Before I knew how to cook, I thought if you bought ingredients that you liked at the grocery store, it didn’t matter whether you had a set meal in mind or a combination you wanted to try. All you had to do is look into your refrigerator when you got home, and the meal would come to you. The ingredients you bought would somehow, in your mind, magically combine and you could create something delicious and perfect for dinner.
This, of course, is before I learned that usually meals consist of parts- protein, grain, vegetables, etc. So, I would end up with meals like a hot dog, no bun, baked beans and creamed corn. Notice how nothing in that meal is fresh.
As I learned how to cook, I swung in the totally opposite direction. Recipes only! Make a list! Go to the store and buy ONLY what is on that list! If you don’t have something from the recipe, you can’t make the recipe. You have to go out and buy it before you can cook.
(or, alternatively, you try to finish the recipe, but without making any changes based on the missing ingredient. Usually turns out badly).
It’s only been recently that I’ve been able to look at my refrigerator and at least be able to tell whether or not I have a full set of ingredients for a recipe. And then either cook it or not. Last night was one of those wonderful occasions that I actually thought about putting together a meal without a recipe and it worked! It started with looking around the kitchen and realizing that we didn’t have a central part to a dinner dish. Instead, we had a lot of vegetables. So, my lovely husband suggested salmon.
Now, it being midsummer (hooray! I am in denial summer will ever end), we have a bunch of ripe tomatoes in the house. Also, I had a craving for guacamole, so we have avocados. And a red onion. Put those together with some corn, which is also in season? And you’ve got a delicious salsa! Avocado, red onion, corn, tomato. Sounds delicious on a piece of seared salmon. So that’s what we did.
Some hints:
You want your cuts for the salsa to be as even as possible. That way, you always have a similar amount of each ingredient on your spoon.
Try to even your proportions. A whole ear of corn will be a bit much for just one tomato, so you might want one small and one large tomato.
Usually I like my avocados to be really ripe, almost over ripe. This makes for delicious guacamole. For the salsa, however, you want the avocado to be a bit more firm. This allows it to not “melt” into the other ingredients.
Cook the salmon. It may look cooked on the outside. It’s not. Test the inside. It’s still raw. Cook it all the way through.
Recipe: Salmon with summer salsa.
Ingredients: 1 lb salmon, deboned and cut into two fillets (the seafood counter should do this for you)
1 Lemon
Onion/ Garlic (optional)
1 Avocado, ripe but not overripe
1 Large tomato or 2 small tomatoes
1 small red onion
1 ear corn
Salt
Pepper
Olive Oil
1. Preheat your pan with a bit of olive oil. Medium heat works best.
2. Chop up and add some white onion and garlic, if you want. This is for flavoring, you won’t actually eat it.
3. Salt and pepper your salmon filets, and place them skin side down in the pan.
4. Cut up your lemon. Half should be wedges, which get squeezed over the filets in the pan. The other half, cut into as thin slices as you can get them. Lay them over the filets.
5. While the salmon cooks, make your salsa. I start with the red onion. Chop into small pieces.
6. Chop up the tomato.
7. De-kernal the corn. I actually found a small bread knife works really well here. Just hold the cob vertical and saw down.
8. Cut up the avocado.
9. Mix onion, corn, tomato and avocado together in small bowl. Salt lightly.
10. By now, your salmon might be done. I say might because we sat down to raw salmon last night. So, you might want to cook it more. And check before you eat it.
11. Eat the salmon with the salsa on top and a nice glass of white wine. Delicious!
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