I made a lamb, spinach, tomato, onion, and cheese omelet for breakfast.
I went with Bill to lunch today. We walked the six blocks to Anatolia. Bill ordered dolmas and I ordered the daily special with no rice and double salad. It took a while to cook my lunch because the chicken shish kebab is cooked to order, but when it came I was pleased with the tender marinated chicken, skewered and cooked over the open flame on a bed of Middle Eastern salad $6.99 plus tax. Bill spoke some Turkish with the waitress and ordered a beer. Bill learned some Greek and Turkish in the 60s when he was in the peace corp on Cyprus.
After lunch I read and took a 45 minute nap and then a little after 4:00 rode to Rio Bravo.
After I returned at 5:22 and showered, I started dinner. I had decided to make a squash custard to go with the salmon and black rice.
Chef Bob’s Squash Custard
I adapted the recipe for Chef John’s Corn Custard by substituting squash and onion for the corn. Here is his recipe.
I thinly sliced a zucchini squash and a yellow squash that amounted to two cups of squash. I thinly sliced 1/3 of a medium red onion and 12 sage leaves sliced into thin strips I ended up with about 2 1/3 cups of sliced vegetables. This can be done ahead of cooking.
When ready to cook the dish I melted two T. of butter in a medium Pyrex baking dish in the microwave and swirling the melted butter around the baking dish to coat the sides of the dish. I then poured the approximately 1 ½ T. of butter into a large non-stick surface skillet.
I sautéed the squash, onion, and Sage with ½ tsp. of salt until tender.
While the vegetables were sautéing, In a separate bowl I whisked three eggs, 1 ½ cups of heavy cream, ½ cup of whole milk, a couple dashes of white pepper, a couple of dashes each of red pepper and smoked Spanish paprika, and 1 tsp. of salt.
Suzette came to the kitchen and set the oven at 350 degrees on a convection setting to pre-heat the oven.
Then I poured the sautéed vegetables into the custard mixture and mixed all the ingredients for a few seconds until they mixed. I then poured the custard mix into the buttered Pyrex baking dish and placed it on the bottom rack in the oven and set the timer for thirty minutes.
Sautéed Teriyaki Salmon
Since it was clean I used the same large skillet I had used to sauté the vegetables for the custard to sauté the teriyaki salmon . I added two T. of peanut oil and three of four dashes of sesame oil. I diced four small cloves of garlic and five shall slices of ginger root and added them to the oil and heated the skillet and cooked the ginger and garlic a bit.
I took the marinating salmon from the fridge on was able to place both pieces of the filet in the skillet
inside face down on the skillet. I sautéed the salmon at high heat for about five minutes inside face down. Then I flipped each piece of the filet so that the outer skin side was down in the oil.
Willy arrived a little after 7:00 and he said he wanted his salmon well cooked so I reduced the heat a bit to avoid scorching the skin and let the salmon cook about ten minutes with its skin side down.
While the salmon was cooking I filled a pitcher with sake and placed the pitcher in a small pot half filled with water on the stove at a medium heat to heat the pitcher of sake. After ten minutes in the simmering water bath (Bain Marie) the sake was starting to bubble, so I reduced the heat to keep it warm.
I asked Willy what kind of tea he wanted with the salmon and when he did not show a preference I selected the lychee tea I bought in the Asian market in Xian, China and placed two tsp. of tea into a round metal ball that would fit through the lid of our tea pot. I heated water and brewed a pot of tea.
Finally I took the plastic sandwich bag filled with the PPI black forbidden rice from Sunday’s meal in Taos and heated it for 1:23 minutes in the microwave.
I set the table with small tea cups for sake and large tea cups for tea and Suzette set the table with silverware and heated the stoneware teapot by filling it with hot water and letting it sit for a few minutes.
When the salmon was cooked to everyone’s satisfaction, I used a plastic spatula to cut the salmon filet into pieces. Willy and a Suzette chose pieces of the thinner well cooked tail section and I chose a piece from the more moist belly section. I poured cups of sake and tea and we each served ourselves spoonfuls of squash custard warm from the oven. Willy and I served ourselves some of the forbidden black rice and we feasted.
Both the custard And the rice had delicate textures while the salmon that had been sautéed until the surfaces were crisped had a firmer texture on the outside and a soft texture on the inside.
The warm sake and tea made the meal of uniform warmth, which was nice as all the different textures and flavors coalesced into a fog of food flavors.
I did not have any desire for a dessert or after dinner drink and we went to bed spat 9:00 shortly after Suzette filled and started the dishwasher and put up the PPI salmon, custard and rice.
Bon Appetit
No comments:
Post a Comment