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Fleur Du Mal -> RE: All Corridors lead to the Kitchen (1/24/2009 17:49:01)
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The Lazy Addicting Salmon
I leant against the stove, trying to come up with a recipe for a fillet of salmon. Or rather, I wavered at the brink of despair while trying to figure out a way the fillet would prepare itself.
I had bought the delightful fresh piece of sea food to be fried in a pan only a day before, but now that the time to do so had arrived, I found out that I did not want to. I couldn't blame the fish, it looked as delicious as before, what I could blame was a certain computer game... I was addicted. Soon, I would also be hungry.
My adventures in the realms of the culinary universe started simple. I can't even remember how old I was back then, but for sure, I was too young to be allowed anywhere near the stove. However, I had already spent many hours observing what happened in the kitchen, especially whenever cake-making was in progress.
One day, I waited for my family to leave for shopping, my heart pounding like a miniature drum machine. It would be the day I would brew my first pot of tea. As soon as all who had the authority to forbid me had vanished around the corner, I rummaged the cupboard for the kettle.
The outcome? Hey, I'm a tea-junkie still! When my mother came back from the store, she didn't reprimand me, only told me not to boil water when I was alone in the house. I could do it whenever she was present. In due time, preparing tea diverged to boiling potatoes, rice, and pasta, baking Swiss rolls along with other desserts and so on. A little later, it had turned into a habit that I, and sometimes my brother as well, would be the cooks on weekends.
Now, hundreds of dishes later, I stood in the middle of the kitchen and realized, that I had forgotten all about how to instruct a fish to bake itself. There were a few recipes for easy cooking in my books and files, but all of them had ingredients I didn't have available. No dill sprouting around. No lemons smiling bitterly at me. And the lack of onions made me weep.
I could have just grabbed my faithful pan and fry the fillet, but I was too lazy and addicted. Too lazy to go and buy the lemon and the dill and the onions, too addicted to waste time by the stove and fry the fish.
What if I threw it into the oven as it is? It'll dry up. And my cats would have to eat it. Not that they'd complain...
Then, I remembered the can of stewed tomatoes I had in the cupboard. By drowning the fish, I would prevent the killing the dish.
So, out of my utter laziness and pathological gaming addiction came out this recipe for cooking a salmon fillet in the oven and keeping my hands free for playing computer games in another room in the meantime.
The amount of each ingredient – when mentioned – is not exact; they are more like guidelines...
Ingredients (for two hungry persons or one moglin):
600 gram fillet of salmon (cleaned, scaled and boned)
1 can of stewed pear tomatoes (approx. net weight 450g)
3 cloves of garlic
2 tablespoons of olive oil (preferably spiced with lemon)
Following spices according to taste: black pepper, rose pepper, oregano, garden thyme, sea salt
Preheat the oven into 175 degrees Celcius.
Crush and chop the garlic with a knife or use a garlic press. Crush and mix the other spices in a mortar.
Place the fillet into an oven-proof dish skin side down. (The size of the dish should match the size of the fillet so that when you pour the tomatoes over it, the fish shall be covered.)
Cut dents into the salmon and rub the crushed garlic into them. Pour the olive oil onto the fillet and sprinkle the spices. Add the tomatoes and spread them over the fillet so that it is neatly hidden under them.
Put an oven-proof lid on the dish or cover it with a sheet of aluminium foil. Bake 45 – 60 minutes in the oven. Don't disturb your food, let it simmer in peace. Enjoy your gaming.
Serve with spaghetti*) or, if cooked for a moglin, with ice cream.
*)A hint: when serving, scoop carefully from the dish so that the skin remains whole and does not end up on your plate. You are not supposed to eat that. It was left in its place to enrich the flavours while baking.
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