Tag: Salmon

salade nicoise with roasted beets & potatoes

tomatoes potatoes carrots salmon olives salads beets asparagus eggs halibut

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When I find myself with a refrigerator full of beautiful Alaskan produce (and sometimes, some fresh seafood), I often prepare this salad to make a big dent in it. Just pick several of the vegetables to prepare. I usually make a huge salad and invite friends over to help eat it, since it’s so beautiful—I just have to share it! It’s a meal in itself if you add plenty of vegetables and serve it with toasted whole wheat bread dunked in olive oil!
lemony vinaigrette

2 garlic cloves, minced
1 small red onion, minced fine
juice of one lemon
¼ cup white wine vinegar
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard (if you have grainy mustard too, you can use 1 tablespoon of each)
1 tablespoon honey
½ to 1 teaspoon sea salt or kosher salt
¼ teaspoon cracked pepper
½ cup extra virgin olive oil

Whisk together all the vinaigrette ingredients, except the oil, in a small bowl. Slowly drizzle in the oil while whisking. Season with salt and honey to taste, then set aside.

vegetables (pick 5 or 6 of the following to prepare)

2 pounds garlic-roasted potatoes (see following recipe)
1 pound green beans, blanched in salted water until just tender. Drain the beans and immediately spread them out on a baking sheet spread with a dishtowel. (This allows extra water to evaporate, and the beans stop cooking almost immediately.)
1 pound roasted beets (see following recipe), peeled, sliced into wedges, and tossed with some of the lemony vinaigrette
1 pint cherry tomatoes or several slow-roasted tomatoes (see “tomatoes” section)
4 hard-boiled eggs, peeled and quartered (See perfectly cooked hard-boiled eggs in the “sandwiches and things to eat on toast” section.)
1 pound grilled asparagus (see “asparagus” section)
4 roasted red peppers (see following recipe)
1 large cucumber, sliced thin and tossed with some of the lemony vinaigrette
3 large carrots, grated and tossed with some of the lemony vinaigrette

optional fish (pick one if you’d like to include fish in your salad)

fresh Alaskan scallops, threaded on skewers, sprinkled with salt and pepper, and grilled on a clean, oiled rack just until done
kippered salmon, flaked
fresh salmon, seasoned with salt and pepper or lemon pepper, and grilled
fresh halibut, seasoned with salt and pepper or lemon pepper, and grilled

 
salad

½ cup kalamata olives, pitted
2 tablespoons capers, rinsed and drained
12 cups of assorted salad greens
cracked pepper

Compose this salad on a large serving platter. Toss the salad greens with some of the lemony vinaigrette, and make a bed of lettuce on the platter. Attractively group each vegetable on the lettuce. Have fun with all those colors! Drizzle vinaigrette over all the vegetables. Scatter the olives and capers over all, and sprinkle cracked pepper over the top. Enjoy!!

garlic-roasted potatoes

2 pounds small Butterball potatoes (or other yellow, waxy potato)
garlic oil (recipe in Step 1.)
sea salt or kosher salt and freshly-ground pepper

1. Make garlic oil: Mash or mince 3 or 4 garlic cloves and cover with ½ cup extra-virgin olive oil. Let steep for 30 minutes if you have time. Strain out the garlic and store the oil in the refrigerator.
2. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Cut the potatoes into halves or quarters. Toss them in a bowl with a few spoonfuls of garlic oil, then sprinkle with salt and pepper. Toss again.
3. Lightly oil a large baking dish or sheet pan, and transfer the potatoes onto it, making sure that a cut side of each potato is touching the pan. (The side touching the pan will brown nicely). Roast the potatoes until tender and browned, 35 to 40 minutes.

roasted beets
1. Put the beets (unpeeled) in a baking dish and put ¼” of water in the dish. Cover with foil, and bake them until tender when stabbed with a paring knife. Usually they take 40 minutes or longer, but young beets might be quicker, depending on how big they are. In the fall, when the beets are bigger, they may take much longer—up to an hour and a half. Remove from the oven and let cool until you can pick them up without burning yourself.
2. When the beets are cool enough to handle, slip their skins off. Cut in halves lengthwise and then crosswise into ¼-inch thick slices, or in wedges—as you prefer.

roasted red peppers
1. Preheat your grill or broiler. Roast the red peppers, turning them as each side gets blackened.
2. When they are blackened all the way around, place them in a big bowl and cover it with a lid or a plate until the peppers are fairly cool (this steams and cooks the peppers the rest of the way).
3. Peel the skins from the peppers and remove the seeds, but don’t rinse the peppers—just rinse your fingers as you peel the skins off. Slice the peppers into ½” wide pieces.

green salad with garlicky red wine mustard vinaigrette

salad lettuce salmon mustard pepitas avocado dressings salad greens pumpkin seeds smoked salmon

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This dressing is one that I make a lot of at once, and then keep in the refrigerator to use all the time. It keeps really well, is yummy and creamy without any eggs or cream in it (mustard is the emulsifying agent), and is great with a variety of different salads. These are two of my favorites—to eat as a meal, with the fish and avocado, or to make more simply, and to eat as a side with soup, beans, or open-faced toast sandwiches. You can also toss the dressing onto steamed broccoli or green beans and top them with toasted green pumpkin seeds.

dressing

6 tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
4 medium cloves garlic, chopped coarsely
1 teaspoon sea salt or kosher salt
1-2 tablespoons honey
------------------------------
½ cup extra-virgin olive oil

Put first 5 ingredients in a blender and blend until completely smooth. Slowly pour in oil to make a creamy emulsion. Taste and season with more salt or honey if it needs it.

salad—for a meal, with smoked salmon and avocado

1 large head lettuce, washed, dried, and torn into bite-sized pieces, or a large bowl of baby salad greens or stemmed baby spinach
½ cup pepitas (green pumpkin seeds), toasted in a skillet until puffed and golden
1 avocado, peeled and cut into cubes
1-2 cups kippered salmon, flaked (I love to use buttery-rich Alaskan king salmon)

1. Toss the salad greens with dressing to your taste, then add the avocado and salmon. Toss again.
2. Sprinkle toasted pumpkin seeds over the salad and serve.

salad—as a side, with toasted pumpkin seeds

1 head lettuce, washed, dried, and torn into bite-sized pieces, or a bowl of baby salad greens or stemmed spinach
¼ cup pepitas (green pumpkin seeds), toasted in a skillet until puffed and golden brown

Toss the salad greens with dressing to your taste, then sprinkle the pumpkin seeds over the salad and serve.

southwest caesar salad

lettuce salmon salads bread pepitas chipotle avocado roasted vegetables salad greens pumpkin seeds

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This is a favorite salad of mine, and the dressing is based on a recipe in a cookbook called rebar modern food. Often we’ll just eat this salad for dinner. It makes a fantastic main course if you add the salmon, or you can omit the fish for a lighter salad if you want to serve other Southwestern-themed dishes with it.

Because this recipe uses roasted garlic, it takes a little planning ahead. If you can remember to do it, you can roast the garlic up to a few days ahead of time, whenever you’ve got the oven turned on for something else. Just keep the garlic refrigerated until you’re ready to use it for the dressing. The dressing keeps well in the refrigerator for a week or so, so you can eat this for a couple of meals, if you like.

Look for the cans of chipotle chiles in adobo sauce in the Mexican food section of the grocery store. You make the chipotle puree by pureeing a whole 7-ounce can of the chiles and sauce in the blender. Then, just store a jar of the puree in your refrigerator or freezer. Or, if you don’t think you’ll have much use for the puree, just fish out a chile from the can and toss that in the blender with the rest of the dressing ingredients. Make sure not to get a really big chile, though! They are spicy! You can freeze the remaining chiles in a flattened plastic ziploc bag, and just break a chunk off as you need it.

This salad is fantastic with slices of golden, crispy toast made from Rise & Shine Bakery’s golden maize pan loaf! It’s also really nice with black bean chili (don’t add the salmon to the salad, if serving with the chili).

dressing

1 bulb roasted garlic (recipe follows)
1 tablespoon lime juice
1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
1 tablespoon capers, rinsed and drained
1 ½ teaspoons Dijon mustard
1 garlic clove, chopped coarsely
½ teaspoon sea salt or kosher salt
¼ teaspoon cracked pepper
1 tablespoon chipotle puree (see note in recipe introduction, above), or 1 of the whole chiles from the can
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½ cup olive oil

Squeeze out the contents from the roasted garlic bulb and combine with the other ingredients, except the oil, in the bowl of a blender. Blend until smooth. With the motor running, slowly drizzle in the oil until thick and creamy. Correct seasonings to taste.

salad

1 very large head romaine lettuce or 2-3 hearts of romaine, washed, dried, and torn into bite-sized pieces
½ cup pepitas (green pumpkin seeds), toasted in a skillet until puffed and golden
1 avocado
1 cup kippered salmon, flaked (I love to use the buttery-rich Alaskan king salmon) or canned salmon, flaked [optional—use the fish if you want this to be a main dish]
slices of golden maize sourdough bread 

1. Peel and dice the avocado.
2. Toast slices of golden maize sourdough bread.
3. Toss lettuce with dressing to your taste, add avocado and flaked salmon (if using). Toss again.
4. Sprinkle with toasted pepitas, and serve the salad with toast on the side.

roasted garlic
You can make several heads of this garlic when you bake it, and spread the soft, sweet cloves on toast, or add to other dishes, like soups, or hummus, or beans.

whole heads of garlic
olive oil
salt and pepper

1. Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees (or whatever temperature at which you’re baking something else). Slice the top off the garlic bulb, just enough to expose the tops of the garlic flesh. Center the bulb on a square of aluminum foil. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Wrap the bulb securely and pop it into the oven.
2. After 45 minutes or so (longer if it’s at a lower temperature), you should start to smell the roasting garlic, but depending on the size of your bulb, it may need a bit more time. Test by unwrapping it and slipping the sharp point of a paring knife into one of the cloves. If it slides in effortlessly, or the cloves are starting to poke out of their skins, then the garlic is ready.

potato and onion salad with smoked salmon

potatoes salad lettuce onion salmon fish

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This salad is wonderful with new little peanut potatoes! But any kind of waxy potato will work wonderfully (even the purple ones!). You can use any kind of flaky smoked fish for this recipe, but I’m more likely to have salmon than anything else! If you don’t eat fish, you can substitute 2 tablespoons rinsed, drained capers for a briny flavor (along with the olives).

The recipe is based on one in Deborah Madison’s Local Flavors. It looks like a lot of lettuce, but the hot potatoes wilt it down to almost nothing—it’s just a wonderful green color without much bulk, once you mix everything together.

1 ½ pounds peanut potatoes (or other waxy variety)
sea salt or kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
1 large onion, or 2 small onions, sliced thinly into rounds (red onions are lovely!)
3 tablespoons white wine vinegar
¼ teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
16 green olives, pitted and halved (you can use black kalamata olives if that’s all you have, but the green are very pretty)
6 ounces smoked salmon, flaked
8 cups lettuce, washed, dried, and torn into bite-sized pieces

1. Cover the potatoes with cold salted water and bring to a boil. While they are cooking, toss the onion with the vinegar, sugar, and ½ teaspoon salt and let sit for a few minutes. Then add the oil, olives, and fish (or capers).
2. When the potatoes are fork-tender, drain them, then cut in half lengthwise if they are small. Cut into bite-sized pieces if they are bigger. While still hot, add them to the bowl along with the lettuce. Turn gently with a rubber scraper. Taste for salt and season with pepper.