Lemongrass Coconut Poached Salmon

The only fish that I usually eat on a daily basis is tilapia and the only reason for that is because my Dad likes to buy it in bulk and give it to me.  I wish I could eat different fishes more often, but it is not convenient since I am not too big on frozen fish and I do not get to the market too often to buy it fresh.

After months of eating nothing, but tilapia, I decided that I needed to stop by HEB one day after work to pick up some salmon.  I am weird with salmon.  I generally do not like it cooked and if it is, it really has to be done the way I like it.  Other than that, I would rather it is as sashimi at sushi restaurants.  

I already had my dinner planned out that day because I had picked up some lemongrass the previous night just to have on hand.  Lemongrass has an amazing flavor profile, but I never remember to buy it when I go to Asiantown.  This is something they need to carry at American markets more often.  I created a poaching liquid consisting of lemongrass, coconut milk, fish sauce, red bell pepper, onion and garlic and let that fused together for a little while.  

As the poaching liquid was doing its thing, I prepared the salmon and vegetables for the garnish.  For the salmon, I skinned it and simply seasoned it with salt because all the flavor will be coming from the lemongrass coconut liquid.  The skin was rendered to a crisp and set aside.  For the zucchini and squash, it was poached and the radishes and red onions were already pickled from a previous dish.  The tomatoes were simply toasted with salt, pepper and olive oil.  

The salmon was gently put into the poaching liquid and simmered very low so that the fillet does not break apart.  The salmon did not take long so I pulled that and reduced the poaching liquid.

This was going to be a fun presentation because I was going to wing it.  First I prepared the "salad" which took a while because I had to have everything in the right place so it would hold the other vegetables in place.  Then came the salmon.  I had plated one plate with the sauce on the bottom and the salmon on top, but did not care for that look.  Then I saw something on the Foodnetwork where they just poured the sauce over the fish and decided to go with that look and topped it with black and regular sesame seeds.  

The dish overall had a Thai flavor to it.  All I wanted was to use lemongrass and did not intend to make it Thai inspired, but it worked out because the dish was wonderful!

Sesame Soy Braised Chicken

I love chicken, but I was just stumped on what to do with chicken breast a couple weeks ago.  Not only was I stumped on how to cook the chicken, I could not figure out how to plate the chicken!  I have been following a home chef on Instagram for the past couple months and she recently went home to visit and took all these great pictures of all the delicious food that she had eaten at restaurants.  I find her food very inspiring.  I happened to stumble upon a soy braised chicken that she had posted at a Chinese restaurant and that sounded delicious.  

So for dinner that night, I made my own sesame soy braised chicken breast with a variety of aromatics.  For the braising liquid, I used sesame oil, soy sauce, Chinese cooking wine, with ginger, onion, garlic, cinnamon, cloves and oregano.  I let the liquid simmer to bring all the flavors together for about ten minutes.  I dropped in my chicken breast on medium high for about eight minutes and shut the heat down to low and covered it and just let it braise in the liquid.  

As I let the chicken stew in the sesame-soy liquid, I prepared my garnishes which included poached squash and zuchinni and pickled some red onions and radishes.  

After about 30 minutes of the chicken soaking in the liquid, I pulled it to let it cool a little bit before I sliced it.  The soy gave the skin such a beautiful color.  As I sliced the chicken breast, I noticed how juicy it was.  The flavors penetrated the chicken breast so well without drying it out.  

The overall flavors of the dish worked out very well together.  The vegetables were poached in a citrus flavored liquid.  The radishes and red onions gave the dish and amazing presentation with its bright colors.  At the last moment, I candied some ginger to top the chicken.  

Bacon with Potato Chips

It has been a while since I have posted once again.  I had someone ask me the other if I had been starving myself since I had not updated my blog.  I have been doing plenty of cooking, but needed some time to regather my thoughts and do some research on more great food.

I had cured some bacon a little while ago and still have a bundle in my freezer...good problem to have!  A couple weeks ago, I was out of fresh ideas on plating and remembered I had seen something on MasterChef where the chef had to recreate one of Chef Gordan Ramsey's dish with potato confit and scallops.  This is not exactly like Chef Ramsey's plate, but it was created base off of it.

The beauty of homecured bacon is that you can cut it any way you want to.  In this case, I had cut up some bacon and cooked it down.  I used the bacon fat (who wouldn't right?) to fry the thinly sliced potatoes.  I tossed the potato chips with garlic power, salt, parsley and Chinese five spice powder.  Why the Chinese five spice powder you ask?

The bacon was cured with Chinese five spice powder already and the bacon fat had a hint of the flavor so I went ahead and decide to enhance the flavor a bit more.  Phenomenal!

The plate on MasterChef had a salad that came with it so I made the "salad" as my garnish.