk-band pun not intentional. Well, sort of intentional. Ok, I totally planned that joke in advance,) and fold over. I used toothpicks to hold them together.
Cook in a pan on high for a few minutes per side with some olive oil. We're looking to brown them, not cook them all the way through.
At the same time, we're working on a simple brown sauce. A few tbs of chicken broth, some wine (I poured in the old vine Zinfandel that I happened to be drinking at the time), a bit of Salt-N-Pepa (it's 80s night, remember?) the sage, and a generous quantity of the Julia Child Official Secret Ingredient*.
* = butter.
Purchasing the little saute pan was a good decision. It's perfect for making small quantities of sauces such as this.
It's not a roux (there's no flour) but it's in that general neighborhood. Cook until the butter starts to clarify.
Once the chicken is browned, it goes onto the same baking pan as the sprouts, and then they both go back into the oven until the sprouts are nicely charred. Figure 12-ish minutes. It was about three top-40 singles. That's how we're measuring time tonight.
Plate!
So very good. I mean, goat cheese, cranberries, and butter. You can't not love that.
Even more so against the backdrop of a clean stovetop...
What's been working for me in recent years is to live in a place until the kitchen is so dirty that Braineack comments upon it, and then move. It's worked well for me in the past. The last place I was in for two years and one month, which is well over a year longer than my average since 2013.
I need to get back into that groove. Staying in one place for too long tends to bum me out in ways that are hard to describe.
I really do like the kitchen in this apartment. And the bathroom, holy cow... The shower is just amazing. Like, I assume that God has a shower like this in His pad.
so I have been refining my knife sharpening skills because my kitchen knives haven't been sharpened since they were made in a factory some 10 years ago (for the newest ones) or possibly 30 years ago (they are hand-me-downs) beyond an occasional steeling.
I used a big ol broken LC GERMAIN chef's knife with a half inch broken off the tip for practice and watched some videos. The best video was a simple one with an old Japanese guy. I picked up a super cheap two sided diamond stone and used the coarse side to flatten the cutting edge (i.e. pretend to slice the diamonds) then the same side to recreate a new steel edge at 17ish degrees, followed by using the my #250 coarse King waterstone to refine the edge, and polish it off with 1000 and 6000 and eventually a thick piece of leather for stropping.
Once I had my technique down, I picked up my Shun chef's knife that had a small chip out of the blade and reprofiled that to a razor sharp edge, followed by my no-name santoku that I love to use. I tested both on some paper and got satisfactory thin slices so I moved on to a tomato. Light pressure and no sawing will cut a ripe tomato in twain, so I was very happy. Also no more chip!
Meanwhile, I decided to repair the trashed old LC Germain by copying the tip profile of my santoku, but keeping the blade about 1/2" longer overall than the no-name santoku. I drew the profile on with a sharpie and carried it to work where the dremels, grinders, and files are all readily accessible. I wrapped the blade in a wet paper towel close to the designated cut line and went to work with a dremel cutoff wheel. Once I did that, I did some quick passes on the grinder, keeping the blade cool with water as best as I could to avoid losing the heat treatment. I filed the curve smooth and brought it home to sharpen in the manner shown above. The final result is below. I'm not sure why it looks damascus.. possibly because of camera shutter flicker with the LEDs.
The funny(notfunny) part though is that SECONDS AFTER I got done filing down the nose of that LC Germain, I get a picture message from my wife showing her bloody thumb and the text, "Damn it I just cut myself really good with your really sharp knife"
She was trying to hack the rind off some trader joe's aged gouda and it was too tough and slipped. She'll be fine and she'll probably respect the blade more now.
Anyway, I'm now pretty confident about my knife sharpening skills. I always felt like I was not able to properly sharpen a knife so I set about fixing that and spending a little more time to understand and educate myself.
A good whetstone and the knowledge to properly use it is invaluable. My father taught me then it was covered again in the Boy Scouts. A good edge makes such a difference.
Somehow the steel rod that came with my knife set has been doing a respectable job of putting an edge back on my knvies for a few days, but the nick in the blade kept staring at me.
I have a few old knvies that have never had any love and it's time to soak the stones and put on some barry white and give them all some some rough love.
I. too, learned to sharpen things in the Boy Scouts. Had an old scoutmaster that was in the Army, and he not only knew his stuff, he knew how to teach it to impatient 11 year old boys. That and knot tying are two skills I have carried with me many years.
When we were kids, my uncle Jorge used to tell us that knowing how to sharpen a knife is every bit as essential to a man as knowing how to deliver a breached calf or give pleasure to a woman.
I recently purchased this inexpensive but well-reviewed stone set:
When we were kids, my uncle Jorge used to tell us that knowing how to sharpen a knife is every bit as essential to a man as knowing how to deliver a breached calf or give pleasure to a woman.
I guess I really need to learn to deliver a breached calf, then.
09-20-2019, 09:06 PM
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