Sometimes you just have to cheat. I was planning to serve a beautiful seared Ahi tuna loin. I wanted to slice it and serve it on an olive Tapenade. This is a classic combination in the Mediterranean, but I had one problem, I didn’t have the hour it was going to take to shop for, and mince the 12 ingredients that go into my Tapenade recipe. Lucky, I live near a Trader Joes (a CostPlus World Market, or Whole Foods would have also worked), so I went in and bought a jar of prepared green olive Tapenade. Before it went into the basket I carefully checked the ingredients… nothing but vegetables and spices! It was incredibly close to the one I make from scratch, and so I decided to use it guilt-free.
When I got home a quick taste-test confirmed my belief I had made a great decision. It tasted great and I was ready to move on to the tuna. So the point is, if you’re going to “cheat” and use prepared foods, make sure they’re high-quality and all natural. Now, this Tapenade would have made a great accompaniment for my seared tuna all by itself, but I decided to dress it up with some blood orange juice and olive oil as you’ll see in this demo. Bye the way, this mixture is fantastic on almost anything from grilled fish to roasted vegetables. It’s low-carb (as in almost no-carb) and since a small amount goes a long way, it’s also fairly low-cal.
4 tbl green olive Tapenade 1 small blood orange (or half a regular juice orange) 2 tbl olive oil salt to taste cayenne to taste
Today’s video recipe will expose one of the great faux-gourmet tricks of all time. In the back of everyone’s refrigerator there is usually a collection of dressings, sauces and condiments. Many are almost gone, containing just a few tablespoons, yet you just couldn’t bring yourself to throw it away the last time you cleaned out the fridge. Thank goodness you didn’t! These last few spoons of “whatever” spread on some fresh wild salmon filets and then glazed under a hot broiler can produce some amazing “gourmet” results.
In this video recipe I used one of my favorite condiments, Romesco sauce, which is a spicy Spanish roasted red pepper and almond pesto type mixture. You may have seen me use this in a delicious stuffed summer squash recipe a while back. But, as you’ll hear me say in the clip, this can be done with almost anything; salad dressings like balsamic or lemon pepper, almost any aioli or mayo based sauce, any style bbq sauce, even pesto or olive tapenade will work. Since salmon goes so well with so many flavor profiles you have lots of options. The only thing to be careful with would be something that has a very high sugar content, which may burn before the salmon is cooked, since we are broiling the fish. If you do use something like a honey mustard dressing, you may want to cook it a little further away from the heat.
After watching this recipe, please, go out and buy some wild salmon (frozen is fine!) and go hunting in the back of your fridge. I would love to read your comments on what you found and used and how it came out. Enjoy!
Ingredients: 2 six ounce salmon filets salt and pepper to taste 3 tbl of romesco sauce, or “whatever” *broil under high heat for 6-10 minutes until sauce is glazed on and salmon is cooked
Today’s post is really two separate demos. One is to show you a fantastic, all-purpose salad dressing using sherry vinegar. The second is a technique that makes emulsifying a dressing a fast and easy process. The reason I like sherry vinegar so much is that combines the complex, tartness of really good wine vinegar, with the rich, sweetness of balsamic vinegar. The vinaigrette shown today literally goes great with everything; whether it’s under a delicate filet of poached fish, over a grilled steak, or with an avocado salad, as you see pictured here (avocado salad sold separately).
The squeeze bottle method I show is such an easy way to emulsify a dressing and eliminates the need for the old “stand there and slowly drizzle in the oil in a fine stream” method. Lots of professional cooks will of course use a blender, which works great, but for the home cook making smaller amounts, I think my squeeze bottle is the way to go. By the way, as you’ll hear me attempt to explain during the video recipe clip, the small amount of mustard is a key ingredient, and if you leave it out, the oil and vinegar will not stay bound together. Needless to say, this is my base recipe and can be varied in countless ways by adding herbs, garlic, shallots, etc. Enjoy!
Ingredients: 1/3 cup sherry vinegar 1 cup olive oil 1 tsp Dijon mustard salt and pepper to taste
Sometimes you just have to cheat. I was planning to serve a beautiful seared Ahi tuna loin. I wanted to slice it and serve it on an olive Tapenade. This is a classic combination in the Mediterranean, but I had one problem, I didn’t have the hour it was going to take to shop for, and mince the 12 ingredients that go into my Tapenade recipe. Lucky, I live near a Trader Joes (a CostPlus World Market, or Whole Foods would have also worked), so I went in and bought a jar of prepared green olive Tapenade. Before it went into the basket I carefully checked the ingredients… nothing but vegetables and spices! It was incredibly close to the one I make from scratch, and so I decided to use it guilt-free.
