Smoked salmon sushi rolls

Posted on December 7, 2020 by Chelsea

This is one of those meals we have all the time but it never occurs to me to post here. It’s just a weeknight meal. It doesn’t feel “impressive” or “blogworthy,” but as I was making it the sixth-or-so time in so many months, I finally asked myself why. Well, because, I answered (what? You don’t have these kind of conversations with yourself?), it’s so… simple. There’s not much to actually cook, it doesn’t take long, the ingredients are (mostly) really easy to find, and… why did I think this wasn’t worth posting again?

We’ve been calling these “sushi burritos” mainly due to size and shape, but they really are just unsliced maki rolls, filled with avocado, cucumber, pickled ginger, and a generous portion of smoked salmon. “No raw fish?” you’re thinking, “so how is that sushi?” Ah, but “sushi” refers not to the fish – though that is probably what many of us call to mind first when we hear the word – but the rice: short grain, combined with (usually) seasoned rice vinegar, and then wrapped, covered, or rolled with other ingredients.

Here I’m using smoked salmon instead of the more traditional uncooked fish. Though I agree it would never stand up against a beautiful slice of raw ahi, the substitution is nice for a few reasons. First, especially if you are limiting your trips to the grocery store right now, you don’t have to worry about using it immediately – convenient if your avocado is less ripe than you’d hoped. Second, it tends to be much less expensive. Third, the texture is not quite the same, but it is comparable – on the tongue this does not feel like cooked fish, and if you can find one that is not particularly smoky, the salmon flavor comes through nicely. You could also use a cured product like gravlax for an even purer salmon-y flavor. And if you aren’t comfortable purchasing or consuming raw fish at all, this is an easy workaround.

Aside from acquiring the ingredients, the most intimidating component of sushi for many people is the rolling: spreading the rice evenly over the nori, trying to keep all those central components together, ending up with a nice, tight roll and good shape. For me, though, it’s the slicing. That’s when things start to come apart: when you disrupt the structural integrity of the nori, now nice and flexible after absorbing some of the moisture and warmth of the rice, by running a usually-not-sharp-enough knife through it. Here I forgo all but one slice, drawing my sharpest knife just once through each long roll, on a diagonal, and calling it a day. We get to the eating part faster that way.

I noted above that the ingredients for this meal are mostly easy to find. If you have an Asian market nearby, they are very easy to locate. If you don’t, your grocery store probably has an “ethnic foods” aisle with most of these ingredients: the rice vinegar, nori sheets, and pickled ginger (the same stuff, often lightly pink, that comes on your plate next to the blob of wasabi at your local sushi joint) will more than likely be there. If you can’t find wasabi mayonnaise, that same aisle will probably have various options for prepared wasabi – I just get a tube of it and add it to regular mayonnaise until the degree of nostril-tingling spice suits my fancy.

I’m also using furikake here (same aisle), a rice seasoning that is basically a mixture of sesame seeds and finely diced nori, seasoned with salt and sugar. My current container also has bonito flakes, and there are spicy varieties too. Bonus: furikake is also a madly delicious seasoning mixture for popcorn.

If you are efficient about all this, you can prep your vegetables and get everything else ready in the time it takes the rice to cook. My rice cooker usually requires about 25 minutes, and I find I can usually have everything else prepped and laid out in that time span. (Yes, I use a rice cooker for this instead of cooking my rice on the stove. I like the insurance that it offers, since it switches to “keep warm” when it’s done instead of, you know, continuing to cook into a blackened mess because I forgot to set a timer and got busy with other tasks…).

The play of flavors here, as you know if you enjoy sushi, is so comforting and so, just, good. The avocado and salmon are rich and fatty, so the watery crunch of cucumber and the pickled ginger punch provide a nice foil. The wasabi mayonnaise is just background spiciness, and the nori, warmed and moistened by the rice, takes on a chewiness I really like against the seasoned rice. You could serve this however you want, though we like two rolls a-piece, each one sliced in half at a steep angle. No need for utensils here – we just pick them up, pinch the uncut ends together a bit to avoid anything escaping, and enjoy the resistance of the chewy nori wrapper with each bite. You could likely also wrap them into cones for a more traditional hand roll shape, though I’ll admit I haven’t tried it that way yet, and thus I’m including instructions only for my method.

Smoked salmon sushi rolls

4 whole rolls (serves 2)

30-40 minutes, depending on how fast your rice cooks (some rice cookers take longer than others, and can differ from the speed at which rice cooks on the stove)

2 cups short grain white rice, cooked on the stove or in a rice cooker

¼ cup seasoned rice vinegar (if yours is unseasoned, stir in 1 teaspoon sugar and 1 teaspoon salt)

optional: 2-3 tablespoons furikake seasoning

about ½ a small cucumber, cut into long planks as thin as possible

4-6 ounces lightly smoked salmon, cut or torn into small pieces

½ ripe avocado, very thinly sliced

1-2 tablespoons pickled ginger (also called sushi ginger)

4 sheets nori

1-2 teaspoons wasabi mayonnaise

First, cook your rice. Use the time as it cooks to prep the other ingredients: thinly slice the cucumber using a knife or y-shaped vegetable peeler. Cut the avocado into very thin slices. Cut or tear the salmon into small pieces (this makes for easier eating). Fish out the appropriate amount of ginger from the container. Get everything laid out for easier construction.
When the rice is done, immediately mix in the vinegar and, if using, the furikake seasoning. It will be extremely tart at first, but the vinegar flavor will mellow as the rice cools. Set it aside until it is cool enough to handle.
To build the rolls, lay a piece of nori on your work surface, rough side (if there is one) facing up, short end toward you (most nori I’ve worked with is slightly rectangular, not exactly square). Spread a small amount of wasabi mayonnaise evenly over the nori, leaving a small border on all sides.
Scoop on about ⅓ cup of rice and use your fingers to spread/sprinkle it somewhat evenly over the nori sheet, leaving a half inch or so border at the far edge. About half an inch in from the edge closest to you, place two slices of cucumber, then about a quarter of the salmon pieces, then a few thin slices of avocado, then a few pieces of ginger. As you can see in my photos above, these should be arranged horizontally from your perspective, and all fairly tightly together.
Begin to roll the nori sheet by folding the short end closest to you up and over the row of fish and vegetables, then continue to roll until you get to the opposite side. The half-inch border you left rice-free will ensure a clean closure of sorts.
I like to slice these just once, on a diagonal, with a very sharp knife. Then we pinch the uncut ends together a bit and eat them out of hand, like a small burrito.

Potato Crusted Salmon with Pea and Arugula Puree

Posted on May 13, 2019 by Chelsea

There’s not much of a story here, only an observation my sister made that it seems like I’m into fancy food lately. I attribute this to spring break, when I made the dishes in my last three posts, because I had some time on my hands and I wanted to play. This recipe, and the deviled eggs crostini from last month, came from a list I keep on my laptop of food ideas, which oddly enough doesn’t often get used – I write down delicious-sounding concepts, and then I forget about them.

Not so with this one anymore. Very loosely imagined after a dish N. had years and years ago on the Oregon coast that just wasn’t as good as it should have been, I decided to top salmon filets with an herby crab salad, then wrap the whole thing in wafer-thin slices of potato and serve it over a velvety smooth puree of peas and arugula. Very spring.

The finished dish was good, and the flavor was delicious. It was not, however, as perfectly beautiful as it could have been, largely because I think to make this dish as gorgeous as it deserves to be, you really need a mandolin or a v-slicer, which is equipment I don’t have (largely because my kitchen storage situation leaves a bit to be desired). I made do with a potato peeler, as can you, in a pinch, but the results were only passable, not stellar.

Notes below about crab and puree options: jumbo lump is, of course, the premium choice, but lately I’ve found a mixture of jumbo or regular lump and claw meat is just fine. As for the puree, as I note below, you can choose your texture to please your palate (and your partner’s); I went with something pesto-like, but processing or blending further would offer a smoother sauce, and passing through a strainer, though somewhat time consuming, would produce a silky bright green sauce. Proceed as desired.

Potato Crusted Salmon with Pea and Arugula Puree

About 45 minutes

Serves 2 (with leftover crab salad)

For the crab salad:

Zest of one lime

Zest of one lemon

3 TB finely minced dill + a few extra sprigs to garnish if desired

1 TB finely minced chives

2 TB finely minced celery and/or radish

10 ounces crab meat, carefully picked through for cartilage pieces

about 3 TB mayonnaise

salt and pepper to taste

For the salmon:

2 6 ounce boneless, skinless salmon filets

3-4 medium Yukon gold potatoes

salt and pepper to taste

1 TB butter

1 TB olive oil

For the pea and arugula puree:

4 ounces defrosted frozen peas

2 TB butter

2 ounces baby arugula

1 TB lemon juice or to taste

salt and pepper to taste

Optional: blanched pencil asparagus

First, make the crab salad: combine all ingredients in a medium bowl. You can use whatever sort of crab you want; I like a mixture of lump, for the sweetness, and regular or crab and claw meat, for the affordability. Start with the recommended 3 TB mayonnaise, but you can add more if desired. You are looking for just enough that the mixture starts to hold together. Set the finished crab salad aside until it is time to assemble.
For the salmon, preheat the oven to 375F. Do a quick but thorough check of the filets to ensure there are no bones. Salt and pepper the fish on both sides, then set aside until the potatoes are ready.
The easiest way to proceed is to make very thin vertical slices of the potatoes on the wider side using a mandolin slicer, so you end up with long, wide strips. If you are using a mandolin, you will probably only need 2 potatoes worth of wide strips. Use the third potato to make round slices, like potato chips, by cutting horizontally across the small ends. If you don’t have a mandolin, you can do a passable job with a y-shaped potato peeler. Again, try for the longest, widest slices you can manage. You’ll probably need all 4 potatoes if you are using a peeler, because at a certain point you won’t be able to carve out clean slices anymore. Use 3 of the potatoes to make the long, wide strips, then use the fourth one to make the round, potato chip shaped slices.
To assemble, on a cutting board, lay out a row of long, wide potato strips, slightly overlapping, about an inch longer on each side than the filet. Add a second row just above it, again overlapping, so you have a kind of carpet of potato slices, as in the photo below.
Set the filet in the center of the potato slices, flesh side up (that is, the side where the skin used to be should rest on the potato layer). Using a spoon, top the filet with a few tablespoons of the crab salad, spreading it evenly across the surface.
Now the hard part: working quickly, begin wrapping the potato slices around the salmon. As you bring the overlapping layers up to the top, shingle on a layer of the round slices to hold the long pieces up and together. Check out the photo below to see what I mean.
Okay, now the other hard part: heat the butter and olive oil together in a medium skillet over medium high heat. When the fat is quite hot, use a spatula and your hand to carefully but quickly add the wrapped filets to the skillet, trying to get the shingled top side into the butter and oil mixture first. Sear without disturbing for 4 minutes, then carefully flip and place the whole skillet into your preheated 375F oven for 10 minutes.
While the fish is in the oven, make the pea and arugula pesto: in a small pot, cook the peas with the 2 TB butter just until they are hot. Add them to a food processor with the arugula, the lemon zest, and a pinch each of salt and pepper. Process until fairly smooth, then taste for seasoning and adjust as needed.
If you want to be fancy, you can strain the puree until a thin, smooth sauce. I decided to leave it more like a pesto texture, though, for ease.
If you are making the asparagus, now is a good time to blanch it and toss it with a tiny bit of butter, lemon, and salt.
To serve, place a scoop of the puree in the center of a plate or a shallow bowl. Use the back of a spoon to spread it into a circle. Alternatively, if you strained the mixture into a sauce, just pour some into the bottom of the vessel you’ve chosen. Place the potato-wrapped fish carefully just to the side of the center, so you can see some of the bright green circle underneath. If you made the pencil asparagus, you can nestle this between the fish and the edge of your plate or bowl, as in the photo earlier in the post.

Tempura Salmon Tacos

Posted on April 2, 2018 by Chelsea

As I mentioned not long ago, I’ve completely caught N’s obsession with tacos and now I want them all the time. In past years I thought the concept of “Taco Tuesday” was a bit silly and boring, but now it seems brilliant, because of course you wouldn’t do the same old ground beef and shredded cheddar every week; you would change it up and have charred vegetable tacos one week, slow cooked carnitas with pickled onions another week, and of course you would need fish tacos in there at least once a month.

Fish tacos tend to come in two camps: grilled and fried. When grilled, the fish is flaky and barely smoky and feels righteously healthy (at least as healthy as a taco can be), especially since it’s usually topped with confetti of cabbage, maybe a minute dice of tomatoes and, if you’re me, some paper thin slices of radish for a little peppery crunch. A spicy creamy drizzle and a generous dollop of guacamole are requirements.

But if I have to choose, I’m sure it will come as no surprise to you that I’m almost always going to go with fried. Encased in batter, sometimes cornmeal, sometimes flour, sometimes with beer, the fish stays molten hot and so juicy, and the batter is (ideally) crisp and crunchy and thus adds perfect texture even to a soft tortilla. Of course, many people’s objection to this format will likely be that it is unnecessarily heavy or fatty, and they are right: the wrong batter can be gloppy and greasy and excessive. Luckily, I have a solution to that: tempura.

Light and crisp and golden and melt-in-your-mouth-barely-there, tempura is, of course, that perfectly crunchy deep-fried coating for seafood and vegetables so common in Japanese restaurants. Its lightness is frequently achieved through the use of seltzer water as the liquid component in the batter, and sometimes rice flour, which fries up lighter and crispier than wheat flour.

The big problem with tempura, though, and what makes it a pain to do at home, is the deep-frying part. For a simple fish taco dinner, heating up a vat of oil is not high on my priority list. So I wondered if you could achieve satisfying tempura results with a shallow fry, not unlike old-fashioned fried chicken in a cast iron skillet. A few experiments later, I can definitively report that, although you have to be a touch more careful with the batter sticking to the pan, shallow-fried tempura is a completely viable option. Less oil means less time, less waste, and less of that fried smell in your kitchen (although it’s worth noting that an open window and a few votive candles lit for an hour or two can clear out most of that). My tempura batter takes the best of both worlds of fried fish, combining rice flour and baking powder not with the traditional seltzer, but with beer for a little extra flavor along with the requisite fizz.

Fish tacos are usually made with white fleshed fish of some kind – cod or halibut or mahi – but I love salmon, and have had some stellar fish and chips platters using this dense, meaty, pink option, so here I’m using it in lieu of more traditional options. You can certainly change out the type of fish you use, but I can’t speak for the cooking time of other fish since I’ve only tested the salmon with this method.

Of course half the fun of a fish taco is adorning it with various toppings, so here I’ve got two on offer for you: a red cabbage slaw bright with lime and cilantro, and a smash of avocado and corn to make up just before serving. We thought they needed nothing more, but if you like that creamy spicy sauce, I suggest whisking a few drops of sriracha into some buttermilk for a tangy kick to drizzle on.

Tempura Salmon Tacos

Serves 4

About ½ hour, if you are quite organized

For red cabbage slaw:

¼ head of red cabbage, grated or shredded or very finely slices (you can use green cabbage here too; I just like the unexpected bright color of the red)

¼-½ cup chopped cilantro, leaves and tender upper stalks

zest of 1 lime

juice of ½ lime

½ teaspoon salt

optional: 1-2 tablespoons mayonnaise or wasabi mayonnaise, if you like your slaw creamy

For tempura salmon:

1 pound salmon, cut into 1×3-4 inch strips (approximately)

⅔ cups rice flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

6-8 ounces beer (go with a pale ale or lighter; this is not a place for a deep roasty stout. Save that for waffles)

2-3 cups vegetable oil

For corn avocado smash:

1 ripe avocado (I like haas)

½ cup fresh or defrosted corn kernels

2 tablespoons thinly sliced green onion tops (dark green parts only)

¼ teaspoon salt or to taste

¼ teaspoon black pepper or to taste

lime juice to taste

To serve:

Tortillas (we like crunchy corn shells for this, but soft or blistered corn, or even flour, would also be tasty)

Optional garnishes: radish slices, crema, buttermilk and sriracha, sour cream, additional cilantro, green onion, or lime

First, make the cabbage slaw. Toss together the cabbage, cilantro, lime zest and juice, and salt in a medium bowl. Set aside for at least 10 minutes to let the salt and lime juice permeate. If you like a creamy slaw, toss in 1-2 tablespoons regular or wasabi mayonnaise just before serving.
With the slaw done, turn your attention to the fish. In a cast iron or other large, heavy skillet, heat enough vegetable oil to come about 1 inch up the sides. While the oil heats, prep a warming tray: place a wire cooling rack over a baking sheet and place in the oven. Heat the oven to 300F.
Next, slice the fish into 1×3-4 inch strips or “fingers.” You can alter the size if you prefer, but this size cooks quickly and fits well into a taco shell.
When the oil reaches a temperature between 350-375F, whisk together the rice flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. If you prefer a very light batter, add 8 ounces of beer, whisking constantly as you pour it in. If you prefer a more substantial batter, add only 6 ounces of beer.
Now you are ready to fry. Add 5-6 strips of the fish to the tempura batter, submerge to ensure they are fully coated, then gently add them to the oil one at a time (it will sizzle aggressively), being sure they are separate from one another in the skillet. Cook 1-2 minutes per side, until the batter is lightly golden and the fish is barely cooked through (this doesn’t take long; you’ll be surprised how fast it is). Remove the fish to the warming rack in the oven. Continue to fry the fish in batches until it is all cooked.
Either in between, or just after the last batch of fish goes into the oven to keep warm, make the corn avocado smash. Halve, pit, and cube up the avocado into a small bowl (I like this method) Use a fork or the back of a spoon against the side of the bowl to lightly smash the cubes of avocado to your desired texture. I like it fairly chunky. Add the corn, green onion tops, salt, pepper, and lime juice, and gently stir to combine.
To serve, add a few fish strips to a warmed, grilled, or toasted tortilla, then top with the slaw and the smash in your desired order and quantity. Eat immediately.

Melinda’s Perfect Oven Poached Cold Salmon

Posted on July 17, 2017 by Chelsea

A few weeks ago I attended a retirement luncheon for a now-former colleague (there are a lot of now-formers here lately, aren’t there?) at the home of one of her friends (and one of her now-former colleagues!). Our hostess made, among other perfect, not-too-heavy dishes for quite a warm day, a cold side of salmon so buttery and moist and perfectly cooked that a day or two later I had to email her to find out how she had done it.

Imagine my delight when, rather than a quick overview or an inexact “oh I just…” response, she sent me a page long, detailed explanation of both how she’d prepared the massive six pound piece of fish for that day, but how she does so when she’s only making a portion or two. Every step was well explained and justified, and she also told me where she gets her fish (a bit pricey for me at the moment, but maybe someday).

Because salmon is delicious cold, and because the actual cooking phase for this dish only takes about half an hour including the time spent preheating the oven, it’s a perfect dish for summer, when you don’t want to be cooking anyway (well, unless you’re me), and you can take care of the house-heating portion in the morning and stow the flaky, fatty main course in the fridge for the rest of the day.

My hostess explained that she disguised a few cracks that formed during cooking with cucumber “scales,” and this struck me for two reasons: one, wouldn’t it be gorgeous to plate more of the filet with vegetable scales of different colors – green from cucumbers, florescent pink and white from radishes, maybe even yellow from baby golden beets – and serve a fish still enrobed in imitation of its original form? (Answer: yes, and a Google image search puts my meager shingling skills to shame.) Second, the idea of vegetables atop the fish made it seem only a step or two away from a salad. To complement the “scales” and disguise any possibility of dryness caused by potential overcooking, could you add a brisk, herby lemon vinaigrette right at the last minute, drizzling over fish and vegetables alike, and thus layer on one more fatty component to ensure moistness?

I decided to find out. Following my foolhardy practice of testing out new recipe ideas on guests, I determined to showcase M.’s fish – with a few of my adjustments – for some friends joining us for a weekend dinner.

If you like salmon at all, you have to try this one. The pan, lined with aluminum foil for ease of fish manipulation and clean-up, preheats with the oven. Wine, garlic, lemon slices, thyme, and a few cubes of butter make the fragrant bath this cooks in, and though they lend subtle flavors, the star remains the salmon. The high heat of the oven does the job quickly, but the liquid bath means the method of cooking here is somewhere between steaming and poaching, which keeps the flesh of the fish tender and – not to overuse that word my former college roommate castigated as “too descriptive” – moist throughout. Slapping the fish straight onto the hot pan before adding the liquid and aromatics means the skin sticks to the hot surface, and when you remove the fish later you can peel the flabby skin right off along with its foil lining with little trouble.

What you are left with under all that, once it has cooled and you’ve meticulously shingled on some bright, thin vegetable slices (or not – up to you!) and then drizzled the whole thing with a bright, herby lemon vinaigrette, is a filet that is just cooked through, so the fish doesn’t so much flake as it does sigh into tender, buttery layers. Cold, you can taste the richness of the fish but the whole thing still feels light, and if you’ve been wise enough to plan out the rest of your dinner with make-ahead options, you only have to leave your guests for five minutes while you sweep into the kitchen and emerge with a gleaming, laden platter they will exclaim over (and, if you’re anything like me, immediately try to recreate!)

And if all that’s not enough for you, should there be any leftovers, stacked onto some soft, fresh slices of French bread that you’ve liberally spread with mayonnaise, or salted butter, or some whipped cream cheese, they produce a perfect lunch the next day that gives you enough strength to face the sink full of dishes that is the worthwhile consequence of every dinner party.

Melinda’s Perfect Oven Poached Cold Salmon

Serves 4-6

Prep and cooking time: about 30 minutes before, then another 15 after chilling, to decorate

Chilling time: 2-6 hours

For the salmon:

1½ pound filet of salmon, skin on

1 cup dry white wine

6 cloves garlic, lightly smashed

4 sprigs fresh thyme

1 small lemon, thinly sliced

2 tablespoons butter, cut into small chunks

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon pepper

For the “scales” and vinaigrette:

About ½ a cucumber, skin on, cut into very thin slices

2-3 radishes, cut into very thin slices

zest of 1 lemon

1 tablespoon minced chives

1 tablespoon minced dill

1 tablespoon minced parsley

2 tablespoons lemon juice

¼ cup olive oil

salt and pepper, to taste

additional dill, to serve (optional)

lemon wedges, to serve (optional)

Preheat the oven to 425F with a foil-lined cookie sheet inside. As soon as you turn on the oven, take the salmon and wine out of the refrigerator to warm up a bit for more even cooking.
When the oven is preheated, remove the pan and carefully place the fish skin-side down on the hot foil. Pour the wine over the fish, then scatter the garlic, lemon slices, thyme sprigs, and butter on and around the fish. Sprinkle salt and pepper onto the fish, then carefully slide the whole pan back into the oven.
Cook in the 425F oven for 12 minutes, or until the fish reaches and internal temperature of 120-125F. It will be pale pink with some white splotches, and look slightly fatty on top. Remove the whole pan carefully from the oven and set on a wire cooling rack. Immediately, using a large spoon, baste the salmon with the cooking liquid, then let the whole thing sit for 10 minutes.
After 10 minutes, baste again, then drain off the liquid. Lay a cooling rack top-side-down over the top of the salmon, then, holding both cooling rack and cookie sheet, carefully flip the whole cookie sheet over (it’s a good idea to do this over the sink). The salmon will now be top-side-down on the cooling rack. Remove the cookie sheet and peel back the foil a little at a time – the salmon skin should stick to the foil and come off cleanly (mine stuck in one place and necessitated a little cajoling).
When the skin and foil are removed, place your serving platter serving side down over the top of the salmon (so the bottom of the salmon is on the part of the plate that will be facing up). Carefully, holding both serving vessel and cooling rack, invert so the salmon and the serving plate are now right-side up. Remove cooling rack.
Cover the platter, salmon and all, with aluminum foil and refrigerate until cold.
30-45 minutes before you intend to serve, remove the salmon from the refrigerator. We want it cold, but not chilly. While you wait for it to climb a few degrees in temperature, prep the cucumber and radish slices and make the vinaigrette: in a small measuring cup, combine the lemon zest, minced chives, dill, and parsley. Squeeze in the 2 tablespoons lemon juice, then whisk in the ¼ cup olive oil. Season to taste with salt and pepper and set aside until needed.
To decorate, shingle the sliced cucumbers and radishes over some or all of the fish in a pattern you like – you can see what I did above, and the internet has, as always, many gorgeous alternatives. If you wish, arrange some bushy dill sprigs in the corner of your platter and pile some lemon slices on them for diners to choose at their whim.
Just before serving, drizzle the fish and its vegetable “scales” with the lemon vinaigrette, using a whisk or a fork, if needed, to distribute the herbs evenly (they may come out in little clumps). Serve with a large fork or a wooden spatula.

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Seared Salmon with Pea Pesto and Celery Root Puree

Posted on September 14, 2015 by Chelsea

If you are a certain type of food blogger, one who is interested in trends of the food and restaurant world, not just the backdrop and vintage props Pinterest tells us are all the rage this month, then you care about and try to integrate sustainability, and seasonality, and local foods into your cooking. You are all about ramps and rhubarb in the spring, you plan zucchini dishes for late summer and early autumn when that crop is glutted. You wouldn’t dream of presenting a heavy stew or cream-based soup unless the weather has been cold. You let the year and its turning rule your kitchen.

I try to be that kind of blogger. I try to keep my food in tune with the seasons and plan vegetable dishes according not just to what appears at my farmers’ market, but to be sensitive to the fact that not everyone is in Southern California, so not everyone has the same plethora of options I do. I even try to plan for holidays, and get appropriate dishes out there ahead of time (sometimes barely) in case you want to make them. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

But here’s the thing: I’m also ruled by my stomach. Sometimes I don’t want zucchini. Sometimes I would rather roast than grill. Sometimes there’s a combination I dream up that sounds so good I don’t want to wait until the “right” time to cook it and present it to you. That’s the case this week. This is, if I were being a responsible food person, without question a spring dish. The peas could be fresh out of the pod, the dill is all about feathery fronds and new shoots. I cook the salmon so the skin is crispy, then balance the flesh side atop lemon slices in the pan to keep it moist and tender, all freshness and brightness. The celery roots, on the other hand, are the last dregs of winter, knobbly and earthy and strange, adding pale richness to complement the salmon and tame the sprightly sharpness of the pesto.

But when I thought of it – a nutty pesto of peas and walnuts, seasoned with dill instead of basil or mint and almost on the verge of being too salty, sitting atop a piece of moist, pink salmon with crisp skin, all surrounded by the creamy celery-scented puree, I couldn’t wait half a year. It had to happen now.

There’s not much to say about this dish, story-wise. No childhood memory or restaurant meal inspired it. I just thought the combination sounded good, and it was. The pesto, in particular, though admittedly not the most appealing shade of green, is a surprising and intriguing punch. Dill works very well with peas as well as lemon, and the tannic bitterness of toasted walnuts tames the sweetness of the peas enough to keep them in the savory realm.

Note: the puree does take the longest time to create, since the starchy roots can take up to half an hour to soften. If you’re very efficient, you’ll be able to prep the remainder of the components while the hunks of celery root are simmering. I am not all that efficient, so I made the pesto first just in case. You know you best, so plan accordingly.

Seared Salmon with Pea Pesto and Celery Root Puree

45-50 minutes prep and cook time

Serves 4

For celery root puree:

2 medium celery roots, any attached stalks removed, peeled and chopped into small chunks

1-2 cups milk

1 clove garlic, skin removed

1 teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon pepper (use white pepper if you don’t want flecks)

6 ounces mascarpone cheese, at room temperature

For pea pesto:

1 cup (4 ounces) peas, fresh or frozen

⅓ cup walnut pieces

1 clove garlic, skin removed

2 tablespoons lemon juice

2-3 tablespoons chopped fresh dill

½ teaspoon salt (or to taste)

¼ teaspoon fresh black pepper (or to taste)

¼ cup olive oil

For salmon:

4 filets of salmon, 4-6 ounces each

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon fresh black pepper

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 lemon, cut into ¼ inch slices

To make the celery root puree, place the chunks of chopped celery root in a medium pot and pour in enough milk just to cover. Add salt and pepper and toss in the garlic clove. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, then immediately turn down the heat, and cook at a bare simmer until celery root pieces are fork tender, 20-30 minutes.
Once roots are tender, remove the pot from the heat, add the mascarpone cheese, and let sit for 5-10 minutes just to cool. Use an immersion blender or a regular blender (be VERY careful with the hot liquid) to blend to a smooth puree.
While the celery root chunks are simmering, remove the salmon from the fridge and its packaging and sprinkle it with the ½ teaspoon salt and ¼ teaspoon pepper. Then set it aside. We want it to come up to room temperature so it cooks evenly.
To make the pea pesto, either blanch your fresh peas by dropping them into boiling water for 1-2 minutes before a quick drain, or defrost your peas if they are frozen.
Toast the walnut pieces in a dry pan just until they smell roasty and are slightly darker brown. Let them cool, then toss them into a food processor with the garlic and whir these together into damp crumbs. Add in the dill and whir again to break up the fronds.
Dump the cooled peas into the processor and pulse at 2-second intervals 3-4 times to create a chunky, clumpy mixture that is not quite a paste.
Finally, add the lemon juice, salt, pepper, and olive oil, and pulse again in 2-second intervals until you have a thick, barely emulsified paste. You want this to be spoonable, not pourable, so keep your eye on the texture.
When you are ready to cook the salmon, heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat until the oil is rippling and shimmering in the heat. Carefully add the salmon skin-side down (oil will likely spatter a bit in excitement when you do, so stand back!), and let it cook undisturbed for 5 minutes. Really! Don’t mess with it!
After 5 minutes, top each salmon piece with 2-3 lemon slices and carefully flip over so that the lemon slices, not the flesh of the salmon, are in contact with the pan. Again, this may cause some spattering of the oil, so be careful. Let the salmon cook atop the lemon slices for another 2-3 minutes, or until just done in the center.
To serve, pour ⅓–½ cup celery root puree into the base of a small plate or a shallow bowl. Place a piece of salmon skin-side up atop in the center of the pool of puree (leave the lemon slices in the skillet, or serve one off to the side if desired). Top the salmon with 1-2 tablespoons of the pea pesto, and serve immediately.