Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Same old, same old.

You know, I can go weeks without cooking anything particurlarly groundbreaking or new. Little variations on lamb cutlets or Flintys wonton soup or lasagne. I mean I cook these things very, very well and they taste good, so what's not to like?

Then I get in a mood like last weekend. It started when I was driving along and was struck with the mood to make marmalade. The mood was infectious, beacause I dropped into the fish wholesaler on Friday and came away with these instead of the three steaks I was going to buy.





I figured I'd whip something up with the smoker, so I cut my fresh pieces off, then lightly cured the fillets in salt, brown sugar, pepper, dill, garlic and ginger. I left it overnight and it extracted a surprising amount of liquid. I then patted them dry and popped them in the smoker for a day.





My plan was to blend the smoked salmon up with a bit of cream cheese and sour cream and lime juice, with a spoon of guacomole on top, to have as pre dinner food with drinks in the spa. The results were ok, until we introduced some crackers, then it was nibbles heaven.

It was a bit of a seafood night. We also had ryanos favourite dill and butter prawns on the BBQ, a bit of squid and some scallops.




The next day I had the salmon paste on those lunch bikkies, with sliced tomato, avacado and worcestershire sauce. Then I had it again and then some more, then just another one. Wish I'd had a bit of fresh chilli.


I have three of these left in the fridge, they were smoked a full 24 hours more and this week I am going to have a bash at making some cream cheese at home to go into my salmon spread. Looks like the mood hasn't left me yet.


The cold smoker is quickly turning into the best food project I've ever done.

MF from the iPhone

4 comments:

  1. Bloody hell, that looks fantastic.

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  2. Salmon is fast turning into a contender for my favourite meat. That salmon paste is outstanding.

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  3. Ahem. Did someone say Salmon? You seem to have lost your shirt pet.

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  4. I always cook with clothes on. It reduces the risk of moulting chest hair into the food.

    A colleague at work's washing machine just died. Am thinking of offering to dispose of it for him. Trouble is, he commutes weekly from Sydney.

    ReplyDelete