Monthly Archives: October 2010

Seared Fennel Salmon with Pasilla-Spiced Pumpkin Basmati

So I have somehow gotten myself involved in a cooking challenge. Food blogger and med school student Joanne from “Eats Well With Others” was hosting a little recipe-making competition sponsored by Marx Foods, and in a stroke of wild abandon I entered my name as a potential participant. I’ve never done this before, and I was scared crapless. Yes, I can cook a delicious meal. Yes, I’ve fine-tuned recipes and even created many from scratch. But am I the wildly inventive person who in a stroke of genius adds an entirely unexpected ingredient such as caviar mousse or onion confit to a bread dough, resulting in the most delicious thing you’ve ever eaten?

Well . . . no. And then I got an email saying I had been selected. I took a deep breath. I took another deep breath. I got up, reheated my coffee, sat down again. I had visions of some kind of historical culinary disaster going down in my kitchen. Then I had visions of a gigantic personal culinary success. Then the disaster. Then the suceess. The two visions arm-wrestled each other for a while, until I was like “Enough you two! Just take it down a notch! I am going to make the best friggin, gosh darn, friggin fantastic thing I can, and whether I win or lose I will at least make something friggin delicious for dinner that my husband and I will friggin devour like wild hyenas!” And then I shouted out an extra ‘friggin’ just for good measure.

Now I could just jump into the recipe–but this is a blog! And that means you get to hear every single one of my thoughts (evil cackle). Hey! Get away from that scroll button!

The challenge was to create a recipe with the following conditions:

1. One of the main ingredients must be orange winter squash (any variety–acorn, pumpkin, butternut . . .). Apparently, Joanne’s goal this season is to eat enough squash to turn herself orange. This is our way of helping her achieve that goal.

2. You must use two of the eight ingredients mailed to you in a box by Marx Foods.

3. The recipe must be original (i.e. of my own brilliant or horrific creation).

How hard can this be? I asked myself with a furrowed brown in the days leading up to the receipt of the box. I could go the Thai curry route . . . the Indian curry route . . . perfectly seared salmon on a bed of rice and squash . . . I could do a risotto, or a salad with roasted pumpkin, avocado, pine nuts and other delights . . . I could do some kind of complicated gnocchi or ravioli . . . or even some kind of one-dish breakfast bake in my iron skillet. Or a quiche! Tacos! A spicy Pozole-inspired stew with a mole-style drizzle!

There was a frenzy in my brain. How would I ever decide what to make??

And then I realized how to simplify it. The question came down to: what did I want to eat? Which imaginary dish did I want to dig my fork into? If I were at a restaurant, which of these dishes would I order hands down?

The answer was clear: a piece of perfectly cooked salmon on a pile of rice. Oh, and a delicious rich Thai curry. So there were two answers. And they were both equally clear.

Yes, I decided to make both of my recipe ideas and simply submit the one I liked best. So my friends, without further ado, let’s get this show on the road. Let’s make that salmon, which is my official submission. The ‘freebie’ curry recipe, also delicious, will be posted later this week . . . or next week. We’ll see how cozy I feel like getting with Photoshop in the days to come.

I’m using sugar pie pumpkin, and the two ‘mystery’ ingredients I chose from the box are dried pasilla negro chilies and fennel pollen. I know the recipe name is long and complicated–but the actual instructions couldn’t be easier. It’s basically a piece of fish with a rub that sits on a pile of rice (rice-cooking method courtesy of Pastor Ryan) with some goodies tossed in. Do not fear the process.

Ingredients

(Serves 4)

For the rice:

2 c basmati rice

4 c water

2 TBS butter

1 tsp ground pasilla negro chili

1 TBS turmeric

1 tsp salt

1 c frozen peas

Cilantro (optional garnish)

For the pumpkin

4 cups sugar pie pumpkin cubes (from 1 medium sized pumpkin)

2 TBS butter

2 tsp dried ground pasilla negro chili

2 tsp brown sugar

1/2 tsp cumin

1/4 tsp ground black pepper

salt to taste

For the fish:

4 salmon fillets, skinned (about 0.3 lbs each)

3 TBS olive oil

2 tsp fennel pollen

salt (generous amount)

black pepper

Before anything else, grab a large pasilla negro chili:

Grind it up in a spice mill or coffee grinder.

I used our coffee grinder on the ‘espresso’ setting and got a lovely, finely ground pile.

Should I taste it?

Absolutely.

I’m a huge proponent of tasting your ingredients–you’ll get a much better sense of how to combine different things if you take a chomp, or in this case, a lick.

If you’ve never had pasilla negro chili, you’re in for a treat. It has a spicy, raisin-like, almost chocolaty flavor that is very unique. And it’s not fiery hot either, so don’t worry about incinerating your tastebuds.

Now the salmon cooks pretty quickly, so I like to get the rice squared away first. Grab your rice cooker: dump in the basmati rice, water, butter, turmeric, ground pasilla negro chili, and 1 tsp salt.

Press ‘cook’! That was easy. Unless you don’t have a rice cooker. Then you’ll have to fend for yourself and make it in a pot on the stove, like a real man.

Your #1 mission is now to halve that sugar pumpkin. This is without a doubt the most difficult and dangerous part of the recipe. I was very afraid I would stab my own hand, or possibly lop my head off.

It looked so friendly, and innocent, and orange, and small . . .

But it proved to be a worthy and tough opponent.

I swung it around the kitchen a few times just for good measure.

Just kidding! Please don’t do that at home. You could really do some damage. Just keep working at it patiently and carefully. Once I got a cut made, I wedged my knife sharpener in the crack and forced the pieces apart.

Of course, a woodsman with an axe would have come in handy. But no woodsmen were patrolling my Chicago neighborhood that evening, so I battled it out. The triumph was sweet in my mouth.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt moved to pose with an ingredient before. I also seem to be looking particularly freckly. Hmmmm. Trick of the light, trick of the light.

Scrape out the seeds and innards. If you’re a motivated person you’ll save the seeds and roast them later for a delicious snack. I was lacking motivation that night and simply threw them away.

Now, microwave the halves for 4 minutes each. This will make the pieces much more tender and easy to cube.

Cut the pumpkin into small cubes and discard the rind.

You should have about 4 cups of cubes.

Heat 2 TBS butter in a skillet over medium-high heat. Once the butter is fully melted and bubbling, add the pumpkin cubes, spices, and sugar.

If you cook the cubes for too long, you’ll end up with pumpkin mush instead, which is not what we’re going for here, so just fry them for 3-4 minutes, taste and adjust the seasoning.

Try not to eat all the pumpkin cubes at this time. I stopped after only 6, and I was quite proud of my self control.

Set aside the pumpkin cubes, and let’s get that salmon underway so that it’s done by the time the rice is ready.

Preheat the oven to 450, then heat an oven-proof pan (I used my trusty cast iron skillet) over high heat for 4 minutes. Rub both sides of the salmon fillets with olive oil and season the tops with salt, pepper, and the fennel pollen.

Go GENEROUS with the salt, and I’m talking generous. Once you think you’ve been generous, go ahead and salt it a little more. Use your fingers to spread the spice across the fillets evenly.

We’re keeping it simple here with the seasoning, and lemme tell ya–the flavors really shine through. When the pan is hot, place the fillets spiced-side down . . .

. . . and don’t touch them for at least 2 minutes.

Seriously! Get your mitts away from that pan! The underside should turn a gorgeous shade of brown. Now turn the pieces over gently (I recommend using a spatula).

Slap that pan into the oven and cook that fish for 5 to 7 minutes, then remove. Would you look at that perfect, beautiful sear? Would you look at that tender flesh? Oh my.

I should also drive home the fact that if you overcook your fish, doom and despair await–so make sure you take it out when it’s still tender!

Just in case you were curious, I cooked 2 salmon fillets and 2 steelhead fillets, which look very similar to the salmon. My fishmonger didn’t know what the difference was, and I needed to know. Answer: the salmon is 50 times more delicious, fatty, and luxuriant. The steelhead was more lean and stringy. The salmon was also twice the price. It presents a difficult dilemma in my life.

By now the rice is bound to be done, so simply stir in the frozen peas and pumpkin.

Serve the salmon on top! Garnish with some cilantro and if you want, lemon juice.

The balance of spices is perfection, folks. My husband even used the phrase “restaurant quality”–with no prompting from me!

There is nothing, and I repeat nothing, like a piece of perfectly cooked fish.

I’m sorry that I can’t seem to stop taking pictures of this salmon.

The pumpkin is feeling ignored and alone. Let’s give it a bite too. No one gets left out on this blog.

Oh joy. The orange stuff is divine.

Please send help fast.

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Dinosaurs, pillage, and ping pong tables

I was going to call this post “What I’ve been reading,” however that sounded sooooo boring that not even I wanted to read it. But yes, you have stumbled on a book review–and not just that, but a multi-book review with possibly the longest introduction/disclaimer/amendment known to mankind. I promise dinosaurs, pillage, and ping pong all come into it . . . kind of.

When I was a young thing, my family watched “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” There is a scene in the movie during which the villain gets flattened by a steamroller, but then peels himself off the floor, picks himself up and keeps going. I found this scene disturbing and terrifying, to say the least. I was afraid to go down the dark hallway to the bathroom by myself, I was afraid to go to bed, I was afraid both to open and to close my eyes as I lay in bed; this image tortured me for days and days. Images are powerful, whether they come to you via books, music, movies, or any other medium. My Mom told me once “Be careful what you put into your mind. Because once it’s in there, it’s there forever.” I have always taken that very seriously, and that is why I never watch slasher or horror films, never saw “The Shining” or “The Exorcist,” and try to be careful with what I read.

I’m a little more careful than some because I’ve always had an imagination that tends to run wild. I’ll give you an example–when the movie Jurassic Park came out, I was about 9 or 10 years old. We didn’t even see the movie, but just having seen the posters of dinosaurs and understanding the basic storyline of the movie haunted me. While we were staying at someone’s house during a summer trip to the States, I totally freaked myself out: right outside the window in my bedroom there was a huge mass of trees, which I interpreted as a Jurassic jungle. On the ceiling there was a smoke detector that blinked red from time to time, and which I convinced myself was a red dinosaur eye. I kept picturing gigantic velociraptors crashing through the window. Or worse–hearing their talons on the floor because they were already in the room with me. Needless to say, I got little sleep that night.

And that brings us to sex. And books. Sex in books. It presents a problem for me–I don’t like reading about it! Especially if I feel the author is being gratuitous and trying to rile up the reader–I can’t stand that. It kind of disgusts me, to be honest. For me, it can ruin a book that I might have otherwise loved, like The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo series, which I had to stop reading despite it’s extremely engaging plot and excellent writing style.

Can’t you just see a prim librarian face saying in haughty tones: “It offended my sensibilities”?

I’m sorry that I just sported a prim librarian face–I’ll try to keep that to a minimum.

To me, sex is a wonderful and precious part of marriage that I hold in very high esteem. I mean heck, I’d been looking forward to it since I was 16, and I distinctly remember praying the same prayer that many a young Christian virgin has uttered: “God, I really want you to come back and take us to heaven . . . but do you think you could wait until I get married so that I can have sex?”

Hey, just keepin’ it real around here (though I’ve probably just scandalized the socks off some innocent bystander–sorry, Innocent Bystander). And yes, it’s a good time, but it’s also pure and beautiful and something to be treasured. So the point of this whole rambling paragraph is: I don’t like reading books that violate what I consider to be its sacred nature.

I’m getting to the point, don’t worry–no more sermonizing: I’ve recently read two excellent books that I would have recommended to you all immediately–if it weren’t for the sex! Both include some rape as well; it’s very hard for me to read about rape and I don’t want to recommend books that will be a dark spot in any of my readers’ hearts or minds. However, I also didn’t want to hide the fact that I read and enjoyed these books. As an English major and consummate reader (I always carry a book with me, wherever I go), I love talking about what I’m reading, and sharing what I think about the plot, characters, and writing style. I struggled for weeks with whether or not to post about these books on my blog. Finally, I asked for a college friend’s advice, and she recommended that I simply write a disclaimer. So I breathed a sigh or relief, and realized that I could write exactly what I thought (misgivings and all) as honestly as possible, leaving it to the reader to choose whether or not to pick up the books. And honest writing is at the heart of good blogging, I think.

So with that GIGANTIC explanation (hello? hello? anyone still with me?), here goes!

The Pillars of the Earth

I really enjoyed this book . . . but I have to warn you with two key words: rape and pillage. Rape and pillage.

I mean, it’s the Middle Ages in England, so what can you expect?

It’s popular writing–good, very readable, though not at the Nobel prize-winning level. But, I would argue, it’s popular writing at its best. There is depth, there is history, there is character development. This is not a shoot-’em-up thriller that flies by and that you forget about 2 days later–this book will make an impression that stays with you.

The novel spans about 50 years of history (from the Prologue set in 1123 to the final chapter set in 1174 or thereabouts) with the building of a cathedral as the central event around which many characters come in and out of the story. I loved learning about medieval society and was particularly impressed with the cruelty of the age–the ruthlessness of the outlaws who ran the forest, the harsh punishment imposed by villages on thieves and other offenders of the law (severed limbs, stonings, hangings, etc.), the helplessness of women, the near impossibility of surviving as an outcast from society, the traveling craftsmen who depended on finding work as they went from town to town to fend off starvation.

There is such a rich variety of characters that cross the almost 1,000 pages: Phillip the prior of Kingsbridge who oversees the financing and building of the cathedral, all while combating the private interests of his bishop, surrounding noblemen, and the monarchs who rotate through the throneroom via seemingly constant warring. Tom, the master builder whose lifelong dream it is to design and build a cathedral. Tom’s wife, who is considered by many to be a witch and lived in the forest alone with her son for 10 years. The noblewoman Aliena, who lost everything when her father plotted against the king, but starts a successful wool business to finance her brother on his way to reclaiming the earldom. There is the Villain (capital-V!) William Hamleigh, who is responsible for much of the rape and pillage. When he shows up, there are inevitably evil doings afoot.

It’s pretty easy to identify when something really bad is about to happen and skim over it. There are many scenes that are definitely gratuitous–when William goes to a whorehouse, for example, it was a little too much to take and warranted a quick skipping of multiple pages. But there is also a richness to the plot, the history, the architectural descriptions, and the different personalities, that made it worthwhile for me anyway. I have good memories associated with this book–it hasn’t ‘come back to haunt me’ so to speak. Plus, there is so much detail about the cathedral worksite and how this marvelous building came together that I’m now fairly confident that if someone were to commission me to quarry my own stone and build a cathedral pronto, I would be fully capabale.

The medley of characters, the grandiose story of the cathedral’s construction, the cross-segment of medieval society–it all combined into a fast-paced, emotional read for me. I was crushed when it ended, just as I am after any great novel that catches me up in its living, breathing world.

I have already requested the stand-alone sequel, “World Without End” at my library; it takes place in the same town of Kingsbridge two centuries later, in the 1300s. I think that’s when the Plague happened. I’m excited to read it–and scared. The Plague was a nasty piece of work, and I anticipate a lot of skimming when pus and boils are involved. Ew.

The Corrections

I picked this book up because Time magazine said that its author, Jonathan Franzen, was one of the great American novelists of our time. The book is fantastic. The level of writing, the naturaleness of the dialogue, and the author’s incredible ability to bring you into each character so that you feel that you are seeing through their eyes and feeling with their heart made this a worthwhile read for me.

The book follows a family of characters: Enid and Alfred who are now in their mid-seventies, and their three children Chip, Gary, and Denise. In turn, we learn about each of their life stories. The stories about Chip and Denise are rather full of sex, and were my least favorite parts. However, I loved the peek into Gary’s family life, and the whole backstory of Enid and Alfred (how they met, got married, etc.). I felt like I recognized Enid and Alfred, and I am almost positive I have actually been to their house, with their big blue recliner, the ping pong table in the basement that for years has just been a place to pile up junk, the stacks of ‘Good Housekeeping’ magazines around the house–I’ve seen it before.

Franzen gets inside the mind of Alfred as he succumbs to Parkinson’s disease and a dementia that slowly takes over his engineer’s mind. I have never read such a masterful portrayal of dementia–you get to see Alfred’s actions from the perspective of his wife and kids (bizarre behavior, random sentences, etc.), but then Franzen spins you inside Alfred’s head, where you can see the train the dementia is following in its strange, almost logical fashion.

You hate and love the characters. You despise them and also respect them. You feel sorry for them but then get angry at their shortcomings–in short, you feel towards them as you would towards a real human being in all his or her complexity.

This book has won the National Book Award, was voted the best book of the decade, and was included in Time magazine’s list of the 100 best English language novels.

And now let us beat a dead horse. Here are your three options:

Option #1: If sex in books doesn’t bother you and you don’t consider it harmful, these books are great. Read ’em!

Option #2: Read the books but skim and/or skip the sex. That was my preferred option. I also chose to skim over (ok, I outright skipped it) a description of a medieval ‘bear versus dog’ fight in “The Pillars . . .” that went on for 3 pages. I didn’t want to read about blood and guts, no sirree, or a pack of dogs slowly tearing apart this poor furry animal.

Option #3: Don’t read them! Continue on your merry way and read some books like Peace Like A River or The Help, which I both highly recommend with no disclaimers.

So read them! Or don’t read them! Amen!