February 17, 2015 Lunch (New Restaurant) Fork and Fig Dinner Poached Salmon with (New Recipe) Leek Béchamel Sauce, steamed string beans on penne pasta

February 17, 2015  Lunch  (New Restaurant) Fork and Fig   Dinner  Poached Salmon with (New Recipe) Leek Béchamel Sauce, steamed string beans on penne pasta

I called Carey to see if she was available for lunch and she was so I asked, “Are there any new places we should try?

She answered, “Fork and Fig”.  

She told me where it was and we agreed to meet there at 12:30.

When I arrived I immediately noticed that the restaurant was located in a new real estate development on Menaul near the corner of Louisiana and it was crowded.

Everything feels modern at Fork and Fig; the concrete and glass commercial space, the menu, the kitchen with its concrete counter, the big city vibe.

Carey sitting at the counter at Fork and Fig

the kitchen and granite counter top

the turkey and pear sandwich and cherry tomatoes

the Israeli couscous, arugula, feta, pancetta and red onion  salad with a bit of my turkey sandwich

Carey chose the Israeli Couscous and Arugula Salad with diced tomatoes, red onion, feta cheese and a wheel of crisp fried pancetta.  It was a lovely fresh salad ($9).

I ordered the Turkey Pear sandwich; sliced turkey and Swiss cheese on marbled rye with one slice of bread coated with pears poached in balsamic vinegar and the other slice of bread smeared with a fig and Dijon mustard preserve ($10).  My sandwich came with a Side.  I chose cherry tomato salad; halved grape cherry tomatoes in slightly watered down balsamic. Peachy!  

The flavor of both dishes was excellent and the dishes were creative.  The menu is pretty simple: sandwiches, burgers, salads and wraps.  It is a fancy sandwich shop serving traditional dishes with updated ingredients.  Carey told me the owner went to CIA in Phoenix.  Judging from the location (Louisiana at Menaul), the crowd, the menu (simple but creative with modern ingredients) and the prices (most are in the $10 to $12 range), he seems to have a winning formula.  So the buzz is real in this case.

Carey is really going to move to the Azores.  I helped her settle her Mom’s estate and look forward to visiting her in the Azores.   So the conversation was wide ranging.

On the way home I stopped at Sprouts Farm Market to get some meat for dinner.  The fresh salmon had gone up to $8.99/lb. but I bought a lb. anyway.  Then I saw that there were fresh pork tenderloins for $3.99/lb. and I bought one of them also.  The only other items I bought were three Braeburn apples ($.99/lb.) and ½ lb. bag of string beans (I usually play a game with myself to see if I can find all of the haricots vert in a pile of string beans and today was no exception.  Why eat the tough big beans when you can eat the tender small beans?) ($.99/lb.).

Suzette arrived home late.  We decided to poach the salmon and serve it on penne pasta.  I started a pot of water boiling for the pasta when she drove into the driveway.  Suzette was hungry so she immediately put penne pasta into the boiling pot of water and made a poaching medium in a medium sized skillet with chicken stock, PPI white (Vermejo grapes from the relatively new Rueda region of Spain, one of my new favorites) wine and butter and several cloves of crushed garlic and a bit of thyme.  I chopped about ½ cup of leek and then de-stemmed the last ½ cup of sugar snap peas and about the same amount of string beans and put them into a ceramic bowl with a bit of water and microwaved them for 3 minutes. 

After the leeks and garlic were sautéed a bit and the liquids added, Suzette cut the thin edge off the salmon and added the filets to the skillet and covered the fish with a lid so it would poach.

While the salmon was poaching I decided to make a Béchamel sauce with the poaching liquid so when the salmon was cooked we put the 2 ½ lb. filets into oven at 200˚ to stay warm and we made a roux by first melting 2 Tbsp. of butter and then adding 2 ½ Tbsps. of flour and cooking that for a minute or two and then began adding ladlesful of the poaching liquid an a pinch of white pepper. 

When the poaching medium had been added and the sauce was still a bit thick, we added a bit of milk to the sauce until it became took on a more creamy texture.

Here is a picture of the sauce.  

You can use both broth and milk to make a Béchamel (white, cream) sauce.  This one had the lovely cooked strips of leek and bits of garlic and thyme in it, so it was a wonderful accompaniment to the rich and tender poached salmon.

Before we began cooking, I fetched a bottle of 2010 Leese - Fitch Sauvignon Blanc from Sonoma Valley in California, which we usually drink with salmon. Leese – Fitch makes excellent and moderately priced wines and is always a good choice.  I saw on line that their 2012 Merlot that sells for around $10.00 a bottle was given a 91 rating.  The richness of the salmon and sauce obscured its slightly tart fruity taste, but that was okay.  I was enchanted by the leek Béchamel Sauce.  We turned an ordinary dinner into a great dining experience with the creation of a lovely sauce by simply using the same liquid used for poaching.  What made the dinner sublime to me was how amazingly easy dinner was to make; boil pasta, steam string beans, poach salmon and make sauce using the poaching liquid, and how wonderful it tasted.  I added more sauce to mine and dipped everything into the sauce and even scooped up the last bits of the sauce and salmon with my knife.  It was that good.  

         

A few chocolate covered raisins, almonds, and cherries after dinner and then to bed.  

Thursday night will probably be Spanish pork tapa night.  Tomorrow we go to Santa Fe to eat at Joseph’s and see Lucinda Williams.

Bon Appétit