Saturday, October 22, 2011

Salmon Experiment #3: Sauteed Salmon with Sweet Potato, Papaya Rougaille, and Couscous

Once again in my deep concentration upon a recipe I forgot to photograph my piece of art as it was in the making. My results didn't look like the picture in this recipe at all, but were even more beautiful and colorful, in my opinion, with the vibrant pink of the papaya and reds of the onion. I made the rougaille up a few hours early, substituting balsamic vinegar for red wine vinegar since that is what I had on hand. The papaya was very good, I'd had the giant fruit sitting on the counter ripening over the last few days. My mouth still stings from the uncooked red onion in the mix, but it was a pretty impressive sauce to pile atop the dish. I went for a walk to enjoy the 65 F sunny October afternoon, down to the Point to sit on some rocks and contemplate life, and then it was back home to start on the rest of the recipe.

I didn't find zucchini at the store so I just popped cubed sweet potato into salty water and boiled that while I worked on the rest of the ingredients. I threw the other half of my red pepper from the first salmon experiment into the oven with some olive oil and let it roast that way. As I don't like mushrooms and didn't want to use any butter, I sauteed up the onions and garlic with cumin and olive oil and then prepared regular small couscous since I don't particularly like the large fat couscous either. So I made several important alterations to this recipe but I still think it turned out tasty. My roommate had to give me lessons in preparing salmon with the skin on because up to this point I'd been trying to saw it off pre-cooking and was ending up with disastrously torn fillets. Fried up the skin peeled right off! So we sauteed the salmon up that way and then laid it on a bed of couscous and heaped the delicious rougaille on top and off we went to enjoy what turned out to be a very tasty dish (though as I mentioned above, I might reduce the red onion amount because it overpowers my mouth and the aftertaste!).

So there you have it, my third experiment and I'm still learning about how to cook with salmon. There are three or four fillets left in the bag so I'm sure you'll hear about yet more experiments to come! I saw one recipe that is poached or steamed with earl grey tea and I've been wanting to try these tea poached dishes, so that may come next!

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