July 21, 2013 Sunday Brunch at Amy’s    Dinner - Salmon in Lavender-Orange Wine Sauce

                My brother, Billy, was arriving at the airport for a three day visit at 9:30 a.m. and Amy had invited us to her house in Eldorado for brunch, so we grabbed a bottle of Argyle Brut champagne and Willy, Suzette and I drove to the airport to pick up Billy and then we drove to Amy’s house and arrived at 11:00 a.m.  When we arrived, the only thing left to cook were the scrambled eggs.  So as we talked and drank glasses of ice tea as Amy cracked a dozen eggs into a bowl and added chopped chives, salt and pepper and cream to the eggs and then we scrambled them into creamy mounds.    As the eggs were cooking we set the table on her enclosed patio for five and set the soufflé dish of garlic grits, a basket of toasted breads, fruit salad, a platter of sautéed pork link sausages and applewood bacon and glasses of water and glasses of champagne on the table.

 

 

We ate a glorious brunch and enjoyed each other’s company talking about mutual friends and old times as only two generation and two interconnected families can.

At lunch we decided to go to the History Museum near the Plaza to see its new cowboy show.   So we all drove in two cars because Billy was spending the night at Amy and Vahl’s and Willy, Suzette and I were returning to Albuq.  There are two large exhibition area upstairs at the History Museum.  One held a newly mounted cowboy show, which was interesting and the other held the permanent history display, which I liked better.   There were lots of vintage photos in the Cowboy exhibit of ranch life at the turn of the century and rural New Mexico, but the permanent history displays had things like Kit Carson’s beaver blanket and photos of the first Rough Rider Reunion in Las Vegas, N.M. in 1899.   I discovered that Teddy Roosevelt recruited a lot of New Mexico cowboys for the Rough Riders for the Cuban invasion in 1898.      

At around 2:30 Suzette and I were finished seeing the Museum and I met her in the gift shop, where she found and bought a lavender cookbook, “Cooking with Lavender” by Suzanne T. Smith.

 

Willy drove us home as I dozed and read about the melting of the glaciers in Greenland in the new issue of Rolling Stone.

When we got home Suzette found a recipe she wanted to try that included ingredients we had growing in the garden, carrots, scallions, and lavender, plus some long beans she had grown in her Los Lunas garden.  She picked all of the remaining carrots and three or four scallions and squeezed a cup of fresh orange juice and infused it with two teaspoons of fresh lavender.  After I julienned about ten small carrots and scallions and about the 3/4 cup of long beans, she sautéed the carrots, scallions, and long beans in peanut oil in a large skillet.

We cut 3 pieces of fish from a salmon filet that I had bought at Costco on Friday. 

In a different skillet Suzette poached the fish in the lavender infused orange juice to which she added 1 cup of Pinot Grigio white wine and when the fish was cooked she removed it and added 2 Tbsp. of Triple Sec and reduced the poaching liquid by half to a light sauce.  We heated PPI rice and then she returned the fish to the sauce to heat it through and when the fish was warmed, served the fish and vegetables on a pile of rice.  We drank glasses of the open bottle of Mezzacorona Pinot Grigio from Costco and it was better with the light fish dish because it had so little character that it did not conflict with the delicate flavors of the lavender and orange juice; sort of stood silently and liquefied the fish and sauce.

After dinner we made gravad lax with the usual 2/3 cup of salt and ½ cup of sugar but no pepper, which was a little more than necessary for the remaining 2 lbs. of fresh salmon (the recipe will make up to 3 lbs. of salmon).  The big change in the recipe was the use of sprigs of fresh tarragon that I cut from our plants in the garden instead of dill.   After weighing down the fish and salt/sugar mixture and tarragon for 12 hours on each side, I washed off the residual sugar and salt and tarragon and wrapped the filets of gravad lax in plastic wrap and stored it in the fridge.   I use the fattiest salmon I can find and most days that is the Atlantic farm raised salmon at Costco ($7.99/lb.).  The taste of gravad lax was decidedly tarragony but not unpleasant.  I like it as well as the dill or fennel weed we usually use and I love the fact that we are using an herb we have in abundance in our garden.

Bon Appétit