Raw, part 3: lemon salmon

As my Sorrento Lemons were such an hit with the Daring Baker Challenge Lemon Meringue Pie, I thought to use them to marinate some my salmon too... Well, my husband thought of it...

As simple as sad: thinly slice some salmon fillet and cover it with freshly squeezed lemon juice. Let it marinate for 20-30 minutes.
Then enjoy it!

A short note on this raw posts: as you read, few days ago I bought a whole salmon of 2 kilos. I processed all that night, but as I'm lazy (and wise), I'll give slow sips of what I did with it. This doesn't mean I ate the fish, raw, after 1 week. It only means I ate it that night, took picture of it, then published it little by little...

Raw, part 2: chirashi, kind of

Well, the real chirashi is obviously different, better, with more fish...
I've tried my best with what I had: it!
So I used the same thin slices I used for the sushi and instead of doing little balls of the sushi rice, I put everything in a bowl, cover it with the fish and sprinkled it with a Japanese chilli pepper mix.

A short note on this raw posts: as you read, few days ago I bought a whole salmon of 2 kilos. I processed all that night, but as I'm lazy (and wise), I'll give slow sips of what I did with it. This doesn't mean I ate the fish, raw, after 1 week. It only means I ate that night, took picture of it, then published it little by little...

I have a new friend

(well, kind of, as it came dead in my house and now it's resting well packed in my freezer... ;-P)
I love to buy food on-line: you can find amazing stuff and they deliver everything to your door, on time, any time...
I even love doing my normal grocery purchases on-line...
I have only one problem: quantities... Few months ago I bought 120 packs of paper tissues... We are still using them...

This time I bought this:



When it was delivered yesterday night, I directly poured myself a glass of Martini just at the sight of it: I needed pace in my mind before to think what to do about it...
And then I began to act...
Nothing was wasted, I can assure this: we practically throw nothing!

Prepare yourself for many upcoming salmon recipes!

The wind that shakes the barley

This is not at all an Irish recipe, as the title would suggest, but a very Italian one! Cooking other ingredients like you will do for risotto is quite common, even for pasta. Of course you always have to adjust the timing.
Barley is very good cooked with the absorption method, especially in the pressure cooker: you will obtain an orzotto all'onda (a barley[ris]otto waving in your plate!). For every 100 g of barley, use 400 ml of water or stock and cook it for 25 minutes. The method is very simple: you wash your barley under fresh water, hot some oil in the pressure cooker, add the washed barley (and the other ingredients, if this is the case), then cover with water or stock, close the lid and cook.
To the dish in the picture I added some tomatoes, some zucchini flowers (they are beginning to appear on the market but I think they are not yet at their best), and at the end I decorated everything with some sliced bottarga...

Cozze e broccoli

I had this idea in mind: a nice dish of pasta with mussels and broccoli. The problem was, as you can understand from the picture, that I cooked broccoli too much and all I end up with were just the stalks, while the nice green flowers were all over my sink... So, in the recipe, you will find the time you should cook the broccoli, and not the time I actually cooked them... Mess happens, even in the "best kitchens" (Ah! Ah! Ah!)...

1 kg of Spanish mussels
250 g of macheroni, mezze maniche, rigatoni or penne
1 broccoli flower
extra virgin olive oil
chilli pepper
garlic
parsley
1 glass of white wine (plus more for your lunch and while you are cooking!)

Begin by preparing the mussels. clean them under running cold water and discard all the open shells. Heat 2 tablespoon of oil in a heavy sauce pan and add garlic, chilli pepper and parsley (as much as you like for everything), then add mussels, let them stir fry a bit, add the wine and let them cook, covered, for 5-10 minutes, until all the shells are wide open.
Bring to the boil a big sauce pan filled with salted water and once it's boiling add the pasta. Five minutes before the pasta is cooked (al dente, remind you! So if on the package is stated 14 minutes, cook the pasta for 12), add the broccoli flowers. Drain everything and add it to the pan with the mussels and let it cook for other two minutes, stirring constantly. Serve, sprinkled with some minced parsley.

Involtini di aringhe

Always as a part of the kilo of herrings I’ve bought, those are inspired by the much more famous Sarde a beccafico, a typical Sicilian dish.
The problem with this recipe is that I haven’t measured the ingredients, but just followed the moment…

4 herring fillets
Breadcrumbs
Fine grain couscous
Raisins
Pinenuts
Cappers
Dill
Extra virgin olive oil
Garlic

Heat the oil and stir fry the minced garlic. Add the rest of the ingredients and cook for about 10 minutes, adding some spoonful of hot water.
Lay each fillet and spread some of the breadcrumb mixture on it. Roll it and close it with a toothpick. Cook it in a pan with some oil for 10-15 minutes.

Linguine con le aringhe

Last time I went to my fishmonger I found fresh herring fillets at 2.50 € per kilo! Of course I’ve bought a kilo: they are good, healthy and surprisingly cheap!

3 cloves of garlic
2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
3 herring fillets, skinned and diced
6-8 cherry tomatoes, diced
few branches of dill
10 black olives
200 g of linguine


Bring to the boil a lot of water for the pasta.
Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a big pan and fry the garlic. Add the diced herrings, let the m cook for 2 minutes, then add the tomatoes, dill and the olives. Let it cook. In the meanwhile, salt the water and cook the pasta al dente. Drain the pasta and add it to the pan, add the last tablespoon of olive oil and turn everything together.

Avocado, salmon and tapioca in verrines

One of my last buy on Amazon was this amazing book that reflects the last and crazy trend that is going on on the other side of the Alps: verrines (aka, little drinking glasses filled with savoury or sweet stuff).
The book is wonderful, with so many ideas I can’t stop looking at it!
But remember, if you intend to buy it and try something, the ingredients stated in the book are for little glasses, lets say like the one you could use for grappa or strong liquor, not for water glasses…

For 3 200 ml glasses

For the green layer:
2 avocados
Cumin
1 tomato
Parsley
The juice of two lemons

For the pink layer:
Smocked salmon
Dill
The juice of half a lemon

For the white layer:
80 g of tapioca
Extra virgin olive oil

Fish eggs to decorate

Halve the avocados, scoop the flesh and mix it with the lemon juice, parsley and cumin. Once you have a thick cream add the diced tomato and pulse the mixer: the tomato must remain in chunks. Make a layer in each glass.

Mix the salmon with the lemon juice and the dill. Do not over mix it, you need chunks even in this.
Make a layer over the avocado cream.

Bring to the boil a pan with 3 litres of salted water. Add tapioca and cook for 15 minutes or until the tapioca is tender.
Drain and cool it under cold water. Dress with a tablespoon of olive oil.
Make the last layer over the salmon.

Decorate with fish eggs or dill.

Fishy Fish

Gamberi al pepe di Sichuan

Salmone marinato al finocchio

Tonno marinato con riso e salsa di miso

Tranci di coda di rospo flambè con riduzione...

Orate al sale

Crème fraiche prawns



Indice ricette