Archive for January, 2010

Salmon Week

Thursday, January 7th, 2010

Well, it seems that since Dave has been back from Seattle WA. all I’ve been cooking with is Salmon.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining.

As per my previous post here are some pictures of the dishes I’ve created with Dave’s King Salmon.

My first dish is Watermelon & Salmon Toro, I plated this @ Biagio’s late last night. Special thank you to Olga Mujinga for letting me use her iPhone to snap the pic.
I need one of these phones!

This is a picture of the King Terrine.

Salmon terrine

Wednesday, January 6th, 2010

I’ve been going to bed really late this week.

Late Sunday night I got a call from Dave, he was calling to tell me he had purchase a 25lbs Alaskan King Salmon and a 15lbs Steelhead Trout from the Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle WA. He also wanted to see if I was up to filleting the fish that night and packing it for storage in “MY” freezer. Dave, I can’t guarantee some won’t go missing! ;)

These fish were amazing, the King Salmon was HUGE! It still smelt like the ocean it was fished from. The only other time I’ve seen anything that compared to it is when Anneke and I went salmon fishing in Sooke BC. That’s a whole other story. The guys at the fish market had packed the fish in a fish box large Styrofoam cooler with several ice packs. Dave said according to the gurus’ these fish were supposed to keep 48hrs in the box!

I filleted both fish; I then proceeded to spoon the meat attached to the spine and ribs. It’s amazing how much meat you can scavenge with this technique. I separated the belly from the rest of the fillet. I told Dave to save this cut for special uses such as sashimi, ceviche, tartare or even carpaccio due to the high fat content within it. We portioned the rest of the fillets into 8oz pieces and vacuum packed them for the freezer.

With all the spooned meat my culinary gears started grinding. What to do with this loose meat?
I came up with the idea of making a terrine. I’ve never made one myself but I’ve seen them done on a number of occasions. The best execution I’ve seen is when John Morris prepared his rabbit terrine for the hot food served cold competition in Toronto. If I remember correctly John took 1st in his group. I also asked John for his input on his preferred preparation of this dish. Many recipes’ I’ve seen called for gelatin or eggs, John preferred using the natural protein in the fish to bind the whole mixture. He also suggested putting the food processor bowl and blade in the freezer; otherwise the heat could cause the mixture to split.

We made two different iteration of the dish, since we had two different types of meat.
We lined the King salmon terrine dish with preserved Meyer lemons and dill weed.
For the Steelhead we blended lemon zest and dill to the mix forcemeat then rolled mixture into a nori wrap with a roasted red pepper in the center.

We poached the terrines in the oven @ 250 until the internal temperature reached 135. You have refrigerate these at least 24hrs in order for them to set. Patience is a virtue when doing charcuterie. I can’t wait to pop these bad boys out of their molds. I’ll post a picture tonight!

New Years 2010

Monday, January 4th, 2010

Happy new years!

Well, Mike Ziola from Biagio’s didn’t chose to run my new years eve menu after all, probably for logistic purposes and the fact that it was kind of a last minute idea. I would have loved to prep and execute this menu for him and our guests. I think the ideal sales/marketing technique for a restaurant is to up sell special/coming events in combination with special menus. This needs to be planned several months in advance to get customer buy in.

Service the night of the eve was straight forward, I was working the pasta station. I much prefer working the entree side!

On new years day, I spent the day cooking for my family (The Rochon’s). I served them shaved strip loin, rosemary roasted potatoes and vegetables. They loved it, I enjoyed cooking for them.

I enjoy cooking period!