Besotted Gourmet » Caprial’s Bistro Style Cuisine

Pan-Seared Salmon with Luscious Green Sauce

Jessica — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 14:39:54 +0000

When I was little and learning to play the piano, there was one song that I loved more than any other, and I played it constantly. So much so, that just playing it became kind of pedestrian, and I had to do something to jazz it up…. So I timed myself, to see how fast I could play the piece from beginning to end. It came out sounding just as you would expect a song to sound that a 6 year-old was speed-racing her way through, but I had to do something to make it challenging, and speed was my handicap of choice.

Skip ahead a couple of decades, and I’m not exactly the little pianist hellion banging away on the keys with no thought other than speed…. But, I’m not that far away from her, either. Nice 10 mile commute to work? I’ll ride my bike. Beach read? I’ll take Sophie’s Choice over Sophie Kinsella. Friends over for a work-night dinner? I’ll flake out and make this pan-seared salmon with luscious green sauce, which takes 30 minutes if I’m slow and 15 minutes if I’m in crazy speed-demon mode.

As much as I love a challenge, there are certain restraints of the space/time continuum that I can’t overcome – namely that I am required to be 15 miles outside the city until at least 5 o’clock and plan to serve dinner at 6:30, which gives me approximately 30 minutes to prepare something guest-worthy. And, this salmon dish works perfectly .

Lightly cooked salmon is brightened with a really pungent and tangy green sauce, consisting of fresh herbs, lemon, garlic, and, if it suits your taste, anchovies. It tastes way more decadent than the prep time or calorie count suggest, and, is just different enough to be really noteworthy.

Enjoy!

Pan-Seared Salmon with Luscious Green Sauce, Serves 2

Adapted from Caprial’s Bistro Style Cuisine

Prep Time: 20 Minutes

Cooking Time: 10 Minutes

Total Prep Time: 30 Minutes

Ingredients:

For the Salmon:

2 6oz. Salmon Fillets

Salt & Pepper

3 Tbls. Olive Oil

For the Green Sauce:

1 Cup Basil Leaves, chopped

¼ Cup Mint, chopped

½ Cup Parsley, chopped

3 Tbls. Capers

1 Lemon, juiced and zested

2 Anchovies, chopped or 1 Tsp. Anchovy Paste

3 Cloves Garlic, minced very finely

Salt & Pepper to taste

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 350°. Heat the olive oil in a large, oven-proof pan over medium-high heat until just smoking, about 2-3 minutes, depending on how quickly your stove heats up.

While the oil is heating, liberally salt and pepper your salmon fillets.

Once the oil is just smoking, add your fillets to the pan and sear for 2 minutes on each side.

While the fillets are searing, place the garlic, lemon zest, and lemon juice in a medium-sized bowl and mix well to cover the garlic with the lemon.

Once the fillets are done searing on the stove top, transfer the pan to the oven and cook for an additional 8 minutes.

While the fillets are baking, add the rest of the green sauce ingredients to the bowl and mix well; the lemon juice will ‘cook’ the garlic enough to take the sting out, but be sure that your garlic is minced well – no big chunks!

Once the fillets are done remove from the oven plate, and heap the luscious green sauce on top. Enjoy!

Fettuccine with Pecan Herb Sauce

Jessica — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 02:32:55 +0000

In a thoroughly unsurprising development, the holiday season has left me with less time than I’d like to do the things I enjoy most – namely putter around the kitchen and cook. I eat out too much, go to too many parties, and order delivery too often in an effort to save time for gift-wrapping, which inevitably takes 5 times longer than it takes the average all-thumbed clutz, that I end up cooking less during this home and hearth-oriented season than usual.

And, quite frankly, eating out so much sounds fun, but it is a bit off-putting. I like my own cooking, I like creating something, I like knowing what goes into it, I like being in my kitchen and doing the familiar dance around my pantry and stove, and not doing it makes me feel out of sorts.

Which is why it’s important to have recipes like Fettuccine with Pecan Herb Sauce that are the amazing combination of delicious, easy, quick-to-make, and healthy – in short, it gives me the face time with my kitchen that I crave and results in a pretty fantastic meal. Win, win…and…. win.

Enjoy!

Click here for a printable version of the recipe

Fettuccine with Pecan Herb Sauce, Serves 4

Adapted from Caprial’s Bistro Style Cuisine

Prep Time: 25 Minutes

Total Prep Time: 25 Minutes

Ingredients:

1 Cup Pecans

½ Cup Parmesan, grated

3 Cloves Garlic, chopped

1/3 Cup Thyme Leaves, chopped

1/3 Cup Basil Leaves, chopped

2/3 Cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Salt & Pepper

1lb. Fettuccine

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 250° and put a pot of salted water onto boil. Spread the pecans out on a baking sheet and toast in the oven (or a toaster oven) for 10 minutes or until fragrant… once you start to smell their toasty goodness, they’re ready to come out.

Once the water has started to boil, add the fettuccine and cook for 8-10 minutes or according to the box instructions, and then, get on making the pecan herb sauce.

Place the toasted pecans, grated parmesan, thyme and basil leaves in the bowl of a food processor or mini-food processor. Chop or pulse until fine. Add the extra-virgin olive oil through the feed tube with the processor running. Season the sauce with salt and pepper.

Once the fettuccine has finished cooking, drain, but leave the noodles a bit wet, and mix with the pecan herb sauce. Toss well, serve, and enjoy!

Buttery Veggie Popovers with Gorgonzola Sauce

Jessica — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 15:09:09 +0000

For those of you that think that vegetarian dinners consist of greater amounts self-righteousness than flavor, let alone decadence, meet the Veggie Popover and…. Eat. Your. Hearts. Out.

Hearty veggies steeped in a deep, rustic wine sauce, baked inside a flaky, buttery pastry shell and drowned in a gorgonzola cream sauce obliterate any notions that vegetarian dinners are an ersatz gourmet experience. Every bite is more delicious and satisfying than the last, and if you also happen to feel a little self-righteous for getting so many veggies into your diet, all the better.

Just a little forewarning, come to this dish with a hearty appetite, and approach the recipe with a fair amount of time and energy – there’s a good hour and a half of solid prep time (though, not all at once), but, I assure you, the investment is well worth it.

Also, for those of you that think that Boston’s recent heat and humidity wave has made me 1) overly ambitious with regards to grocery lists or 2) mad, I’ll admit that the ingredient list does look daunting, but when you look at it more closely, you’ll realize that many of the items are already in your pantry, fridge, or garden:

Garlic, check; wine (red and white), check; heavy cream (check – I make loads of ice cream and always have a pint on-hand), herbs, check (thank you, herb garden); water, ah, check. When you actually go shopping for the items, you’ll realize it isn’t as bad as it looks.

Although it goes without saying, this dish is perfect for entertaining…. impressive, delicious, decadent, and most of the work can be done in advance.

Enjoy!

Veggie Popovers with Gorgonzola Cream Sauce, Serves 4

Adapted from Caprial’s Bistro-Style Cuisine

Prep Time: 1 Hour 45 Minutes

Cooling/Resting Time/Baking Time: 35 Minutes

Total Prep Time: 2 Hours 20 Minutes

Ingredients:

For the Veggie Filling:

2 Tbls. Olive Oil

½ Onion, diced

2 Cloves Garlic, chopped

1 Yukon Gold Potato, peeled and diced

1 Carrot, peeled and thinly sliced

1 Cup Mushrooms, sliced*

1 Summer Squash or Zucchini, rough chopped

¾ Cup Red Wine

2 Tsp. Fresh Basil, chopped

1 Tsp. Fresh Parsley, chopped

1 Tsp. Fresh Thyme, chopped

1 Tsp. Salt

½ Tsp. Pepper

For the Crust and Eggwash:

2 1/3 Cup Flour

½ Cup Butter, sliced into 8 pieces

½ Cup Shortening

½ Tsp. Salt

½ Cup Cold Water

1 Egg

1 Tsp. Water

For the Gorgonzola Sauce:

1 Cup White Wine

2 Cloves Garlic, chopped

2 Shallots, chopped

1 Cup Heavy Cream

1/3 Cup Gorgonzola Crumbles

Preparation:

Chop all of the herbs and vegetables. Owing to the quantity of veggies to be chopped, this is one of the few recipes that I strictly adhere to the ‘mise en place’ rigidity of professional kitchens.

Tons o' veg... Get chopping!

Heat the olive oil in a large saute pan over medium heat until hot. Add the onion and garlic and saute for 2 minutes. Add the potatoes and carrots and saute for 4-5 minutes. Add the summer squash (or zucchini) and mushrooms and saute for 2 minutes.

Add the red wine, increase the heat to medium-high, and let the wine reduce for 10 minutes. Add the basil, parsley, and thyme. Remove from the heat, give the veggie mixture a good stir and add the salt and pepper. Stir again, and set aside on a trivet to cool.

Onto the dough….. place the flour, butter, shortening, and salt in a large bowl. Using your (clean) fingers, mash the butter and shortening into the flour, until the mixture is crumbly. (This was a first for me, as I typically make doughs in my food processor or mixer, but it worked very well and didn’t dirty another bowl, which makes it aces in my book).

Add the cold water to the mixture in 4-6 batches, mixing well with a fork in between each. The dough should be fairly wet, but not sopping. Cover dough with plastic wrap and let sit for 20 minutes.

Once the dough has rested and the veggies are well on their way to being cool, preheat the oven to 425°. Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper (or, alternatively, grease with butter).

Flour your hands and rolling pin, and roll the dough out onto a VERY well floured surface (wet dough needs a bit more flour to make it workable). Roll the dough into a rectangular shape (about 24 inches wide) for 4 popovers. Cut the rectangle into 4 equal squares and add about ¼ – ½ cup of the veggie filling to the center of the squares.**

Fold the dough up over the filling, creating a snug package; pinch the dough to seal in the filling.

Prepare the egg wash by beating the egg and tsp. of water. Using a pastry brush, brush the egg wash over the popovers.

Don't worry about the beauty of your popovers.... those bumps and ridges look rustic and beautiful once baked, and, besides, you'll be drowning them in gorgonzola sauce.

Bake the popovers in the oven for 22-25 minutes.

While they’re baking, make the gorgonzola sauce. In a sauce pan, over medium-high heat, bring the wine, shallots, and garlic to a boil. Reduce the wine until about ¼ cup remains (3-5 minutes). Add the heavy cream and reduce again until ½ cup liquid remains (another 3-5 minutes). The heavy cream will froth up while reducing and make it difficult to judge the quantity; just remove it from the heat for a few seconds, it’ll settle down, and you’ll be able to gauge the quantity more easily.

Once reduced, remove from the heat, stir in the Gorgonzola crumbles until it looks creamy (don’t worry about a few errant gorgonzola crumbles that haven’t melted.)

Once the popovers have finished baking, remove from the oven. Using a spatula, plate the popovers, drown in gorgonzola sauce, and serve with a big salad (to counter the heaviness of the dish). Serve and enjoy!

*Select the mushrooms that best fit your taste and budget, but I chose a mix of Shiitake and Chanterelle.

** You can cut a greater quantity of dough pieces and just add a little less filling (6 would be my recommended maximum) if you’d like smaller, more plentiful popovers.

Asian Veggie Ravioli in Spicy Coconut Broth

Jessica — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 14:50:16 +0000

There are certain kitchen tasks that, no matter how simple, always reduce my ego and perception of my own mental capacity to the size of a child. For example, basting a turkey…. It’s quite simple, really. You just dip the tip into some of the juice, squeeze the little rubber-thingy, and distribute the juice over the turkey. Simple, right? But, somehow, I always end up choking on the heat of the oven, bump my head tellingly against the oven door, can’t quite get the juice into the baster (at which point it makes that hideous slurp-slurp noise), jab at the turkey senselessly, causing it to lose far more moisture than I ever intended to put in, and usually give myself a nasty burn.

I also will not cut a cake, for reasons that are too inane and embarrassing to expound upon here.

However, the bright side is that there are also those tasks which are ludicrously easy, but make you feel incredibly accomplished and just a little sad that your now-obvious talents have gone unnoticed for so long. This was exactly my experience when making these Asian Veggie Raviolis, as I was certain that making raviolis (nearly) from scratch was a task best left to professionals, but I dove into the task with the back-up plan of eating the filling with a spoon and looking at the pictures from the cookbook in the back of my mind.

Needless to say, the raviolis could not have been easier to make, made quite an impressive presentation, and were a very inexpensive dish. These raviolis would make a spectacular dish to serve to guest (particularly if you have vegetarians in your midst), but is easy and quick enough to make on a week-night (as long as you get home at a reasonable hour).

One other thing before the recipe… it’s ok to make the filling and the sauce in advance, and then just construct and cook the raviolis just before serving, as old-ish raviolis can get a bit dingy.

Enjoy!

Click here for a printable version of the recipe

Asian Veggie Raviolis in Spicy Coconut Broth, Serves 4

Adapted from Caprial’s Bistro-Style Cuisine

Prep Time: 50 Minutes

Cooling Time: 1 Hour

Total Time: 1 Hour 50 Minutes

Ingredients:

For the Filling:

1 Tbls. Ginger, peeled and rough chopped

2 Cloves Garlic

½ Cup Scallions, rough chopped

1 Carrot, rough chopped

6 Snow Peas

1 Red Bell Pepper, de-seeded and rough-chopped

½ Cup Shiitake Mushrooms, rough-chopped

2 Tsp. Vegetable Oil

1 Tsp. Sesame Oil

1 Tsp. Chile Paste

2 Tbls. Soy Sauce

48 Wonton Wrappers

For the Broth:

2 Tsp. Vegetable Oil

2 Cloves Garlic, chopped

2 Tsp. Ginger, peeled and chopped

¾ Cup Stock, either chicken or vegetable

1 ½ Cup Reduced Fat Coconut Milk*

2 Tsp. Honey

1 Tbls. Five-Spice Powder

1 Tsp. Chili Paste

Preparation:

Heat the vegetable oil in a saute pan over medium heat while you prepare the filling.

Put the garlic, ginger, and all of the vegetables for the filling into the bowl of a food processor and pulse into very finely minced and well-blended.

Turn the veggie mush out into the saute pan and cook for 3-4 minutes, stirring frequently. Add the sesame oil, chili sauce, and soy sauce and stir well. Remove from the heat and allow to cool for 1 hour.

Just before the hour is up, put a pot of water on the stove top to boil over medium-high heat and start in on making the broth.

Heat the oil in a sauce pan over medium heat until hot. Add the garlic and ginger and saute for 1 minute, stirring constantly to prevent burning. Add the stock, coconut milk, and honey and bring to a boil. Add the five-spice powder and chili paste, and turn the heat down to low and allow to simmer for 10 minutes.

While you’re waiting for the stock to boil and simmer, you can get on making the raviolis. Lay your wonton wrappers out on a flat surface. Drop just under a rounded teaspoon onto the middle of them, brush the sides with water using a pastry brush, and place another wrapper on top, pinching down the sides. Be careful to not over-fill them.

Once prepared, cook your raviolis in the GENTLY boiling water (it should be over medium-high heat) for 2 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and allow to drain in a colander.

Plate the raviolis, ladle some of the spicy coconut broth over them, and garnish with dried cilantro or parsley. Enjoy!

*I almost never go for the reduced-fat version of items, but coconut milk is extremely heavy, and I prefer the reduced-fat version.

Oven-Poached Halibut in an Orange Marsala Sauce

Jessica — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 13:00:45 +0000

It's not the prettiest dish, but it smells and tastes fantastic.

I am not a fan of ‘cooking-lite.’ If I’m going to do something, I want to do it right, even if it means carrying around a little extra junk in my admittedly full trunk.

Now, this doesn’t mean that I have a total disregard for health or that I’m cramming slices of bacon and hunks of cheese into my mouth all day long. Quite the opposite, it’s just that I would prefer a smaller portion of something that tastes fantastic than a heaping plate of something that tastes so-so.

That being said, scrolling through Besotted, I did notice that there were an awful lot of bacon-y, cream-laden, cheesy, and chocolate-y recipes. At the same time, the seasonal winter-weight-gain has had my pants fitting a bit snugly, and I thought it was time to include a completely healthy, but still rock-your-world delicious Weeknight Dinner recipe.

This Oven-Poached Halibut is an adaptation from a lesser-known cookbook that has been a staple in my kitchen for several years. Caprial’s Bistro-Style Cuisine has a decidedly Northwest flavor (not surprisingly, since the restaurant is located in Portland, Oregon) with lots of fresh fish, shallots, mustard, cherries, and fennel incorporated into the recipes.

I made a couple substitutions and added a bit of kale, because I do like to get dark greens into my diet whenever I can, and I ended up with a spectacular dinner that takes less than 30 minutes, grocery-bag to dinner plate.

One note, halibut is expensive, and these are not the times for splurging on a Weeknight Dinner. Substitute with any white fish (cod, haddock, etc.), and the results will be much the same, for a fraction of the price.

Click here for a printable version of the recipe

Oven-poached Halibut in an Orange Marsala Sauce, Serves 4

Ingredients:

4 6oz. Pieces of Halibut, Haddock, or Cod

1 Onion, julienned

2 Cloves Garlic, rough chop

1 Fennel Bulb, julienned

Fronds from Fennel Bulb, rough chopped

2 Tbls. Olive Oil

Salt

Pepper

1 Tbls. Butter

½ Cup Marsala Wine

1 Orange, juiced and zested

1 Cup Kale, rough chopped

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 350°.

Season the pieces of halibut with salt and pepper on both sides. Heat the olive oil in an oven-proof saute pan that with a lid over medium-high heat. Once hot, saute the onion and garlic for 2 minutes. Add the fennel and saute for another 2 minutes.

The size of the chop is important here because they're being cooked on high heat. A julienne or any medium sized chop will let the pieces cook evenly.

Add the seasoned fish to the pan. Pour the orange juice and marsala over the fish. Add the orange zest, butter, kale, and chopped fronds from the fennel bulb to the pan, and stir together, making sure that the liquid covers all of the ingredients.

Cover the pan with the lid and cook in the oven for 8-10 minutes.

Once cooked, plate the pieces of fish and pour the orange marsala sauce over them, and serve.