Tuesday, March 24, 2020

March 23, 2020 Lunch – Tabouli Salad and Sandwich. Dinner – Cedar Board Grilled Teriyaki Salmon, Rice, and Stir-Fried Vegetables

March 23, 2020 Lunch – Tabouli Salad and Sandwich. Dinner – Cedar Board Grilled Teriyaki Salmon, Rice, and Stir-Fried Vegetables

I ate granola, tropical fruit salad, and yogurt for breakfast.

At 11:30 I made a salad with Romaine lettuce, baby spinach leaves, a tomato cubed, kalamata olives, cojita cheese, two green onions sliced thinly, a couple of scoops of tabouli, and four anchovy fillets.


I dressed the salad with Cesar dressing and heated a whole wheat pita over a gas burner on the stove.  I drank water with lunch and watched the market continue its collapse as the Senate argued over a stimulus bill.

I worked after lunch and then walked about 2/3 mile at 4:00 and was pleased that my body is limbering up a bit.

Suzette came home at 5:00 reporting that she was afraid to shop at Costco due to the crowd after picking up two prescriptions for me..  Suzette has been my lifeline to food and medicine.  I would not be able to stay at home without her.

The least I can do is to cook good meals for us, which gets us to tonight’s dinner.

Cedar Board Grilled Teriyaki Salmon.

Willy and Suzette’s favorite preparation for Salmon is Cedar Board Grilled Teriyaki Salmon.  Suzette cut a 1 x 6 inch cedar board bought at Home Depot to the length of the salmon filet and submerged it in water for about 30 minutes.  I had marinated the salmon filet for a day in teriyaki sauce in a gallon freezer bag.   The recipe for teriyaki sauce is to heat 1/3 cup each of sake, soy sauce, Aji Mirin, and 1 T. of sugar until the sugar dissolves.  Let it cool and pour it into the freezer bag with the raw salmon filet.  When it was time to cook Suzette heated the propane grill and cooked the salmon on the wet board to medium rare.


Stir Fried Vegetables

I had bought baby bok Choy at Talin last week.  Tonight I diced three heads separating the green leaves from the white portion of the stalk.  I minced 1 T. of ginger root, ½ T. of garlic, and about two T. of  shallot and sautéed those with the white stalk portions of bok Choy in 2 T. of peanut oil at medium high heat in my wok.

I also sautéed about ¼ cup of broken cashews to golden brown as a garnish.

After the hard vegetables softened I added the green bok Choy leaves and 3 oz. of brown beech mushrooms plus a dash or two of sesame oil and about ½ T. of Chinese rice wine.

I then made a seasoning sauce with the remaining 1/3 cup of teriyaki sauce marinade plus 1 T. of cornstarch and 2 T. of water and stirred it into the vegetables.  After an additional couple of minutes the sauce thickened a bit more than I wished (you do not want the sauce to turn into glue) to the consistency I liked and reduced the heat.

I then heated about 1 cup of PPI rice and heated a small pitcher of sake in a sauce pan half filled with water.

When Suzette finished grilling the salmon she sectioned it into 5-6 oz. sections and plated it on a pile of rice with a large scoop of vegetables beside it. I fetched small Chinese tea cups and we poured warmed sake and had a lovely dinner and I fetched the bowl of Japanese pickled vegetables that I had added a sliced yellow squash, shallot, and green beans to the bowl in the morning, so there were lots of fresh pickled vegetables.



This is a near perfect meal that  we have perfected over the years. It is one influenced by my love of Japanese and Chinese Cuisine.  I think I first ate teriyaki salmon at the then famous Yamato Restaurant in San Francisco in 1969 and loved it except the fish was sauced with a thick sweetened  teriyaki sauce after it was grilled, sort of like the typical sweet and sour saucing of fried Chinese dishes.  I prefer to use the less sweet Japanese recipe for teriyaki sauce that often is served as a dipping sauce for tempura in Japanese restaurants as a marinade.  I marinaded the salmon for two ½ days this time and enjoyed the deeper saturation of teriyaki flavor in the meat.



We were coordinating with Willy on the timing of dinner and Suzette filled a paper plate with all the four elements of the dinner when she served at 7:30.  When Willy arrived a few minutes later he was having an allergy attack, so he covered his face with a scarf and we spoke for a few minutes and gave him his packages that had arrived and he delivered his boots for shipment for repair. He is staying in his apartment and hopefully is well.

We watched Antiques Roadshow during and after dinner as a relief from the mixed messaging on the news between President Trump and the World Health Organization and the continued slump in the Market, another 582 points today.

I awakened at 4:00 to finish this blog and drink a cup of chai.  I love the quiet time in the middle of the night.

Bon Appetit


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