August 5, 2014 New
Recipes: Japanese Dinner and a Movie with Barry and Kylene “Chef” and Cedar Plank Grilled Salmon
Teriyaki with Sautéed String Beans and Mushrooms, Spinach with Sesame Dressing,
and Pickled Cucumber
Barry Kirk and I have been talking about getting together
for a meal and we finally connected on Sunday and decided to do dinner on
Tuesday evening.
On Sunday Suzette and I went to Costco and bought a 2 lb.
filet of Atlantic farm raised salmon ($7.99/lb.) and on Monday afternoon I made
a teriyaki sauce to marinade the salmon from Japanese Cooking A Simple Art by Shizuo Tsuji.
7 Tbsps. sake
7 Tbsp. Aji Mirin
7 Tbsp. dark soy sauce
1 tsp. sugar
Heat ingredients until they just start to boil or to the
point that the sugar goes into solution and let cool.
I put the salmon filet into a gallon freezer bag and poured
to cooled teriyaki sauce into the bag and put the bag into the fridge to
marinate.
Barry called on Tuesday and said that they were going to see
the new movie ”Chef” on Tuesday and it was shown at 4:30. Suzette and I said we would go to the movie
and then cook dinner at around 7:00. Barry said they would pick us up at 4:15. So we went to the movie, which was a foodie
movie. A Dad who is a cook in L.A. decides
to end his career as a famous fine dining chef because his restaurant owner
does not allow him to experiment with the menu and his ex-wife helps him start
a food truck business and he reconnects with his son, while making a cross
country drive with the food truck from Miami to L.A.. He ends up with a new restaurant with
complete control of his menu and re-marrying his ex-wife and they live happily
ever after. As Barry said, “The plot was
a little over the top.”
The most interesting foodie element of the movie’s plot that
I liked is that L.A. appears to be not only the land of milk and honey but also
food trucks, seem to turn up everywhere, as well as the new food truck marketing
strategy, which seems to be twittering the location of the truck with a picture
of its location, which in the movie the Chef’s ten year old son did, so there
would be a mob soon after the truck parked.
At around 3:30, before the movie, I picked a large cucumber
from the garden and peeled and chopped it into cubes and pickled it in Aji
Mirin, white balsamic, sugar, a bit of salt, a lemon peel (as prescribed in the
recipe) and a rehydrated chopped sweet red pepper for color and added the new
pickle to the old PPI cucumber pickle made with white balsamic vinegar, red
vermouth, oregano leaves sugar and salt and put it in the fridge to ferment.
Vinegar pickle recipe:
After the movie Barry and Kylene at around 6:45 dropped us
off at home and we picked up the salmon, the pickled cucumbers, instant dashi, premium
dark soy and the suribachi.
Barry had said they had spinach and sesame seeds and fresh green
string beans from their garden and mushrooms and we decided to make a Japanese style
meal with Spinach with Sesame Dressing, string beans with mushrooms, grilled
salmon and cucumber pickles and no rice.
Barry and Kylene live two blocks away, so we arrived around 7:00.
We gathered at the table in their kitchen and Barry served
us glasses of a light Italian white wine made from the Vermentino grape (Wikipedia says - This is widely planted
in Sardinia and also found in Tuscan and Ligurian coastal districts. Wines are
particularly popular to accompany fish and seafood. This was the first time I had tried
Vermentino and I liked its lightness and slight fruitiness that went well with
the delicately flavored salmon.
Barry gathered the ingredients and we started to
cook. We shared most of the prep
work.
Spinach with Sesame Dressing recipe:
Barry toasted sesame seeds and I
then ground them into a rough paste in the suribachi and then Barry heated 1/2
cup of water to which I added a ¼ tsp. of instant dashi and Kylene read the
recipe as I added 2 tsps. of soy, 1 tsp. sugar and 3Tbsps of dashi to make the sesame
seed dressing, while Barry sautéed/blanched the spinach in a sauce pan with a
little oil and water. I then stirred the
spinach into the sesame dressing in the suribachi and we transferred it to a serving
bowl.
 |
| Spinach with Sesame Seed Dressing |
Suzette and Barry took the salmon to the grill on the back patio and grilled it on the two cedar
boards that Barry had soaked overnight.
While we finished the prep in the kitchen Suzette grilled the salmon to perfection. There were no blackened tips of flesh but all
the edges were firm and even crisp, but the center melted in your mouth and
still came off in large moist flakes. I
loved it and so did everyone else it seemed because we devoured the fish.
 |
| Grilled Salmon |
We decided to sauté string beans with mushrooms, so I sliced
three or four portabella mushrooms and a clove of garlic while Barry sliced a
handful of green beans and then he sautéed the green bean and mushrooms in peanut oil
with a little soy. As it turns out Barry
likes to season with soy, and that was a perfect way to season the green bean
and mushroom dish. I threw in the rest
of the dashi and Barry covered the string beans to sweat them a bit and we were
ready to eat.
We sat and ate at table on the enclosed patio with a view of
the back yard. The garden is in the front
yard so you get to see what you are going to eat as you approach the front
door, which I loved.
By 9:30 we had made and eaten a great meal and drunk a
second bottle of the Vermentino wine and said goodnight, because Barry had to
drive to Santa Fe in the morning to shoot.
Barry and Kylene own Southwest Productions,
so their critiques of movies and knowledge of the movie business, especially in
New Mexico is always informative and interesting.
Bon Appétit
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