Poached Salmon and Tomato Sauce with Pasta

I have an unusual piece of salmon.  Perhaps unusual is not a fair description because every salmon has a tail.  It’s just not the customary piece people buy and cook.  I ended up with this lovely shiny tail when I bought a whole frozen salmon from the frozen butcher.  By which I mean he sells mostly frozen products, not that he is made of ice. 

The nice guys in the white rubber aprons cut my whole fish apart into steaks with an exposed electric saw that made me shudder for their fingers.  And then they popped all the pieces in a plastic bag, which I put in my freezer.  Gradually we have eaten all the proper pieces, that is to say, the steaks and now I am left with just the tail.  It seems to have a lot of meat so I decided to poach it, debone it and use the meat and poaching liquid to make a sauce for pasta. 

Here goes.

Ingredients

1 piece of salmon tail – a little more than 1 pound or half a kilo of fish.  Substitutions encouraged.

8 garlic cloves

1 can (425g or 15oz) whole or crushed tomatoes

1/2 cup dry white wine

6 springs of fresh thyme (4 for poaching liquid, 2 to serve)

1/2 teaspoon sugar

Sea salt

Black pepper

Olive oil

250g or 8 oz pasta

Method

Chop the garlic up and the sauté it with a little olive oil in a relatively deep saucepan.

Add in the can of tomatoes and, if they are whole, break them up with the spoon.

Add in the white wine and the 1/2 teaspoon of sugar and bring to a boil.

Meanwhile, season your fish tail with sea salt and several grinds of fresh black pepper.

Let the poaching liquid boil for just a few minutes then turn it down to simmer.

Add the salmon tail and enough water to bring the level up to at least cover half of it.

Add in four of the sprigs of thyme and cover the pan.  Set your timer for 25 minutes. 

Halfway through, turn the salmon over.  

When the timer dings, remove the salmon from the poaching liquid and leave it to cool.

Turn the heat under the poaching liquid back up and let it boil along merrily until reduced by half.

Meanwhile, put your pot of salted water on to boil for the pasta.  Cook your pasta of choice according to package instructions.  Drain and keep warm. 

When the fish is cool enough to handle, peel the skin off with a knife and your fingers.  Remove the meat from the top half of the tail.  Remove the spine bones.

Turn that baby over and remove the skin from the bottom half.

Break the fish up into bite-sized pieces.   Chop the reserved thyme into little pieces.

When the poaching liquid is thickened enough, remove the old pieces of thyme.

Depending on your pot, add the pasta to the sauce or the sauce to the pasta.  Add in the salmon and the fresh thyme.

Gently stir or give it a toss to mix through.

Enjoy!  This will feed at least three, possibly four, hungry people. 

Eggplant Parmigiana – my homage to Lillian

A quicker version of classic eggplant Parmigiana but still including the essential ingredients: Golden eggplant, bread crumbs and rich tomato sauce topped with mozzarella and Parmesan then baked to bubbly perfection. Purists, please avert your eyes!

Many years ago we were living in Paris and the summer of 1993 brought us a beautiful baby girl and, two weeks after her arrival, my mother to help me when dear husband went back to work. (Yes, France has paid paternity leave!) She brought along her wonderful friend, Lillian, and together, they spoiled us rotten. 

Lillian’s specialties were anything Italian and, from her, I learned how to make eggplant Parmigiana, which we adored. I must confess that if Lillian were ever to read this post, she would not recognize her recipe because I have developed many shortcuts over the years of which I know she would not approve but, honestly, when I did it her way, I didn’t make eggplant Parmigiana often enough.  And my way is healthier.

Please forgive me, Lillian, but it’s really not just laziness that made me change your recipe! And I hope you know that your kindness and generosity touched our hearts even more than your wonderful meals increased our girth. We have never forgotten you.

Eggplant Parmigiana

This basic tomato sauce is the one I make for spaghetti and meatballs or really anytime I need tomato sauce as an ingredient in any other recipe. Why buy a jar when homemade is so easy? 

Ingredients
For the sauce:
2 cans (15 oz or 424g size) of whole or crushed tomatoes 

1 can (15 oz or 424g of tomato puree or sauce, unseasoned 

3 cloves of garlic 

1 large or 2 small onions 

2 tablespoons dried oregano or Italian spice mix

Sea salt 

Black pepper 

1 tablespoon of sugar

For the parmigiana:
1 lb or about 500g eggplant
4 1/2 oz or 125g breadcrumbs
4 1/2 oz or 125g Parmesan, freshly grated
4 1/2 oz or 125g mozzarella, grated

Method
Dice the onion and garlic and sauté them in a couple of good glugs of olive oil.  

Turn the fire to medium and put the lid on to let them sweat and get soft. This could take as many as 20 minutes.  Stir occasionally, letting the condensation on the lid drip back into the pan.  

When the onions and garlic are soft and translucent, add the canned tomatoes and sauce, along with about another can full of water and the two tablespoons of oregano and the tablespoon of sugar.

Lower the fire to simmer and cook the sauce down, covered, until it is thick and the whole tomatoes start to break apart. You can speed this process along by mashing them with a potato masher, right in the pot.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Continue to simmer until you are ready to assemble your eggplant Parmigiana.

Meanwhile, slice your eggplant and heat your griddle.  

Lay the slices on the hot griddle and drizzle with a little extra virgin olive oil.  

Flip them when browned on one side and remove to a plate when both sides are brown. [If you’d like to make it the authentic (read: Lillian’s) way, you dip the sliced eggplant in egg and then breadcrumbs. Then you shallow fry the slices in olive oil until crispy. Drain on paper towels.  You have to keep adding oil to your pan because the eggplant soaks up the oil like crazy. It’s delicious but, oh, so fattening!]

One step away from Lillian’s method is to dip the slices in egg and then breadcrumbs, lightly spray them with Pam, and then toast them on a cookie sheet in a hot oven until crispy.   I did it that way for a while until I figured out a way the way to cheat even further.)

Don’t forget to give your tomato sauce the occasional stir while you are browning the eggplant.

Your sauce is ready, your eggplant slices are ready and now it’s time to assemble the dish. Start with a thin layer of tomato sauce in the bottom of your ovenproof dish. (If the sauce is too thick to spread, by all means, add a little more water.)

Next, sprinkle the sauce with breadcrumbs.

 Now add a layer of eggplant slices. 

And sprinkle again with breadcrumbs.

Now add another layer of tomato sauce.

Cover generously with Parmesan.

And sprinkle again with breadcrumbs. Then add another layer of eggplant slices. And another coating of breadcrumbs.  You get the picture. The layers go tomato/eggplant/Parmesan, but you put a thin sprinkle of breadcrumbs below and on top of the eggplant each time to mimic the breadcrumbs you would find on each side, if you had dipped the slices and fried them first. Your final layer will be tomato sauce topped with Parmesan, mozzarella and about 25g of breadcrumbs. 

I mixed mine together by hand and sprinkled them on. I find the breadcrumbs help the cheese not stick together as much, which makes sprinkling it much easier.

Bake at 350°F or 180°C for about 45-50 minutes or until golden and bubbling. We love eggplant Parmigiana and will be forever grateful to Lillian for introducing us to this delightful dish.

Enjoy!

Eggplant Something I can't pronounce (Papoutzakia)

Okay, it’s Eggplant Papoutzakia.

and that is the link to the recipe from Animal, Vegetable, Miracle written by Barbara Kingsolver, with her husband, Steven L. Hopp and, daughter, Camille Kingsolver.  I first read this wonderful book more than three years ago when I was living in Singapore.  Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is about one family’s experiment with growing their own food and living off the land for one year and only buying what they could not raise or grow from local farms in their New England area.  It is all about the advantages (personal health, earth health) of being a locavore, that is, someone who eats food found, grown or raised within 100 miles or fewer of his or her home.

If you have every lived in Singapore, you know that not much is grown on the actual island. (There is a goat farm that I could buy fresh milk from, but that is another cheesy post altogether.)  Much comes from nearby Malaysia, though perhaps not within 100 miles, so living by the Animal, Vegetable, Miracle standards was hard to achieve but it did make me more aware of produce and the distances it traveled to be on my plate and I tried to make more reasonable choices when I could.  

Fast forward three years and we are back in Malaysia. Local produce is much easier to come by, although I must confess to succumbing to the allure of the occasional golden-red-skinned nectarine or small punnet of raspberries, both of which certainly are not grown here. Once again, it’s about making better choices as much as possible.

So on to today’s recipe. Eggplant Papoutzakia.  My mom came across the recipe while flipping through my copy of the book (elder daughter was reading it and left it lying around) and, being a lover of eggplant, she asked if we could try it. My policy is that I am happy to cook anytime, anywhere for just about anyone, if they will come up with the menu.

Ingredients

2 lb. eggplant
Olive oil
2 medium onions, garlic to taste (I used four cloves.)
2 large tomatoes, diced
2 tsp. nutmeg
Salt and pepper to taste
6 oz. grated mozzarella (I used about eight ounces and sliced it into little pieces which I cast randomly and, I like to think, attractively about the top.)

Method

Slice eggplant lengthwise and sauté lightly in olive oil. Remove from skillet and arrange in a baking dish. I cut my eggplant into many slices and browned them all in a non-stick skillet with just a bit of olive oil for each batch.  I stacked them on a big platter until all were browned and I was ready to assemble the dish. 

Chop onions and garlic and sauté in olive oil. Add diced tomato and spices and mix thoroughly. My family is not a lover of onion chunks so I let this cook down like a good spaghetti sauce, until there was no crunch left at all. I also added a teaspoon of sugar to counter the acid in the canned tomato.  I let it cool for a little bit, then pureed it in the blender. 

Spread mixture over the eggplants and sprinkle an even layer of cheese over top. I oiled the bottom of my lasagna dish with olive oil and spread a bit of the sauce around first. Then, I added the eggplant, the rest of the sauce and then the cheese in the aforementioned attractive manner.  

 Bake at 350 for 20 minutes, until golden on top.

Enjoy!

If you are interested in finding locally grown foods in your area of the United States, check out this link. Buy mostly what is in season in your growing area and you are more likely to be buying local produce.