February 21, 2015 Lunch East Ocean Dinner Grilled Teriyaki Salmon with vegetable fried rice

February 21, 2015  Lunch  East Ocean   Dinner  Grilled Teriyaki Salmon with vegetable fried rice

At 11:00 I went to Albertson’s and bought pork steaks (about $2.75/lb.), 1.25 lb. of large shrimp at $7.99/lb.), and 1 ½ lb. of fresh Atlantic farm raised salmon for $4.99/lb.  Albertson’s has become my go to place for meat and ice cream. 

After depositing my purchases in the fridge at home I drove to Shahin’s office to complete my billing and then we went to East Ocean for lunch.  He got his usual No. 24 Chicken Lo Mein with thin wheat vermicelli noodles stir fried with chicken and fried rice and an egg roll on the side.  I ordered my usual No. 8 with the substitution of scallops for shrimp and sweet and sour chicken instead of the usual egg roll ($5.95).  I love this dish, an emulsion of egg clouds and chopped pork in a chicken stock sauce with scallops thrown in and served with fried rice.  The surcharge is $1.55 for the substitution of scallops for shrimp for a total cost of $7.50.  I don’t know of any restaurant in Albuquerque that serves a better scallop dish for less.  East Ocean has been my favorite seafood and Chinese restaurant for years.  During the Chinese New Year they are serving a special menu for dinner that would be worth trying.

When I got home I helped Suzette make a teriyaki sauce to marinate the salmon I bought in the morning and then took a nap.

Teriyaki Sauce

7 Tbsps. each of sake, Aji Mirin and Premium (dark) soy sauce and 1 Tbsp. of sugar heated to melt the sugar.  Then we put the Teriyaki sauce into a freezer bag with the salmon to marinate in the fridge.

At around 6:30 Suzette was ready to cook dinner.  She cut a 1 x 6 inch cedar board to the length of the salmon and soaked it in water to moisten it.  Then she put the teriyaki marinated salmon on the board and grilled it for about fifteen minutes or until it was tender and cooked from red to pink.

I decided to make fried rice with some of the vegetable PPIs in the fridge.  I fetched the last remaining baby bok choy, the last ¼ lb. of string beans, a shallot, ant three shitake mushrooms and sliced them up, separating the white portion of the bok choy from the green leaves.  I then sliced into thin strips, three cloves of garlic and about a dime sized piece of fresh ginger root.  

I heated 1 ½ Tbsp. of peanut oil and added about 1 tsp. of sesame oil to it and fried the garlic and ginger for a minute and then added the white portion of the bok choy and the shallot and stir fried it for a minute.  Then I added the rice and stirred it in and then the mushrooms, the string beans and the green portion of the bok choy and added about 1 ½ Tbsp. of Chinese cooking wine and 2 tsp. of sweet soy and stirred the mixture and then covered it with a wok cover to steam it for several minutes. 

We ate the stir fried rice and salmon with glasses of Dan Amor Cuvée Spéciale Cidre Brut Apple cider from Brittany, France that we bought at Trader Joes for $4.99 for a 750 ml bottle, which won a silver medal at the Paris in 2014 (not too sweet and not too dry, just right), and watched “Annie Hall” with Woody Allen and Diane Keaton.  It is hard to believe that it was made in 1977.  It still retains as clever and fresh for me after 38 years and makes me recall the trials and tribulations and joys of dating in the 70’s with fondness.

Bon Appétit