Back to Basics: Salmon

A popular restaurant menu item, fresh salmon is very easy to cook at home.  You can grill it, roast it, poach it or pan-fry it.  You can serve it whole or as fillets, steaks or kebabs.  You can make it into a soup or an appetizer spread the British call Potted Salmon.

Are You an Old-Fashioned Cook?

I am an old-fashioned cook.  Many of us are when holiday dining is involved.  I’ve eaten turkey on Christmas all my life, and even though it’s a big, messy meal I would feel terrible eating anything else.

If I want to add something new to the holiday menu, I might choose a new side dish—maybe Honeyed Sweet Potatoes along with the mashed potatoes.

Salmon Spread Is Now a Family Classic

I started thinking about the Christmas holidays this morning for some reason, and the first image to pop into my head was Salmon Spread.  For the past few decades we have served this appetizer in the living room while those of us in the kitchen put the final touches on dinner.

By the time we popped in for a quick taste, there was usually nothing left.  It’s always been a win/lose situation.  We kitchen slaves won the chance to have the first bite of the turkey as we were doing the carving, but seldom did we get a mouthful of Salmon Spread.

Dinner for One

Salmon and Asparagus Risotto

There are at least three ways to look at the idea of cooking just for yourself.

1) It could be such a nuisance that you get a takeout meal and forget about cooking altogether. 

2) You could treat yourself to your favorite dish.

3) You could try something new that you think you’d like but hesitate to feed someone else in case it doesn’t turn out well.

I used to choose option 2 because that was the only way I ever got to eat Spaghetti with Garlic Sauce or Fried Eggs on Toast, two of my favorites. 

Disguising a Food Purchase Mistake

When I was at my local supermarket recently, I discovered a two-pound bag of individually frozen salmon fillets on sale and immediately bought a package.  The price was right--$5.99 for 6 fillets instead of $12.99.

I pan-fried two of them for dinner that night and got a resounding boo from my husband.  After a few bites, he pushed the salmon around his plate for a while and then took an extra helping of rice.  Seldom has he been so negative about what I cook.

I couldn’t bring myself to throw out the other fillets.  I figured I would eat them when he was away on a trip. 

A few weeks later I had an idea.

Getting Out of a Cooking Rut

When I was growing up, every Friday night we had dinner at my grandmother’s house.  Usually it was boiled chicken, preceded by chicken soup.  Grandma was probably in a cooking rut.

Now our house is the venue for that weekly dinner.  Although boiled chicken is never on the menu, I’m the one in the cooking rut.  There are only certain dishes I can serve that we all will eat—vegetarian lasagna, stuffed tortillas, blintzes--and I’m tired of them.

At times like this one of my great joys in life is dinner at somebody else’s house.

Mom’s Basic Bootcamp: Salmon

This is the third in a series of basic recipes anyone can easily make.  They have existed for centuries because 1) they are simple, and 2) they taste good.  Once you master their preparation, you’re free to improvise…or not. 

A popular restaurant menu item, fresh salmon is very easy to cook at home.  You can grill it, roast it, poach it or pan-fry it.  You can serve it whole or as fillets, steaks or kebabs.  You can make it into a soup or an appetizer spread the British call Potted Salmon.  If any salmon is left over, you can turn it into Salmon Cakes or add it to Risotto or a salad.  If you’re adventurous, you can even make your own smoked salmon.

Served hot or cold, salmon is hard to ruin. 

Mom Cooking Tip 97

Remove bones from salmon or other fish using needle-nose pliers. Sometimes fingers just won’t do it.  Bones come out more easily when the fish is at least partly cooked.

             See all my Cooking Tips!

When Someone Offers to Cook Me Dinner, What Do I Choose?

I choose blini, which are Russian yeast pancakes.  They remind me of all the traveling Bart and I did while we were living in London some years ago. We met our first blini in Moscow, when we were part of a package tour that included all our meals.  One night we escaped and went to a club filled with prosperous young Russians.  Everyone was eating blini, so we ordered them too.  We’ve been eating them ever since.

By now, the whole family likes them.  Instead of sulks and arguments at the table, everyone is filling their plates with little pancakes and covering them with sour cream, jam, smoked salmon or, on the rare occasion, a very inexpensive caviar.  Sometimes we play some Tchaikovsky to get us in the right mood.

The Perfect Lunch

Smoked Salmon on a Bagel

Is there such a thing as the perfect lunch?  As a kid, I alternated between a deviled ham sandwich and a tuna salad sandwich.  Sometimes my mom made grilled cheese sandwiches on weekends. 

On special occasions, we would go to lunch at Isaly’s, a local delicatessen chain. You could get chipped chopped ham barbecue sandwiches—basically soft buns filled with hot shaved ham in a spicy tomato sauce.  (see recipe below).

Mom Cooking Tip 15

When you are cutting raw chicken or other uncooked meat or fish on a cutting board, be sure to scrub the board thoroughly before using it to cut anything else. Otherwise you may inadvertently give yourself food poisoning.

See all my Cooking Tips!

S-t-r-e-t-c-h Your Dinner to Feed Extra People

Salmon Shish Kebab, Black Rice and Corn (photo by Jenny Craig)

You’ve planned dinner for two, and suddenly a third person turns up.  Don’t panic.  There are lots of ways to stretch a meal without people leaving the table hungry.