Thursday, May 13, 2010

Have Not Done a Recipe in a While

I've not written about cooking lately--though i've been doing a lot--so I'm taking five minutes to do just that.
Madeleina and I were not sure what to have last night. Before she went to school she asked me and I said, "I don't know. I haven't thought about it yet..."
And when I did think about it, I thought that we'd had roast chicken the night before she asked, nice very very slow cooked ribs with baked potatoes and veggies the night before that, corned beef and cabbage on Mother's Day...I was thinking we'd had enough meat for a day.
So I thought about salmon, and then thought about shrimp, and then thought about both of them together.
So I picked up a nice piece of salmon for the two of us, and 1/2 pound of farm raised medium (31-35) sized shrimp.
First thing was to peel and devein the shrimp, then throw the peels into a small cast iron pot to scald without liquid until bright red--but not burned. To that I added water and a bit of crab-boil (super hot stuff you only add in small amounts), couple of onion ends and a piece of celery.
Then I put on a small pot of basmati rice (starting with garlic soaked in olive oil to get that flavor going, then adding water to that when the garlic was browned but not burnt) and added good achiote because Madeleina was thinking we ought to have yellow rice.
While that was going on, we mowed some of the lawn, fed the chickens and ducks, let the goat free for a while--man, he was loving all the thick vegetation the rains have brought!--and played with Boots, whose ears are so much better since the visit to the vet he's like a young pup again.
Back at the house, I steamed some broccoli florets and asparagus, then dunked a bunch of fresh spinach into boiling water for a few seconds, just to soften it.
When the veggies were near ready, I got out the saute pan and got it good and hot before adding a little of that garlic infused olive oil to it. When that was good and hot in went to salmon. Just a little sea salt and cracked black pepper.
In another saute pan, again with that garlic and olive oil, but this time with minced red onions as well, I put the shrimp.
The shrimp finished about 30 seconds before the salmon, so I removed them and then added to the pan juices the ounce or two of shrimp-peel essence I had left, then diced tomatoes, fresh cilantro, the juice of two limes and a touch of butter, making a simple but tasty sauce.
While that was finishing I sauted the spinach in garlic for a few secs, tossed in a bit of balsamic vinager, then put it on the bottom of the dinner plates. I made a ring of yellow rice around that, dropped the salmon on the spinach, put the shrimp on the salmon and poured the sauce over the seafood.
Somehow, while I was doing that I managed to get a pot of water boiling and redipped the broccoli and asparagus just to heat them up, then dressed the plates with them.
Man, that was good eating. Let's do that again.

No comments: