May 24, 2014 New Recipe Poached Salmon, Asparagus and Gnocchi

May 24, 2014 New Recipe   Poached Salmon, Asparagus and Gnocchi and making Gravad Lax

We are invited to Debbie and Jeff’s house for dinner tomorrow night and we decided to make Gravad Lax salads with poached fennel and orange slices.  So, today we went to Costco and bought an approximately 4.2 lb. Atlantic farm raised salmon filet (7.99/lb.) and a bag of asparagus, plus sugar and few other items.

Gravad lax (Sugar and Salt Cured Salmon) 

When we returned home around 4:00, I plucked one good handful of fresh dill stems and Suzette cut a few stems from our fennel bush in the garden.  We decided to put fennel on the outside and dill in the inside of the gravad lax.  We cut the salmon so that the salmon filets tightly fit into a glass baking dish, which looked to be about 2 ½ lbs. to 3 lbs. of salmon.  We put the remainder of the salmon in the fridge for dinner.  Then I mixed ½ cup of sugar and 2/3 cup of salt and crushed 1 tsp. of black peppercorns and mixed them in a bowl (these are the quantities of ingredients for curing 3 lbs. of salmon).  Then we put a layer of fennel stems on the bottom of the baking dish and then poured the sugar/salt/pepper mixture on the outside of one of the two filets to coat it.  Then I lay the coted side face down on the fennel stems.  Suzette then coated the exposed inside of the salmon filet with the mixture and we laid the dill stems on it and then coated the inside of the other filet with the mixture and lay it on the first filet.  Suzette poured the remainder of the mixture over the outside of the second filet and then we covered it with more fennel stems.   I then paid saran wrap over the two filets and weighted them with two bricks and put the baking dish into the fridge.

I usually turn the salmon filets once at around 12 hours, so the total time to gravad the salmon is 24 hours.

That is the whole recipe of how to make gravad lax or smoked salmon.  Gravad is the Swedish word for this method of salt and sugar curing fish.  Lax is the Swedish word for Salmon. 

We decided to make a simple dinner of poached fresh salmon, asparagus and gnocchi.  There was a frozen package of gnocchi in the freezer that Suzette wanted to serve with the poached salmon.

New Recipe  Poached Dinner

Suzette made a unique one put dinner tonight and created a new and very easy recipe for cooking an entire poached dinner. 

Suzette first went to the garden and plucked a small handful of lovage and a few stalks of chives and chopped them up and placed them in a large skillet with 2 Tbsps. of butter and ½ cup of chicken stock and ½ cup of white wine and heated that until it simmered.  Then she added the asparagus and poached the asparagus in the poaching medium until cooked.  Then she removed the asparagus and then added the salmon to the poaching medium, cooked it until it was cooked and then removed it.  She then added the gnocchi and cooked the gnocchi until it was heated through.  I tossed the gnocchi a few times to try to strip off some of its potato to thicken the sauce, but not much came off.  We decided that rather than add half and half to the sauce we would place a dollop of Béarnaise Sauce on top of the asparagus and let the buttery, egg tarragon sauce mix its flavor with the poaching medium.  So Suzette filled two pasta/soup bowls with gnocchi and then laid the fish filets on them and then laid the asparagus on them and I dabbed the Béarnaise sauce on the asparagus.  I then went to the basement and found a bottle of 2009 Wellington Marsanne and opened it and poured us glasses of it.  We ate in the garden under our newly covered gazebo and enjoyed a cool evening beside the pond listening to bird calls.

At around 9:00 we decided to make bananas foster.  Suzette sliced two bananas that were darken and slightly over ripe.  I then put three Tbsps. of butter in a skillet and added about ¼ cup of dark brown sugar and sautéed that until the sugar went into solution.  I the added banana slices and sautéed them.  Then I added a few slices of fresh pineapple.  After another couple of minutes of sautéing to make sure the bananas were well heated and covered with the sugar and butter solution, we added about ¼ cup of rum to the sauce and stirred until the rum went into solution and the sauce became a caramel sauce.  Suzette then scooped vanilla ice cream into bowls and I scooped the bananas, pineapples and sauce into the two bowls and we had a delicious hot dessert.

Bon Appétit