Simple details, beautiful results: Seared salmon with mixed greens and miso vinaigrette

Thin slices of salmon cook quickly and slightly warm the mixed greens, green beans and snow pea pods tossed with a Japanese-based miso vinaigrette. Recipe below.

Sometimes a single detail can make all the difference in a dish. Recently when Marion and I had lunch at Lulu’s dim sum & then sum in Evanston, she ordered a salmon salad that, as words on a menu, had done little for me. But when the dish arrived at our table, it was a whole different story. Instead of the expected chunks of cold salmon tossed with greens, there were thin slices of fillet, still warm from being quickly cooked, simply arranged on top of the salad.

Suddenly, it had my attention. I visually dissected the salad as Marion described it, bite by bite [this treatment of restaurant meals is an occupational hazard—or benefit, depending on your point of view—of writing a food blog]. Yes, the salmon was slightly warming the greens. Yes, those were green beans and snow pea pods. And yes, you could taste the miso in the light dressing.

Miso [MEE-soh] is a Japanese culinary mainstay, used in soups, sauces, marinades, dips and as you’ll see here, salad dressings. Marion often uses it to make a miso soup, the kind that begins many Japanese restaurant meals, when anyone in the house is feeling under the weather. It is simple, soothing and restorative. Miso is a thick fermented paste made of cooked soybeans, salt and often rice or barley. It comes in a variety of flavors and colors, from the so called white miso, which we use most often, to golden to reddish brown. White is the most delicate flavored; the flavor deepens and intensifies as the color does.

Miso paste is readily available in Asian markets, particularly those catering to Japanese shoppers. And you can occasionally find it in supermarkets in larger metropolitan areas. It is also popular among vegetarians and vegans for creating flavorful, protein-rich broths. You’ll find it in the refrigerator case, and it will keep pretty much indefinitely in your fridge.

Creating our own take on the restaurant dish that so captured our attention took Marion and me working together in the kitchen, experimenting and tasting, especially to create the miso vinaigrette. But now that we’ve figured it out, it will be quick and easy to recreate. And it was so good that, trust me, we will. Continue reading “Simple details, beautiful results: Seared salmon with mixed greens and miso vinaigrette” →

Salad days for peaches

Arugula Salad with Peaches and Goat Cheese, a delicious, lively mix of sweet and savory. Recipe below.

Peaches and I haven’t always been on the best of terms. In fact, I’ll go entire seasons without buying a single one. First, there’s the way they often go directly from being hard as baseballs to mold-covered science experiments, with no apparent moment of just being ripe and ready to eat in between. And even when they do begrudgingly ripen, there’s often something bland or mealy or otherwise disappointing about the taste.

And then there was the tree. When Marion and I bought an old house in St. Louis, the backyard came equipped with a large, ancient peach tree. It provided a shady spot in the yard and a little extra privacy from the house directly across the alley. We looked forward to eating fruit from our very own tree.

Unfortunately, as with many old fruit trees, it had become diseased. Every summer, it faithfully produced bushel upon bushel of peaches, none of them edible. They would drop to the ground, already rotting, creating a fragrant mess on the lawn. No matter how carefully I picked them up before mowing, the mower would invariably find at least one I’d missed. Every bit as pleasant as it sounds.

And then there were the drunken wasps. Or bees or whatever. Attracted by the rotting, fermenting fruit, hundreds of them would swarm loopily around the tree and the lawn, eating the spoiled fruit and becoming completely intoxicated and lethargic. And the problem was, you never knew if they were going to be happy drunks or mean ones.

Each season, sections of the tree would die off, and we would cut away those parts. Gradually, we whittled it down to something we could entirely cut down. That was one of my happiest days as a homeowner.

This year, though, the peaches are amazing. They’ve broken my heart so many times in the past that I usually just walk right by them in the produce department. But this year I couldn’t. Their deep, beautiful color beckoned, even from a distance. Up close, their heady perfume held promise. I picked one up. Not hard as a baseball—just nice and firm and, well, ripe. So I bought some, hopeful but still ready to be disappointed. They. Were. Incredible. Delicious and sweet, with a big peach flavor and a nice, not-too-mushy texture. And the ones that were maybe a day or so away from ripeness obediently ripened without rotting.

Since that first test batch, I’ve been buying them like they’re going out of style. Which, of course, they are—summer won’t last forever. Besides eating them straight, we’ve been cutting them up on cereal, mixing them with plain yogurt, adding them to fruit salads and constantly looking for new ways to use them. Which led to this salad. Continue reading “Salad days for peaches” →

Endive, blue cheese: A great salad remembered

This Endive Salad with Blue Cheese and Walnuts always reminds me of one of my favorite little New York bistros. Recipe below.

SOMETIMES A RESTAURANT JUST CLICKS WITH YOU. The food, the setting, the staff—even the moment it’s part of. Lucien, in Manhattan’s East Village, is just such a place for us. The moment it fit so neatly into the first time we ate there was the first time Marion and I managed to get to New York together. Marion had spent lots of time there, and I had made a number of three-day solo forays in search of art, jazz and booze [all plentiful there, by the way]. But we only got around to getting there together when I won a trip for two on Taco Bell’s website a few years ago. Seriously. Continue reading “Endive, blue cheese: A great salad remembered” →