This succulent dish has all the things I love in a recipe; an easy piece of meat to work with, a super simple sauce that tastes like something that took hours, and the classic flavor combination of hot/tangy with sweet/fruity.
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.
The first culinary fade I can personally remember, was the “blackened” craze of the early eighties. Led by Paul Prudhomme, one of the country’s first “celebrity” Chefs, it seemed like everyone was coating every thing in Cajun spices and cooking it in white-hot cast iron pans until black. Now, this was a really delicious method IF done correctly, at very high heat, in a professional kitchen (which has powerful exhaust fans to remove the cloud of smoke that’s invariably produced).
Bok Choy is becoming very easy to find in grocery stores these days as the trend to eat green veggies continues to grow (for good reason). This is great vegetable for many reasons; it’s cheap, it takes about 3 minutes to cook, it has a beautiful subtle sweet flavor, and of course it’s packed with nutritional goodness. As you’ll see, the best tip for great Bok Choy is how to trim the tops and bottoms separately so they both can cook perfectly.
What’s the best thing about being a chef? It’s being able to name your dishes anything you want! That’s right. If you invent it, you get to name it. So when I came up with this recipe I thought I would completely abuse that privilege and think of something really ridiculous. All kidding aside, mango and salmon are a great pairing. The exotic, tropical tang of the fruit and the richness of the wild salmon work wonderfully together. The “bango” comes from the spicy, sweet pepper jam I use to bind the fresh mango relish. This dish is also a great example of how just a few ingredients can produce big flavors.
The “Jerk” style of cooking comes to us from Jamaica. The term “Jerk” actually comes from the term “Jerky,” which comes from the Spanish “charqui” (Char-key), which is basically meat dried over a slow wood fire. Today “Jerk” doesn’t refer to the cooking method, but the fiery spice mix that is rubbed on the meat before it’s grilled. The key ingredients in this spice mix are Allspice and dried Scotch Bonnet peppers (one of the hottest peppers on earth!). Other common ingredients include Cloves, Cinnamon, Nutmeg, and Thyme. There are countless combinations, so I suggest you buy a high-quality pre-mixed Jerk spice mix (that's what I did – after carefully checking the ingredient list to make sure I was getting the real stuff). If you want to make your own Jerk mixture, you can certainly do a Google search and you’ll have a couple thousand formulas at your disposal.
