Another recipe attempt born of Costco sale inspiration and brought down by too much time between buying stuff and using it up. I did my best with 12-9: Pasta with Salmon and Basil, but I probably didn’t do it justice.
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This was the only recipe in Simply Delicious that I could find that used salmon filets, not steaks. I somehow had it in my head that there were several recipes that used salmon, and so was disappointed to find that this was the only one that I was going to knock out, despite now having a few pounds of salmon.
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I’m surprised this isn’t one my mom made–she would have liked this one. Especially with the smoked salmon–lox and bagels is our de facto family celebration breakfast.
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Ingredients. Pasta and salmon are already cooked (needed to cook the salmon off before it went bad, and I wasn’t ready to make this yet). Basil looks pretty sad, and I wasn’t in the mood to blanch and peel tomatoes, so I called an audible and went with a big jar of sun-dried tomatoes that I had stashed in the back of the fridge. Didn’t have fish bouillon (and neither did any of the local grocery stores), so a bit of chicken stock mixed with the pan drippings from reheating the salmon will have to do.
Do you see why I said I didn’t do this recipe justice?
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Pictures from a few days prior when I cooked off the salmon the first time. It was pretty good salmon though–I couldn’t help slicing off pieces sashimi-style and eating them while I was breaking it down.
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I didn’t cook them too hard this first time–I left the centers pretty raw so that when I reheated them they wouldn’t be too hammered.
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Here’s them being reheated the second time (note it’s a different pan). Now I’m letting them get a bit more color, which happens a lot faster than if I hadn’t par-cooked them first.
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Kept the pan drippings for fishy flavor, and added in the half-and-half/milk, flour, and butter. They’re going for a thickened cream sauce, but I hate when they have you just dump the flour in instead of building from a traditional roux–the sauce has more of a tendency to get lumpy this way.
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Beat most of those lumps out, but you’re still missing out on that nutty, earthy flavor that doing it from a roux first provides. If you’re going to thicken a sauce this way, you’re better off doing it with cornstarch and making a slurry with cold water first before adding it in–it’s a smoother, easier way to do it.
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My basil looks pathetic (too long in the fridge), and since I’m the only one eating this, I’m throwing this out and using dried basil instead, recipe be damned.
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The last part of my sacrilege–adding in sun-dried tomatoes. Again, I’m the only one eating this, and not only am I going through the hassle of blanching and peeling tomatoes for just me, I don’t even LIKE blanched/peeled tomatoes.
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Final, somewhat-messily-plated shot. I liked the salmon, and the pasta wasn’t bad, but it probably could have been so much more.
Grade: B+