Chile Roasted Salmon

I'll admit it, I've become a spoiled brat when it comes to salmon.  And it's all Peef's fault.

For years, he made regular trips out to Seattle in the late spring to meet with one of his major sales accounts. And every time he visited, he'd bring me something delicious from the market.  Sometimes he'd bring me a bag of freshly roasted coffee. More often he'd bring me fragrant spice blends from World Spice Merchants. And in the late spring, he'd bring me my absolute favorite thing:  fresh Copper River Salmon.

The first time he brought salmon home, he surprised me.  He'd purchased a whole Alaskan Sockeye from the market, had it packed in dry ice, and smuggled it onto the plane in lieu of his usual carry-on.  At the time, I wasn't yet the salmon devotee that I am today.  But, I knew from my first glance at that fish, that there was no turning back.

In the days following his return flight, we ate as much salmon as we could -- relishing the filets grilled, roasted, and pan-fried (encased with thin slices of potato and served alongside wasabi mashed potatoes).  When we'd had our fill of the freshest fish I'd ever eaten in my life, I researched the best ways to package the remainders for freezing.   Once the portioned filets were neatly packed away in our chest freezer,  I constructed the best salmon "burgers" EVER from the leftover bits and pieces.

I thought there couldn't be anything better than fresh sockeye salmon.  Until he brought me an Alaskan Copper River the next year...  and, well, you get how the obsession started.

Unfortunately, Peef has moved on from the job that required his quarterly trips to Seattle. It's been at least two years since I've tasted salmon half as fresh, though the memory of that clean flavor still haunts me.

These days, you'd be hard-pressed to find me buying salmon from the local supermarket (or even the more upscale meat/fish counters), though I do make exception for wild salmon in the off-season that has been painstakingly frozen and stored -- fish that retains at least some apparition of its former glory.

Which brings me to the dish I'm about to present to you.  It's fabulously easy. And deliciously picante. And it's the perfect solution for a rainy spring evening when you can't get outside to enjoy the deliciously smoky flavor that only the grill can impart.

The topping for the fish is simple -- chipotle peppers, salt, garlic, sugar, lime, Mexican oregano, and a bit of olive oil.  Spread it on top of the filets of salmon and bake for 10-15 minutes.

What you end up with is a filet of tender, flaky salmon topped with a hot, sweet, smoky glaze.  The perfect accompaniment for that Cuban sidecar you've been craving.

Chile Roasted Salmon



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Daring Cooks May: Goat Cheese Enchiladas with Homemade Red Mole

Wow, how time flies! It's time again for the May edition of the Daring Cooks Challenge.  Our hosts this month, Barbara of Barbara Bakes and Bunnee of Anna+Food have chosen a delicious Stacked Green Chile & Grilled Chicken Enchilada recipe in celebration of Cinco de Mayo! The recipe, featuring a homemade enchilada sauce, was found on www.finecooking.com and written by Robb Walsh. 
 
We thank Barbara and Anna for coming up with an exceedingly DELICIOUS challenge -- but also for allowing us the chance to stretch our culinary muscles a bit.  They gave us lots of freedom with this one, and I'm pleased to say that we really took the opportunity to run with it.  While we didn't make our own tortillas (which would have been great, if we'd had the time), and we didn't make the green chile sauce (since we've already had a lot of practice making our own roasted tomatillo sauce, that would have been akin to cheating), we did manage to come up with our very own recipe for mole -- an accomplishment, I dare say, that we wouldn't have tackled had it not been for the inspiration the challenge provided.

I'll admit that we approached this month's project with a bit of trepidation.  It wasn't so much that we were frightened by the thought of making our own enchilada sauce.  But, we were pretty sure that we wouldn't have the TIME.  Usually we set aside an entire weekend to devote to our DC challenges.  But, this month, we didn't have that luxury.  We'd have to complete the challenge on a weeknight. After work. And I was planning to make homemade mole -- that Mexican sauce infamous for being... well, a bit time consuming.

But, we're not the sort of people who give up easily.  No sirree. So, we decided we were gonna tackle this thing. Inspired by the approach taken by my good friend, Rebecca, over at Cakewalk, we decided to tackle the challenge in parts. We'd divide up the work over multiple evenings. We'd set aside all else to make the challenge happen. And we'd make a grand attempt at taking half-decent photos at 8:00pm.  We'd persist, and that was all there was to it.

Well, we managed.  And we're here to tell about it.
So, sit right down and we'll attempt to serve you up a little bit of mole...

It all started with our mise en place.  I decided to improvise on the ingredient list -- putting everything I knew about mole together in one place.  I collected my ancho chiles, tomatillos, a few cherry tomatoes (not pictured), garlic, sweet onion, sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds (pepitas), raisins, and a bit of Ibarra Mexican chocolate.  I also gathered together an arsenal of wonderful spices -- cracked anise seeds, cinnamon, ground cloves, black pepper, Mexican oregano, and smoky chipotle powder.

There were quite a few ingredients. But, that didn't stop us.  We got right to business --  sauteeing and roasting.  I decided to roast the tomatillos and cherry tomatoes to mellow out their acids and give them a slighly smoky flavor.  They would then be pureed with sauteed onions, garlic, and spices, and seared in a hot pan full of oil to bring out the best in their flavors.

Just get a load of that delicious looking chocolate. Mexican chocolate is made from dark, bitter chocolate mixed with sugar, cinnamon, and sometimes nuts. The end result is a "grainy" and less smooth product than the chocolate to which we're accustomed in the States. But, if you ask me, it's just as delicious -- especially for mole.

We cooked the sauce for 30-40 minutes, until all the flavors were blended.   At the end, we tasted for seasonings, and packed the sauce away for another day.  The good thing about that is that it gave the flavors a chance to meld even more in the refrigerator.


The next day, we got to work on the enchilada filling.  We combined fresh soft goat cheese, sauteed onions & garlic, raisins, grilled corn, toasted pine nuts, and plenty of cilantro.

We used my favorite technique for prepping the sprouted corn tortillas for filling.  We sprayed them with a bit of coconut oil and placed them in a hot oven for 4-5 minutes, just until they were pliable.  And then we stacked them on top of one another and started filling the enchiladas.

 

We filled each tortilla with about a 1/4 cup of filling, rolled them in the traditional manner, and laid them in a baking dish side by side.

When all of the enchiladas were prepared, we spooned over a bit of the reheated mole sauce.

After adding a bit of chihuahua cheese, everything was ready to go into the oven.   After about 20 minutes, we were greeted by a pan filled with amazingly fragrant enchiladas.

 You may never have thought to fill an enchilada with goat cheese and corn, but you'd be surprised what a delicious filling it makes -- particularly when paired with the sweet and smoky flavor of the red mole.  We owe this idea to Deborah Madison, who features a version of this dish in her book, Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone.   The first time we tried her recipe, we accomplished it with the help of a bit of mole paste from our local Mexican grocer.  But, this time around, the flavor was even more profound.  The fresh mole -- while turning out quite similar to other moles we've tried -- was definitively more fresh, more vibrant.  The chocolate flavor mingled with the smoky tang of the ancho chiles, and the spices muddled into a wonderfully sweet and spicy serenade of flavor -- the perfect foil for the tangy goat cheese.

Goat Cheese Enchiladas with Homemade Red Mole


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Cold Buster: Mexican Style Chicken Soup with Chiles

Up until about three days ago, I thought I'd actually escaped the cold season this year. Peef and I have both been healthy as horses. We scoffed at the stomach flu when it passed through town. We laughed in the face of a few dozen colds and breathed sighs of relieve when we got through both January and February without so much as a sniffle.

Of course, I should have known better than to think we were out of the woods already; after all, it's only March. There's still bits of snow on the ground here in Wisconsin, and the temperatures won't be steadily above 50ºF for another 3-4 weeks.

Sure enough, I woke up on Tuesday with the rumblings of a sore throat. I took a nice wopping dose of Vitamin C, as a precaution, but I chalked the scratchiness up to a rough night of snoring. Heh. By Wednesday, when the sniffles started settling in, I was pretty sure that something more than sleeping with my mouth open was to blame. And today... well, today I'm verifiably cold-ridden. Serves me right for getting all cocky and thinking my immune system was impenetrable.

On the up-side, feeling under the weather always gets me in the mood for a nice big bowl of soup. And I've got a pretty fantastic version to share with you today. This actually started out with the intention of being an easy-peasy tortilla soup... but the direction turned a bit when I discovered a few stray dried chiles sitting around in the back of my fridge.

Mmm. Chiles. There weren't many of them, so they'd be perfect thrown into my soup. But, the process for rehydrating them would add a bit of time to the soup prep, and I wasn't really sure I was up to it. But, after taking a nice big whiff of their rich, smoky aroma, I pulled them out of the bag and tossed them into some warmed chicken broth and let them soak for a good 1/2 hour.
When they were sufficiently softened, I blenderized them into the smoothest puree I could manage.
And then, just to be safe, I threw the whole mess through a fine sieve to get out all the seeds and funky little bits that are inevitably left over.
I sauteed some onions & garlic, threw in a bit of cumin and some Mexican oregano. And then I turned up the heat a bit. When the pan was nice and hot, I threw in the chile puree all at once and let it sear nicely. I added some tomato sauce, and then let the sauce reduce a bit before I added the remaining ingredients -- some additional broth, a bay leaf, and some minced red bell pepper.
After the soup had simmered for a while, I also threw in about a 1/2 pound of shredded collard greens. After all, why not take the health benefits up a notch with a bit of leafy-green action?
By the time the greens were cooked and I'd thrown in some cooked chicken and a bit of frozen corn, the kitchen smelled positively irresistable. Between the smoky chiles and the savory broth, I was seriously feeling better already. I poured a nice big serving into a bowl, and stuffed my face down into it. *huff* This was some seriously good food for a person who started off feeling not-so-much like cooking.

A bit of avocado, a couple of crunchy tortilla strips, and a liberal dose of cilantro (mmm... antioxidents), and I was all set for dinner.
I don't know about your mother, but my mother sure didn't make chicken soup that tasted like this!

Mexican style Chicken Soup with Chiles



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