May 26, 2013 - A trip to the kitchen

     Since today is the day before the official Memorial Day celebration and considering the fact that tomorrow we are going to be counter cultural, i.e., we are not going to BBQ, rather we are going fishing, we decided that today would be a good idea to drag out the small BBQ grill and work up a delicious restaurant quality dinner.


The all essential BBQ grill with a good fire going.

     For those of you not in the US or if you are unfamiliar with the Memorial Day "holiday" and the origin of the celebration, here are few links to sites about Memorial Day.
http://www.usmemorialday.org/backgrnd.html
http://memorialdayorigin.info/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_Day

     Contrary to common practice, and since we live in Texas this may almost  be considered treason, but we decided to forgo the usual brisket http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brisket , sausage, chicken or other common meat  for BBQ-ing, instead we chose steaks, but not your everyday Texas steak, but rather salmon steaks from the Pacific Northwest.

The Salmon steaks salted, peppered and drizzled with a good virgin olive oil ready for the grill.

     Now any good dinner must of course start with a great salad. In this case a salad with fresh from my garden lettuce and salad greens, Greek kalamata olives, not from Greece, but from Napa Valley, California http://napavalley.com/
http://napavalleyolivegrowers.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olive
but also with fresh radishes from my garden, thin sliced cucumber (still waiting for my plants to mature and set fruit), slices of mango, slices of Roma tomato, very thin sliced red onion, fresh sliced mushroom (the store bought kind), all of this with a light drizzle of lemon juice and apple cider vinegar.

The fresh salad ready to be put away in the refrigerator

while everything else is being prepared.



       Some pasta, in this case spaghetti is put to boil, and in the meantime a mango curry sauce is being prepared, consisting of mangoes, olive oil, curry powder, a bit of chicken stock, lemon juice, ginger, a bit of salt and pepper. But it all starts with the mangoes.

Mango in the blender.

 

    The grill has reached the proper temperature and the smoker chips are ready, put the salmon steaks on the grill.

It doesn't look like it but the steaks will cook in the smoke

and not in the heat from the coals.

We have good smoke, about 10 minutes total,

turning the steaks after about 5 minutes.

 

      Back to the sauce, because the oil and curry has to be heated before being mixed in the blender with the mango and other ingredients.

 

Olive oil and curry powder being heated.

 

     The pasta is done, the sauce is done, the salmon steaks are done. Eat the salad, serve the pasta and fish with the mango sauce.

 

BON APETIT - BUEN PROVECHO - GOD APPETIT -

iyi iştah - καλή όρεξη - ETC.

 

 

        Please note that tomorrows weather forecast is excellent with sun and heat. With some "luck" and skill one should get a fish or two. This time we are going freshwater fishing and I am not particularly well experienced in freshwater fishing, having only fished on occasion in freshwater. Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, Saint Joseph River, Saint Johns River, Gatun Lake Panama, Black Creek and Doctors Inlet in Florida.

 

Wish us luck.