Shooting from the hip

When it comes to recipes, as you may have noticed, I am not that vigilant. I know it smacks of more appeal for a dish that I wax philosophic about on this blog when there is a step-by-step following it, but sometimes I have a fridge full of ingredients and no plan. My mind is on my ever louder growling stomach and I am not thinking about the next best thing to impress my readers. This is when I pull out the big guns.

My ‘big guns’ are simply a lot of experience, quite a bit of knowledge, and a willingness to experiment and maybe fall flat on my face or, if it all works out, hit the target dead on. It’s a good thing to know how flavors work together, what items can carry a lot of seasoning and when it’s wise to just use some good salt and cracked pepper. A little understanding of food chemistry is nice, the right kind of timing and being able to eyeball something and recognize when it is finished, hopefully before it becomes inedible. I have been cooking since I was a wee lass of 7; my mom was my first teacher and she gave me my first ‘food gene’; a gene which I evolved, nurtured and morphed into the type of cook that can take a few salmon fillets, a head of cauliflower, some soft carrots, a package of interesting (??? eww, not really -more on that) pasta and a few tomatoes and make a sumptuous meal out of it, scraping the last of a jar of apple butter to enhance the whole thing. It’’s Iron Chef for the home cook, and I have made mention of my Iron Chef recipes in my blog before. I pile all the stuff I want to use on my counter, stare at it a while, yank open the fridge and pantry a few times to check for something, anything extra that might help me out and spin the culinary brain a few times, kinda like Wheel of Fortune to see where we land. Thankfully, without Vanna and Pat.

How the heck does the apple butter fit into all this food?? And what about that golden-y caramelized cauliflower you see? Here’s how; food magazines. It helps the culinary muscle flex when you read them a lot, receive a lot in the mail (I am down to just a few and I can count them on one hand now, thank you very much) I read them through studiously, and by virtue of my near-photogenic brain that takes in and stores an almost abhorrent amount of ridiculous data, it pops out at odd moments, like when I am staring at a pile of food with a growling stomach. Slowly and meticulously I cooked that cauliflower in a hot saute pan on the stove so that it turned into a golden, tender and sweet side dish, complete with carrots for eye-popping color and a drizzle of orange blossom honey dashed over with sea salt for that all important sweet-salt taste. Mind boggling, I tell you! I just wish I could remember where I read about the technique.

The pasta was a specialty pasta; parmesan parsley linguine that was unimaginative and un-necessarily costly for what I got. So much for my curious shopper syndrome. I saved it from sheer mediocrity by chopping a tomato and tossing it in with the hot pasta. With that, the “Meh” factor was still pretty noticeable even after I tossed some shredded basil on it. I won’t be experimenting with that again! I wanted something delicious and unusual to pair with the salmon. I took a sip of my hot apple cider; mmmmmm, I love cider….then another sip as I gazed into the depths of my fridge and my obscenely stocked condiment shelves, and hey! Wait a minute!! What about apple butter on it? And I could deglaze the pan with cider!! I heated my skillet and spread the salmon with the apple butter, laying it down to sizzle. Barely 5 minutes and one turn later, I lifted it out, poured in the cider and swirled up the goodness. It simmered richly, releasing an aromatic and coaxing smell into the air that unmistakably spoke of Autumn. A few pats of butter, a shake of sea salt and I poured it over the filets on the plate, a rich glaze that looked like fabulous caramel and smelled amazing.

If you love salmon, you owe it to your taste buds to try it this way. Had I been in possession of an apple or two, I would have thinly sliced it and sauteed it right along with the apple butter and cider. Now that would be amazing, wouldn’t it? Maybe a few currants, or some chopped nuts would be a nice addition too, for an autumnal type of stove top chutney to spoon over the filets.

So I hope you forgive the utter lack of a step-by-step; here is the chance to experiment with your own inner Iron Chef. I firmly believe we all have within us, as cooks and food lovers, the power to stare at a pile of ingredients and create a masterpiece. Give it a shot and see what happens.