Salmon with prosciutto and rice peel-over

Rice pilaf is an ancient dish and cooked and consumed in its various across northern Africa and the Middle East to India. Indeed, according to Wikipedia:

The English term pilaf is borrowed directly from Turkish, which in turn comes from (Classical) Persian
پلو, Urdu pulao (پلاؤ) and Hindi pulav, and ultimately derives from Sanskrit pulaka^[2]. Depending on the local cuisine, it may also contain a variety of meat and vegetables.

The American English term "peel-over" comes from her Imperial Majesty Junior and her name for any rice dish I create that has other stuff in it.

And that's all rice pilaf is—rice with other stuff in it. And it makes a marvelous side dish to almost anything. Here' I paired it with an old favorite, salmon with prosciutto.

Ingredients

Salmon

• 1 pound Salmon filets
  
• Thinly slice prosciutto, enough to wrap each filet
  
• Olive oil to coat the fish
  

Pilaf

• ½ cup white rice
  
• ½ cup red and green lentils, soaked for two hours
  
• ½ cup meripoix (diced carrots, onions and celery, available prepackaged at better groceries)
  
• 2 ½ cups chicken stock (low sodium is fine)
  
• 1 cup of spinach, roughly chopped
  
• 1 tablespoon of rosemary, roughly chopped
  
• Olive oil for sauté
  
• A pinch of salt
  

Technique

Salmon – roast in a preheated oven at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.

Pilaf – In a two quart pan, sauté the meripoix in the olive oil for about 3 minutes, adding a pinch of salt. Next, add the rice and sauté for another three minutes. Next, add the lentils and 2 cups of the chicken stock. Simmer for about 25 minutes or until fork tender. Remove from the heat and add the spinach, the rosemary and bit more chicken stock. Keep the dish covered as the residual heat will wilt the spinach, about three minutes.

Plate and serve.

Das Kinder loved it so much, there were no leftovers. And it's a whole lot healthier than French fries. I just hope she remembers this when it's time for her to pick out my rest home.










 

Everything is better with pork: Salmon with Prosciutto, lentils with yogurt and wilted spinach

I like early fall. It means that here, in Raleigh, it's no longer 90 degrees everyday. And that's the signal I use for firing up the oven.

Turning the oven in summer is an idiotic enterprise that only raises the temperature of my home and, subsequently, jacks up my already high electric bill.

So I don't do it. I wait until autumn to do any roasting, and then, only short snippets. I mean, it's not that cool yet.

At this time of year, if I do anything in a hot oven, it needs to go in and  come out quickly. That doesn't leave much time for big flavors to meld.

The solution: thinly sliced pork.

Now, despite what my vegetarian friends tell me, I still believe that everything tastes better with pork. Don't believe me? Take almost any recipe from the famous Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home from 1994 (save the desserts, ' natch) and add pork. Almost all of them come out better because, as Emeril LaGasse says, "pork fat rules".

I love to cook on Saturday nights and this is one of my favorites: Salmon, wrapped in prosciutto, served with lentils and yogurt and wilted spinach. It's a simple, two pan / two mixing bowl dish that only takes about 20 minutes to cobble together. And since the prosciutto is so thinly sliced as to be translucent, it crisps up beautifully in only a few minutes. Oven on. Oven off.

What you need:

• Salmon filets – 6 to 8 ounce portions should work fine. They should be long and narrow as opposed to short and wide, for reason that will become obvious
  
• 8 slices of prosciutto – the prepackaged stuff will work fine
  
• 8 ounces of cooked lentils – cooked pretty firm. You don't want mushy lentils. The pre-cooked stuff from Trader Joe's works great.
  
• ½ cup plain yogurt – I like Greek yogurt for this assembly
  
• A handful of spinach, coarsely chopped
  
• Juice of a lemon
  
• Olive oil – here you can break out the EVOO but it's not necessary
  
• Thyme, basil and oregano, coarsely chopped
  

How to do it:

• Preheat your oven to 425 degrees.
  
• Season the salmon with salt and pepper, then wrap the prosciutto around the salmon, leaving some areas of the fish exposed.
  
• Place in a pan, and douse with a bit of olive oil
  
• Broil it for 10 minutes or so. If you like it pinker, go less.
  
• Meanwhile, take your cooked lentils and drain most of the water out. Add your chopped spinach and herbs, then crank up the heat, cooking the spinach and herbs until just wilted.
  
• Now take your yogurt and combine it with the lemon juice and about a quarter as much olive oil. Whisk so everything gets blended. Now it's time to plate,
  
• Place on piece of your beautiful salmon on a plate. In a bowl, take your lentils and spinach and toss with you lemon yogurt sauce. Arrange on the plate with your salmon.

Simple, easy and healthy. The prosciutto adds a nice salty edge to the salmon while the lentils and spinach balance everything out.



Bon Appetit!


 

 

 

Scallops with white beans, tomatoes, crispy prosciutto and arugula

These days, television is jammed packed with pretentious morons who preen about and squawk about the things they preen about and squawk about as if they are the only people with any wisdom at all about the given subject at hand. And no, I’m not talking about the talking heads at either Fox News or MSNBC although I easily could be. No, what bothers me is the second tier hosts of the Food Network and the Travel Channel shows. Watching the ridiculous competitions of aspiring celebrity chefs or food spokes models jabbering on and on about whatever they (or in reality, their production assistants) are cooking sets my teeth on edge.

Don’t get me wrong. Mario Batali is a real genius and I’ve been to some of his places (Babbo -- duck breast, medium rare with a raspberry reduction served with a heavenly sage risotto). Ditto chef, writer and world class raconteur Anthony Bourdain (Les Halles -- steak frites, medium rare – ‘natch). But for my money, the reigning genius is Jamie Oliver, who comes off as almost autistic in his devotion to food and its preparation. His focus is so laser sharp he almost appears to be channeling The Almighty.

This recipe comes from page 160 of The Naked Chef Takes Off, published in 2000. Like most of Jamie’s dishes, there are a lot of flavors and textures that work in a most harmonious fashion. It’s a very simple recipe with ingredients you can get at the neighborhood Trader Joes: scallops, tomatoes, anchovies, white beans from a can, prosciutto, arugula, lemon juice and olive oil.

To start, preheat the oven to 475 degrees. Quarter your tomatoes and season them with a bit of oregano. Let them go skin side down in the oven for about 15 minutes. Next, put the prosciutto in the pan next to the tomatoes at let it go for another 15 minutes or so until the prosciutto is all crispy and happy and the tomatoes are roasted through. While that’s happening….

Sauté some garlic in olive oil (no, you don’t have to use EVOO, that’s for salads) and your anchovies for a minute or two, then add a can of white beans (cannellini beans are what the recipe calls for but I’ve used navy beans in a pinch. I’ve even thought about trying chick peas next time. The extra nuttiness might work). Add a bit of white wine, and then once everything is heated through, mash the beans into a course puree. Once that’s done and the tomatoes and prosciutto are resting…

Sear off the scallops in olive oil. They should be dry before you cook them or else they won’t get that caramelized happiness you need to make this dish work. Two minutes a side should be sufficient. Now, it’s time to assemble.

I typically serve this in bowls just because the presentation looks so much better. Beans go in as the base. Then, add the scallops. Then top with the roasted tomatoes and crispy prosciutto, crumbled up like bacon bits. As a finishing touch, top with a bit of arugula and dress the whole thing with a dressing of lemon juice and olive oil (now you can use the EVOO). In my dressing, I usually add a bit of kosher salt as an emulsifier.

The result? Simple. Easy. Relatively inexpensive. Damn tasty. And one of the very reasons I think Jamie is a genius.