Herb Crusted Salmon

Last week a friend from out of town, John, came for dinner. To go along with the stuffed artichokes and the fennel and cabbage salad, I made a main course of herb crusted salmon. With a hearty roll of whole wheat bread, this was the perfect combination. I am used to having salmon every Friday night growing up and now I crave it on Friday nights. This is one tradition I would like to keep. To keep things simples, I made the salmon in a pan and covered it and let it do its thing for about 15 minutes. When you remove the cover, the salmon continues to cook a little bit longer but it remains really delicious and flaky.

Herb Crusted Salmon
(Serves 3)

Ingredients:
4 filets of salmon
1 zucchini, sliced into 1/2 inch slices
1 1/2 cups cherry tomatoes, chopped
6 whole garlic cloves
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon lemon juice

For herb crust:
Fennel seeds
Dried oregano
Ground coriandor seeds
Garlic powder
Dried thyme leaves

Directions:
1. Heat the olive oil in a pan over medium high heat. Place the zucchini slices around the pan, making room in the center for the salmon fillets. Add the tomatoes around the pan and the garlic cloves. Place the salmon fillets in the center of the pan and generously lather the tops of the fillets with all the herbs so that it is completely covered. Drizzle the lemon juice over the whole lot.

2. Cover the pan and turn the heat down to medium and let the salmon and vegetables cook for about 15 minutes. Serve warm and enjoy!

Stuffed Salmon After 9 Mile Hike

Last Saturday I went for a wonderful hike with two friends, Pam and Amy. The hike was in the Black Rock Forest and it was a 9 mile loop that went up and over three summits. Here is a picture from the summit of Rattlesnake Hill where we had lunch, it's not everyday we get a view this lovely for lunch:

Here are the three of us by a resevoir we passed on the way up to the summit:

After the hike, we were dropped off near Fairway's on the Upper West Side. Being the endorphin pumped foodie that I am after a 9 mile hike, I called a couple of friends to come over for dinner and it quickly snowballed into a spontaneous dinner party for 6 people. Not sure of what to make I decided to keep it simple and healthy and filling. Four courses would be suitable. This is the first and main course of the dinner and the other dishes will be featured later. As an appetizer we had a fancy cheese plate with fresh warmed bread, chutneys, and fresh fruit and honey. We also had couscous cakes with corn salsa. We had two vegetable dishes: fancy sauteed string beans and roasted root vegetables. For the main course we had stuffed salmon and lots of white wine. Even though it can be a bit pricey, I love buying fresh wild salmon. Fairway's is wonderful for anything fresh. I decided to stuff the thick salmon fillets with a spinach, sun dried tomato, and pine nut combo. Broiled with some herbs, it was perfect, flaky and yummy and I've been eating leftovers with my lunch all week! This dish literally takes 15 minutes.

Stuffed Salmon
(Serves 6-8)

Ingredients:
6 large salmon fillets, no bones
1 10 ounce bag baby spinach
Sun dried tomatoes
Pine nuts
Oregano
Kosher salt
Pepper

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
2. Finely chop the spinach and sun dried tomatoes and pine nuts and mix them all together in a small bowl so that you have an even amount of each ingredient in the bowl.
3. Slice a pocket in the thick part of each fillet and stuff the spinach mixture inside so it is almost over flowing. Spinkle each fillet generoulsy with salt, pepper and oregano. Place them on a broiler pan.

4. Turn the oven onto a high broil and broil the fillets for 8-10 minutes until they are just cooked through. A little trick I have learned is that if you remove the fillets from the oven when they are still pink and just barely uncooked on the inside, they will cook the rest of the way outside the oven so that they will be perfectly flaky and lovely.

Steamed Salmon with Crispy Butternut Squash

I love salmon. It is the perfect healthy comfort fish for any night of the week. It is easy and works well with a whole multitude of flavors. I didn't have much time and wanted to prepare a nice salmon meal for two that would use up the contents of my refrigerator. I had half a leftover butternut squash, some sage and some fresh ginger root and not much time. I served this over a bed of quinoa. My dinner companion told me that this was the best salmon he had ever had. To cook the salmon more quickly I covered the skillet and let it steam with all the flavors from it's marinade. It took no time and was very yummy.

                             

Steamed Salmon with Crispy Butternut Squash

(Serves 2)

Ingredients:

1 large salmon steak

1/2 butternut squash, peeled and chopped

1 handful sage leaves

1/3 cup orange juice

1 tablespoon ginger powder

3 tablespoons teriyaki sauce

Olive oil

Directions:

1. Wash salmon steak and place in a zip lock bag. Pour in orange juice, teriyaki sauce and ginger powder. Seal bag and mix around gently so that salmon is evenly coated. Place in the refrigerator and let marinate for 20 minutes to 1 hour (depending on how long you have).

2. Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Place butternut squash in the skillet and put the salmon steak in the center of the skillet. Pour left over juices from the bag over the salmon and squash. Disperse the sage leaves on the salmon and squash. Cover the skillet and let steam for 20-30 minutes. Serve over brown rice, quinoa or with fresh bread. Enjoy!

Blue Corn Crusted Salmon

For my roommate, Celadon's, birthday we all went to one of her favorite restaurants: Nolita House Restaurant. It was delicious, standard American fare with a little twist. Appetizers included a generous portion of calamari and macaroni and cheese spring rolls. For the main course we had a delicious spinach and Swiss stuffed chicken served over a rice pilaf, the Nolita House cheeseburger, shrimp tacos, and a blue corn crusted salmon served "over a bed of julienned vegetables with vegetable rice pilaf & whole grain mustard sauce." This is of course the inspiration for this meal replicated at home! But first here are some pictures of the food at Nolita House. The stuffed chicken was a huge portion and had a portobello mushroom sauce on top.

Here is a picture of the salmon from the restaurant. This salmon was great, but the only problem was that there was too much mustard sauce on top so we couldn't taste the blue corn chips. Otherwise, it was cooked to perfection and the julienned vegetables were the perfect accompaniment.

For my blue corn crusted salmon, I omitted the mustard sauce in order bring out the savory flavors and crunch of the blue corn tortialla chips. I served mine over a brown rice medley with a garlicky soy succotash on the side.

Blue Corn Crusted Salmon (with soy succotash)

Ingredients:

2 salmon filets

2 tablespoons whole wheat flour

1/3 cup egg whites

1/3 cup crushed blue corn tortilla chips

Olive oil

For Soy Succotash:

1 cup soy beans, peeled

1 cup corn kernels

1/2 red pepper, diced

Dried chili flakes

3 tablespoons minced garlic

Olive oil

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Rinse and pat dry the salmon fillets. Coat the top with a thin layer of whole wheat flour. Using a pastry brush, brush them with the egg whites. Cover the top, over the egg whites, with the crushed blue chips, pressing to adhere.

2. Heat olive oil in a skillet over high heat. Sear the fillets on their non-crusted side first for about 3 minutes, then carefully flip them over and sear them on their crusted side for three minutes. Transfer fillets to a glass baking dish and bake them through, about 8 to 10 minutes.

For Soy Succotash:

1. Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium high heat. Add the garlic and then all the vegetables, sprinkle with dried chili flakes. Saute until vegetables have softened and absorbed the garlic.

Pecan Crusted Salmon Served with Garlicky Green Beans

If you haven't already noticed, I love salmon and will grill it, steam it, broil it, roast it, bake it. My cousin Megan was coming over for dinner and I wanted to prepare something healthy and filling. Salmon is low in saturated fat and calories but high in protein and it is packed with essential fatty acids. I recently learned that Omega 3 essential fatty acids are essential because they cannot be made by the body but they must be obtained by food. The omega 3 fats in salmon have many cardiovascular benefits too. This meal is very delicious and was inspired by a recipe I found on Sprouted Kitchen blog. I definitely have to give a big shout out to my cousin Megan who did the food layout for the photograph, this is one of the prettiest food pictures I have taken to date and all credit goes to her! As a combination of foods the succulent salmon tastes great with the garlicky green beans and the pumpkin biscuits; add a glass of white wine and you are set! Click here to see the recipe for garlicky green beans!

Pecan Crusted Salmon
Adapted from Sprouted Kitchen

Ingredients:
4 fillets of Wild Pacific salmon
1 cup of pecans, very finely chopped (hooray for food processors!)
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/8 cup fake eggs
Olive oil

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. On three separate plates or shallow bowls pour the fake egg, the whole wheat flour and the crushed pecans.
2. Heat a non stick skillet over medium heat and add some olive oil. Working with no more than two fillets at a time place them flesh side down into the flour, then the egg and then the pecans. Add the fillet nut side down, skin side up, into the pan and sear for 3 minutes. Flip it over and sear for three minutes on the other side. Repeat the searing for all the fillets and place them on a baking dish and bake until you have your desired doneness, about 8 minutes for me.

Salmon Baked in Banana Leaves

My good friend Andy is leaving on a trip to Taiwan with his family tomorrow so I wanted to pull together a nice meal before he jets off. During my lunch break I took a stroll through my favorite store in NYC, Kalustyans and found banana leaves in the frozen section! They were frozen and by the time I got home and ready to make dinner they had thawed and were good to be used. I was surprised to discover that the banana leaves I had purchased was two very very long leaves. I didn't have the space to unroll the leaves in my tiny kitchen unfortunately so the only picture I got was the leaves all rolled up. I marinated the salmon as usual. It was fun to wrap the salmon fillets in the banana leaves and even more fun unwrapping them. I've never had such tender and perfectly flaky salmon, it must be from baking it in banana leaves. I served this with a brown basmati rice pilaf and spicy roasted brussel sprouts. Unfortunately I forgot that brussel sprouts are the one food Andy doesn't like! Luckily he was willing to try them again and ended up enjoying them, or at least he said he did to be nice. I made three fillets so I could have the third for dinner the following night. I kept it wrapped in the banana leaf and wrapped that in a sheet of foil - I surprised that it still was perfectly tender and flaky the night after. These salmon-banana-leaf pouches need very little time so it's best to wait until the other parts of your meal are ready before you put it in the oven.

                             

Salmon Baked in Banana Leaves

Ingredients:

3 fillets of salmon

Orange juice

Soy sauce

Minced garlic

Ginger powder

3 squares of banana leaves

Directions:

1. Place in the salmon fillets in a zip lock back, pour in the orange juice, soy sauce, minced garlic and ginger powder. Seal and gently moved the fillets in the bag so all the juices get evenly incorporated. Place in the refrigerator and let marinate for 40 minutes.

2. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Gently rinse the banana leaves, place a fillet skin side down on a banana leaf square and fold the leaf to form a pouch around the fillet. Do this with all the fillets and place them on a pan.

3. Place the pan in the oven and bake for 12 minutes. Remove pan and serve the salmon-banana-leaf pouches.