Seared Salmon in Summer and Lessons from a Fish

“I could never in a hundred summers get tired of this.” ~Susan Branch

Seared salmon in summer or summer vegetables with seared salmon? I changed the recipe a bit—because one, I am allergic to or at least have a bad reaction to mushrooms and so do not eat them, and two, I don’t really care for corn. I kept the spinach and everything else, and then added my own fresh veggie as a side.

At any rate, while I do not know to what Susan Branch was referring in her quote above, I could never in a hundred summers get tired of this salmon recipe!

How Do You Say That Again?

Salmon. I didn’t grow up eating it, or saying it. Or knowing much about them. In fact, when I moved to Chicago not too long before this article appeared in Food & Wine, I was likely not pronouncing it the way you may have been pronouncing it. Or how you currently pronounce it, and how I do pronounce it now.

When I first said it out loud in my new city, I was corrected. It was not pronounced “sal-mon” (as in the name Sal, or the start of the name Sally…), it was more like “sam-un” with a kind of silent l.

Oh, I didn’t know. Salmon. With a silent l, not salmón like you would perhaps say it if you were pronouncing it in Spanish.

Salmon Strong

I also never knew that much about the salmon. I mean, if a fish can be admired, wouldn’t it be the salmon? Swimming upstream against all odds—currents, bears, other deterrents. I have read that some salmon are barely alive when they get to their destination (to ultimately die) but they make it, and spawn, using any last amount of strength they have. They make it, to spawn and then die. And then other salmon do it all over again, every season. Wow!

So, however it was pronounced, I liked it immediately, its flaky and meaty pink flesh being really tasty, and quite frankly, salmon have a really great story to think about – that we get to enjoy such a fish! Of course then I truly looked forward to making this next recipe on the Cook the 40 list.

Cook the 40

Why take on Food & Wine’s best-ever recipes from their forty years in publication? Because if you’ve been paying attention, you know that’s one of the things I’m doing this year!

I’m hoping that taking on these 40 recipes will also add some fun and new favorite foods to my life. If even half of them end up being tasty, this will be a worthwhile endeavor, and adding a new fish recipe to the kitchen repertoire could be a very good and tasty thing indeed!

(I don’t make nearly enough fish at home.)

40 Years of Food & Wine

According to the September 2018 anniversary issue of Food & Wine, and editor Hunter Lewis, https://twitter.com/notesfromacook?lang=en, what makes a good recipe is it being delicious, of course, and (I think even more important sometimes) the best recipes “tell a story worth repeating.” Well said, Hunter.

I am not sure what kind of stories all of these 40 best-ever recipes will tell from my kitchen’s point of view, but even in the heat of summer, a good recipe in the kitchen is a good thing all by itself.

The 15th Recipe

Food & Wine states that this recipe is one of the best they’ve ever published, and one of the most popular items on the menu at the New York City restaurant—Union Square Cafe—where it was served.

That and my love of salmon already mentioned above was good enough for me!

Let’s Get Cooking

This recipe was not too complicated, as fish doesn’t take long to cook, and probably shouldn’t have anything made with it that completely overpowers the freshness and taste of the fish itself. Chef Romano was right on with both of these points.

Of course he was, he’s a chef…and his recipe made the Cook the 40 list!

The recipe called for total time of one hour, which is mostly for prep and making the sauce.

Okay, then – let’s go!

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As I mentioned above, I left out the mushrooms and the corn. If I make again, I’d probably add some extra crushed garlic to the spinach, because I always like more garlic. This recipe was great, though, and I can see how the corn would add some extra texture and be a good accompaniment to the tomato and balsamic vinegar sauce.

Sauce which was super smooth and really tasty, by the way!

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What a great dinner this turned out to be—tasty just as well cooked fresh salmon always is and should be.

So, Where Was I When This Recipe Was Published in 1992?

As Food & Wine was publishing this recipe in 1992, I had just moved to Chicago the year before. I was pretty poor so I don’t think I went anywhere significant (except for a trip home to Texas, I think) and I definitely wasn’t cooking anything that spectacular either. In fact, I was pawning jewelry and working as many hours as I could in order to just buy some of the staples that were in my kitchen back then: beans, rice, ground beef, chicken thighs, milk, bread, tortillas, pasta, cans of tomato sauce and if I was lucky, some cheese and Doritos.

(Some things don’t change…)

Oh, and Coca-Cola. I gave up other things in order to have my Coca-Cola. I also had the occasional deep-dish pizza and lots of trips to McDonald’s as had become my trademark even before I moved to Chicago. Hey, it was pretty cheap!

Smart? Maybe not. But we all make our choices, don’t we?

We might swim upstream no matter the currents, per se, just to get to where we need to be.

Go Cubs Go!

I moved to Chicago because I needed to move. Life in Austin wasn’t doing me any good. I was in what I now call my “bitter years” and I needed to make a change.

I didn’t really know what I wanted to do anymore, but I knew that I had to do something and moving seemed like a good choice. I initially contemplated New York, Boston or Chicago.

Chicago won.

Why did the city of Chicago win out? Because of the Cubs. I have always been a huge Cubs fan and back when I thought that some kind of a career in sports writing was still in my future (and baseball writing more than other sports, I thought), Chicago seemed like the better choice.

I may get into more of that story later on this blog, but for now, I can say that the first year there was just what I needed. If not just because of my first brutal winter, the just-as-brutal cost of living in the big city, and actually losing weight—and jewelry—due to lack of having enough funds, I was exposed to so many things that I never would have been exposed to had I stayed in Austin—or Texas for that matter—as an adult.

Yes, I also did with fewer calories in order to go to a few Cubs games. Again, not the smartest decision perhaps, but I do have lots of memories at Wrigley Field.

Besides, I had weight to lose!

Growing Upstream

I probably would have learned how to say salmon had I stayed in Texas, but maybe I wouldn’t have learned to appreciate it as much, as we sometimes do only when we do something on our own, like move to a new city with little or no prospects except a belief in ourselves. Whether by instinct like the salmon, or by a choice like only we people can make, growing upstream is the only way to go.

The choice to move up north, and those tastes and experiences of the big city helped me develop my palate, and grow up to be just who I am today.

Elda XO

For more information on this really tasty salmon recipe, click here to be taken to the Food & Wine link: https://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/seared-salmon-summer-vegetables

If you make it with all of the vegetables in the recipe, let me know what you think. XO