Grilled Salmon and Good Conversation

Rather than go out last night like we usually do on Wednesdays, we decided to cook and eat on our patio to take advantage of the beautiful evening weather, so on the way home I picked up some fresh Atlantic salmon for the grill and invited Amanda and Evan for dinner. This dish is a rarity in that I both suggested it and I usually cook it, although I still need quite a lot of practice to get all the elements of a dish ready at the same time the way Melissa does. That is truly an under-appreciated talent...

The salmon fillets are briefly marinated in soy sauce and maple syrup, grilled to (hopefully) perfection, then topped with a spoonful of soy and maple reduction. The dish is great with grilled asparagus, but since I couldn't find any spears at the grocery store I used zucchini instead.

As the evening wore on into the night, we lit up the courtyard with string lights, candles and good conversation. We had a few of our standard wines open last night, including some Kiwi sauv blancs and a California chardonnay, but with dinner we served a 2007 Whitehaven Sauvignon Blanc (Marlborough, NZ), which I picked up on sale for $15 (usually a $20 bottle, so we don't often buy it). This is a pretty special wine -- the quintessential New Zealand sauv blanc with strong notes of capsicum, fresh cut grass and herbs, with plenty of crisp acidity from the passionfruit flavors.

We were a little surprised when Amanda pulled out a shopping bag full of rhubarb. I wasn't sure where she was heading with this, but Melissa hatched a plan for dessert in record time. She had no milk, eggs or white sugar, but she did have some apples on the verge of being lost to over-ripeness, and she cobbled together a sort of shortbread crumble topping from flour, butter, brown sugar and baking soda. What came out was a superbly tasty apple and rhubarb cobbler. Tart from the rhubarb and not too sweet -- a toothsome treat, indeed.

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Recipes and Notes

Soy and Maple Salmon

Salmon fillet, 1/3 to 1/2 lb per person
Soy sauce
Maple syrup
Olive oil
Zucchini

Marinate salmon fillets for 10-20 minutes in a mixture of about 2/3 soy sauce and 1/3 maple syrup in a shallow dish. Place fish flesh-side down and try to avoid getting the marinade on the skin as this will cause it to stick to the grill. Make another mixture of about 1/2 soy and 1/2 maple syrup and reduce on medium heat in a sauce pan until thick and syrupy. Set this aside to glaze the cooked fish for the finished dish.

Salmon fillets should cook skin-side down on medium flame until skin is crispy -- this will also cook the flesh about 3/4 of the way to done. Carefully turn the fish -- it should come loose quite easily once the skin is a little charred but will stick fiercely if the skin side isn't yet done. Cook briefly on the flesh side to make some nice grill lines. Cut zucchini into strips about 1/4-inch thick and bruch with olive oil, then grill to soften and put lines on them. Serve the fish on the zucchini strips and drizzle with glaze.

Apple Rhubarb Cobbler

Makes 4

2 Apples, cored and sliced
5-6 sticks of rhubarb (no leaves)
½ cup of brown sugar
~½-1 cup of water

Put above ingredients into large pot or pan with fitting lid. Cover and simmer for around 30-45 minutes until everything is soft and the rhubarb has become mushy. Spoon mixture into ramekins.

Topping:

100g (1 stick) of butter
¼ cup of brown sugar
~1 cup of flour
¼ cup of almonds
½ tsp of baking soda

Preheat oven to 425oF. In food processor cream the butter and sugar and almonds. In large bowl mix flour and baking soda. Add butter mixture to flour and mix to a crumbly consistency. Adjust flour amount so large crumbs are formed. Too much flour and the crumbs are smaller, too little and the butter isn’t coated fully. Don’t over mix. Spoon crumbly mixture on top of rhubarb apple mix in ramekins but don’t press down. Bake in 425oF oven until topping is golden brown. Remove from oven and let cool a bit before serving. Garnish with a sprig of mint.