November 5, 2015 dinner - Poached Keka Salmon with a Barley, Chanterelle mushroom, and Brussels sprouts Casserole

November 5, 2015  dinner -  Poached Keka Salmon with a Barley, Chanterelle mushroom, and Brussels sprouts Casserole 

I worked all day at home until 3:00 when it warmed and the wind subsided, so I rode to Rio Bravo and back. The storm had cleared and the sun shown brightly on the Sandias. Here is a picture.

At 5:30 I started dinner after talking to Suzette and finding out she was almost home from her drive to Santa Rosa.

I wanted to make a hearty casserole that combined the Brussels Sprouts, I had bought at Sprouts last week with a grain.  I discussed it with Suzette and we decided I needed to cook the grain first.  I went to the basement and fetched the jar of hulled barley and cooked 1 cup of it for about Forty minutes in two cups of chicken stock.  While the barley cooked , Suzette arrived, I cleaned the pound of Brussels Sprouts.  We  discussed other ingredients for the casserole and decided upon chanterelle mushrooms.  Onions and garlic were givens, so I diced up 2/3 of a medium onion, 2 small heads of garlic from our garden, and about five or six chanterelles, which vary widely in size.  Suzette fetched the ceramic casserole and I sprinkled the ingredients with sea salt, white pepper, and Spanish olive oil and then we stirred in the barley.  Suzette showed me how to set the oven controls and we set the oven on convect bake and 350 degrees and covered the casserole with aluminum foil and baked it for 30 minutes.  After 30 minutes of baking the casserole was still not close to being baked so we put it in for another 30 minutes uncovered after I added ¼ cup of chicken broth.  While it cooked I diced about 6 oz. of fresh mozzarella and 2 oz. of Pecorino Romano cheeses and we spread the cheese on the top of the casserole and baked the casserole for the rest of the 30 minutes.  By the end of the second 30 minutes of convection baking, the casserole was fully cooked and the cheese had melted to a lovely golden brown in raised areas.  Here is a picture. 

I went to the basement and fetched a bottle of Santiago Station Argentinean Sauvignon Blanc (Total Wine $3.99 less 15% or $3.39). We had decided to poach the 1 pound salmon filet.  Since we had the PPI stock left from the steam cooking of the Grouper and the mushroom cream sauce from Tuesday’s mealI, we put those in a large skillet and we added about 1/3 cup of the Sauvignon Blanc to make a poaching medium.

Suzette took over and cleaned and dried the salmon filet and put it in the the skillet and covered the skillet to develop steam and poached the salmon for about 20 minutes, while I worked a bit more after I placed the bottle of wine in our new freezer. 

When the fish had poached and the casserole baked completely, Suzette called me to dinner.

   Here is the salmon in its poaching medium.

I loved the casserole and fish poached in the PPI mushroom cream sauce.  The mushroom cream sauce contained chard from our garden, which was an extra special surprise because it had cooked to perfection in the poaching process.  It had been tough in the mushroom cream sauce because we had added it late in the process and it did not fully cook.

The Keka salmon, which was wild caught, had been $4.99 at Sprouts. Suzette said she did not like it's firmer texture and larger slabs of flesh, but I enjoyed it.  I had bought a can of whole berry cranberry sauce ($.99 at Lowe’s).  

Suzette plated the salmon and casserole and I poured the wine, which had chilled nicely in the twenty minutes in the new freezer, and we spooned cranberry sauce onto our plates.  I think if you told Suzette she had her choice of salmon or turkey with cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving, she would choose salmon. That is how much she likes that combination.  The Shurfine whole berry cranberry sauce was thick and not too sweet.  I liked dinner a lot, especially the heavier casserole with its melted cheeses. 

After dinner I worked until 10:20 to finish drafting a pleading and went to bed.

Bon Appetit