Asian Grilled Salmon

About a year ago, I really started getting into the Barefoot Contessa...for those who don't know, she is a Food Network chef who lives in the Hamptons and tapes from her kitchen. She is one classy brod! She used to own a specialty food store in Southampton called the "Barefoot Contessa" that she sold a few years back. She has 4 cookbooks full of elegant and EASY recipes that are sure to impress whether it is for a weeknight or a party. I have yet to taste a Barefoot recipe I don't like. She is the first to admit that she gets a little heavy on the butter, but this recipe is the exception. Last September, I made this dinner for my family including my Bubby (grandmother) and they loved it ! It's hard to believe that this will be a hit when you see how few ingredients are needed. Post a comment if you like it (or if you don't !)

Asian Grilled Salmon (serves 2)

1 lb salmon fillet with skin on
2/3 tbsp dijon mustard
1 tbsp good soy sauce
2 tbsp good olive oil
1/6 tsp minced garlic

Mix marinade ingredients and pour 1/2 on salmon. Let sit for 10 minutes.

Light a grill (or if you live in NY, your Le Creuset cast iron grill pan... :) ) and grill skin side down first. Grill 4 minutes on each side. Use a wide spatula to flip....be careful, it may splatter !!
Transfer salmon to a plate and pour marinade on top. Allow fish to rest 10 minutes, it will cook more on the counter. Remove skin and serve warm or at room temperature.

Why is this recipe so "tried & true" ?

• It uses ingredients that are always in my pantry
• It's a crowd pleaser
• It is SUPER quick
• It looks pretty with the gorgeous grill marks
  

This tastes great with corn on the cob, roasted asparagus or yummy orzo with roasted veggies. Stay tuned for the recipe this weekend ! Happy 4th from your favorite Canadian !

Edamame is not only for Japanese restaurants !

I am back after a lot of travel ! A week after getting back from our honeymoon, we spent the weekend in Charleston, SC for a wedding. We had such a great time listening to Dixie Land jazz during brunch, browsing the historic Charleston markets, checking out the cute stores along King Street and East Bay Street, attending all the wedding events and seeing some great historic homes along the water. Our favorite activity was eating crab cake sandwiches on amazingly fresh sour dough bread with sweet potato fries at Magnolia on East Bay Street. We walked in there accidentally and we were not disappointed. This restaurant was mentioned in one of my favorite books, "1000 places to see before you die" ! There is a great kitchen store called "Charleston Cooks" on East Bay that had what looked to be great cooking classes as well ! I wish I had know about it before I got there ! http://www.mavericksouthernkitchens.com/cooks/index.html

Anyway, I digress....So, we are back to real life and I have started cooking again !
Tonight, I whipped out this Williams-Sonoma cookbook called "The Essentials of Healthful Cuisine", we got it as a wedding present and the first recipe I tried was a hit !
Here is the recipe with my tweaks....I was trying to make it taste like this wonderful edamame salad I used to have by the pool in Kona on our honeymoon....I've never cooked with edamame before, I like it ! This makes a very fresh, summer side dish !

Edamame Salad (makes 4 servings)

1 package frozen shelled edamame (10 or 12 oz)
1/2 cup diced red onion
1/4 cup minced red peppers
1 tomato- chopped small
3 tbsp rice wine vinegar
1.5 tbsp canola oil
1 tsp reduced sodium soy sauce
1/2 tsp orange zest
1/2 tsp grated fresh ginger
a dash of fresh mint
S&P to taste

Bring a saucepan of 5 cups of water to a boil. Add the edamame and cook according to instructions. Drain the edamame and set aside.
In a salad bowl, mix tomatoes, edamame, onion and bell pepper.
In a small bowl, whisk together rice vinegar, canola oil, soy sauce, orange zest and ginger until blended. Pour the dressing on the vegetables and stir. Mince some fresh mint and throw it in !

The original recipe called for 2 navel oranges and cilantro garnishing, so you can do that instead of the tomatoes and mint....

Enjoy this healthy dish. It is easy to make, especially if you make the edamame ahead of time. This one is a great one to have on hand for lunches the next day ! Bet the flavors will be even better tomorrow. Edamame beans are low in fat, high in protein, calcium, iron and B vitamins...so eat up !

Blueberry Corncakes

Berries in general are expensive in this part of the tropics. A cupful of raspberries, blueberries or blackberries goes for a sweet S$9.90! Which is positively sinful, don't you think? Last week, the gods of berries deigned to reduce the prices of blueberries by half. And since I prefer my fruit cooked, I figured I might as well take advantage of the offer and pick up a pack of the inky hued fruit. In deciding what to do with them, I turned to my now trusty The Last Course by Claudia Fleming. I'd been meaning to try her Blueberry Cream Cheese Tarts with Graham Cracker Crust, but for the life of me failed to find a store that stocked the whole wheat pastry flour that the recipe calls for. I finally found it in Bangkok of all places, which I visited over the weekend, but that's another post for another day.



I settled for Ms Fleming's Blueberry Corncakes instead since I had all the ingredients on hand. And they didn't disappoint. As the author describes, "these golden little cakes are absolutely irresistible". Made with almond flour, yellow cornmeal (polenta), butter and egg whites, these cakes turned out utterly scrummy in mini-muffin size as opposed to regular sized muffins, which were a tad on the heavy side. The recipe calls for a whopping two and two-thirds cups of icing sugar, which made them slightly sweeter than I would have liked. But other than that, they were a real winner. Leave them out for another day and they taste even better. The cornmeal seemed to have time to meld into the cake and leave less of a crunch. One of the best things about these beautiful little cakes are the blueberries scattered throughout the batter, which pop in the heat of the oven, intensifying their flavour and making wee pockets of jam within. They are a real tea time treat, though I ended up having them for breakfast and with ice cream for dessert after dinner as well.

Honeymoon Eating

The Best of Sherri and Lee's Honeymoon-

Maui

• The Ritz Carlton in Kapalua, Maui, had the BEST breakfast buffet in Hawaii. No question. Go there and enjoy waffles, pancakes, mango compote, fresh fruit, passion fruit juice and Kona coffee ! The breakfast on the terrace overlooks the pool and grounds....all yummy. It will be the best $25 you ever spent.
• David Paul's Lahaina Grill in Lahaina, Maui is the BEST dinner we had in Hawaii. You can make reservations on opentable.com. Their signature Maui onion crusted Ahi tuna with vanilla bean jasmine rice was unreal. I asked for the recipe and got it ! So it will be here soon. Ask and you shall receive. They also make a super key lime pie with a mac nut crust.
• Mama's Fish House on the way back from the "Road to Hana". The ceviche and trio of creme brulees was yummy. My husband raved about the lobster stuffed mahi mahi. Perfect casual setting right on the beach. Go there at 5:30 on the way home from your day in Hana !

Kauai

• If you are staying at Princeville, go into the town of Hanalei for breakfast and hit the Hanalei Wake Up Cafe, where you will see locals and surfers before they go surfing. It is cheap, not touristy and amazing. The hash browns are sick !
• Right next to Wake Up Cafe is "Sushi Blues", very good sushi ! We went there twice and enjoyed live music and great quality, creative sushi.

The Big Island of Hawaii

• If you ever find yourself at the Hualalai Spa at the Four Seasons in the Big Island (and you should), book a Macadamia nut body scrub followed by a Vichy shower (8 shower head on you as you lay down). Like I said, local ingredients were much appreciated !
• After sampling 25 different tuna tartares, I am now the queen of Ahi and I can tell you that Alan Wong's Hualalai Grill in the Four Seasons on the Big Island makes the best chunky tartare....spicy with fried wontons, avocado and tuna...mmmm. It is so fresh !

I had my cake and I ate it too !

As you may have noticed, I have been M.I.A.
I took a break from my recent blogging to get married.
Forgive me :) Lee and I got married on May 28th in Montreal, Canada. It was a night to remember! Seeing Lee for the first time in the hotel lobby & the first dance to "Heaven" by Bryan Adams were my favorite parts !
Thanks again to everyone who traveled to come to Montreal ! It was so awesome to see all of our worlds collide.
As for the food, the salmon tartare avocado appetizer was so good and I've gotten requests for the recipe....I am working on it ! Lee and I just got back from a 2 week trip to Hawaii, where I didn't cook at all, but was inspired by many of the local ingredients and am working on some recipes...once I can eat fish again ! Travel is as much fun as cooking, too bad I can't do it every day. Tonight, back to reality! I made grilled Moroccan chicken from www.genevestewart.com, a great recipe with closet staples that is so yummy ! Closet staples are ideal when your fridge is empty and you haven't cooked in 3 weeks !

More to come :)

Braised Pork Belly

This was such a serenely simple dish to put together, and with such elegant results too. Lifted from J's copy of Think Like A Chef, it was a matter of chopping carrots, celery, a leek and an onions, cooking them in a skillet till tender, searing the slab of pork belly and then braising the lot in chicken stock. The resulting dish was a wonderfully tasty yet clean broth and meat that was sumptuously fork tender.

The Best Cocoa Brownies

Often, for me, the measure of a good cookbook is in the success of the very first recipe that I attempt from it. If it emerges a raving success, I gleefully congratulate myself on money well spent and bring out the Post-It stickies to flag yet other recipes I'd like to try. By that merit alone, one of my latest purchases, Alice Medrich's Bittersweet, was a tremendous hit.

Because my schedule of late hasn't really permitted me to do much in the kitchen other than boil water for pasta or make scrambled eggs, I was looking for something simple yet satisfying. Sweets for the stressed, is what I like to call the fat food that my colleagues and I munch helplessly at our desks during the last month of every quarter when impossible deadlines and printing schedules collide.

These moist, chewy, dark as midnight brownies were everything that Ms Medrich promised. There is not a drop of real chocolate in it, but the three-quarter cup plus two tablespoons of the best Dutch-processed cocoa made these intensely chocolately, and received an A for both taste and texture. They are, as they have been named by the author, The Best Cocoa Brownies ever. I can't wait to try more of her recipes.