Spicy Salmon Tatare

This weekend my friend Kent had several cooks over for a cooking / dinner party. When we arrived at his loft we were presented with a large packet of what we were going to be making for the night. The entire evening’s menu came from Bobby Flays Mesa Grill Cookbook.

For years I’ve watched Bobby Flay cook on the food network, but I’ve never eaten at any of his restaurants. The dishes that Kent picked did a great job of highlighting Bobby’s style of layering flavors and textures in each dish. In the end we ended up with about 15 different recipes. I have to say I was really impressed with each of the dishes. My favorite dish of the evening was the spicy tuna tartar with an avocado relish served on top of white corn polenta cake.

Salmon Tartare
Adapted from the Mesa Grill Cookbook by Bobby Flay
Serves 8

2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon chipotle Chile puree
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 pound fresh salmon cut into ¼ inch dice
3 tablespoons capers, drained
¼ cup thinly sliced green onion whit and green parts (about 3 )
3 tablespoons finely chopped fresh cilantro
salt and pepper

To make the tartare, whisk together the mustard, chipotle puree, and oil in a medium bowl. Fold in the salmon, capers, green onion, and cilantro until combined. Season with salt and pepper. The tartare can only be made 10 minutes in advance.

An Army of Mini Burgers

The Best Chili

I never really thought much about Chili until recently. When I was growing up it was one of those dishes we had for lunch on Saturdays. My mom would brown off a pound of ground beef and then added a large can of chili to it. To me it wasn't that bad, but nothing special, in fact my favorite part was the Cheetos that were often served along side.

This last year my friend’s Jeff and Peter made chili for us when we were up at the cabin skiing. This chili was all about actual chilies and it completely changed the way I think about chili. This chili was made with the simplest ingredients: dried chilies, onions and beef. The flavor was direct, rich and deep. There were no beans or anything else to muddle it up. I’ve started to experiment with these ingredients to come up with a perfect recipe. The first big hurdle to get over is buying dried chilies. I’ve always felt really intimidated by the bags of dried chilies at the market. There are so many types I wasn’t quite sure where to start, so I’m just going to have to figure it out. I found a simple resource to sorting out the chilies. I’m sure this list of chilies with their pictures is kind of limited, but I liked it because it was so simple.
I purchased three 4oz bags of chilies: guajillo, hot new mexico reds and mild new mexico reds. To use the Chilies they need to be reconstituted and then puréed and pushed through a sieve to remove the outer skins. This sounds like a lot of work, but it’s not. I cut the tops off of the chilies and then emptied their seeds out. Using a knife I sliced the chilies open and opened them up flat. I placed the chilies in a heat proof bowl and covered them boiling water. I also put a small plate over the chilies to make sure they were submerged in the hot water. They need to soak for about 30 minutes. I used this time to get working on the other parts of the chili.

After the chilies have soaked for thirty minutes take them out of the water and put them into a food processor or blender to puree them. Be sure to keep the water that they’ve been soaking in because you will need add some of it to the food processor when your puréeing the chilies. I let the food processor run for a couple of minutes until the chilies looked really smooth. I placed a fine sieve over a small bowl and used a spatula to push the puree through the sieve. I was surprised by how many skins are left in the end. You really don’t want to skip this step. On an earlier batch I thought I could get away with just pureeing the chilies and skip the straining, but the final product just wasn’t very appealing because you can feel the plasticy skins in your mouth no matter how finely they’ve been puréed.

I was kind of surprised when I tasted the puree. In my mind I was expecting a hot searing sauce like Adobo, but in reality it was mild, sweet and fruity. I think it would be a really fun experiment to try different combinations of chilies and see how the puree changes. I think that will help me sort out their flavors.

The chili turned out great. I'm still working on a final recipe. I want to do a couple more test to get it just right. Every year at the county fair they have a chili cook off. If I get my recipe sorted out I think I should enter. As a side note Peter bought some dried sweet corn that we used to make spoon bread. It was great. The kernels were pretty large so I pulsed them in the food processor first. The spoon bread had a much more dynamic flavor than when I use plain cornmeal.

Guacamole Time

I've posted about guacamole in the past back on our old blog speakeasy, but it's the perfect time of year to make guacamole so I thought I might talk about it again. With all of the fires in Cailifornia this year I was all prepared to pay a fortune for avacados, but aparently all's well cause they were $1 each at the store. So go out and make yourself some guacamole. As an extra little tip check out Juanita's chips. At my store they are sold in the "mexican" section. I'm not sure why they are sold on a different isle from the rest chips, but I suspect it's because the other chips felt inferior.

Guacamole
4 avocadoes
½ jalapeno, minced
½ roma tomato, seeded and diced
2T red onion, minced
1 clove garlic minced
1t cumin
2 limes, zested and juiced
salt and pepper
½ bunch cilantro

Try to get the avocadoes a few days in advance so they are nice and ripe. I like to score the avocado flesh with a pairing knife so when you spoon it out it comes out in small pieces. Combine all of the ingredients in to a large bowl. Use a large fork to combine the ingredients to the texture you like. I prefer to leave it a little chunky so you can really enjoy the texture of the avocado.

Caesar Ceviche at Taqueria Nueve

Most of the time when I’m looking over a menu I wont even give a second thought to any kind of Caesar salad. It’s surprising that a salad that is so ubiquitous is often so bad. Even worse is the Chicken Caesar, dry and bland. I just don’t like the idea of adding a chicken cutlet to an already disappointing salad. So no chicken Caesar for me, thank you.

However, the Caesar Ceviche at Taqueria Nueve kind of rocks this world. It’s interesting, unique and really tasty. The luscious tart ceviche is the perfect foil to the creamy dressing. When I first starting dining at Taqueria Nueve this salad was one of my favorite items, but after twenty or thirty times I kind of burned myself out. Just recently I came back to it and I’m trying to remember why I ever tired of it before. Oh Caesar Ceviche, why are you so good to me?

To read a great comprehensive review of Caesar salads around Portland jump on over to Extramsg.

Something Fun and New

I've been ringing in the new year with a terrible cold, so I haven't been doing much in the kitchen. However I have been sitting on the couch reading food blogs and I've come across some fun stuff.

The first is Wine Rendez-vous. It's fun blog written by Oliver Magny. He's a young french Sommellerie and he shoots short little videos about wine. I found it very entertaining.

The second is a food blog called Taste Spotting. They collect all of the most interesting new postings on food blogs from around the world. So you can easily browse through and click on what ever looks interesting. It's like having a cooking magazine the changes every single day.

Go check them out.