Its Only 365 Days
191/365: SALMON EN CROUTE
9 JULY 14
In my quest to discover a new salmon dish, I happened to be watching one of my favorite daily vlogger's who made Salmon en croute for dinner. I thought it looked delicious, sounded delicious, and so I set about trying to make it. I haven't had a kitchen disaster in so long, that I think it really sort of floored me that everything all went wrong at once, but maybe I'm blowing it all out of proportion in retrospect.
The dish itself isn't particularly complicated. I wish I could have found the true traditional version of this dish, but all the recipes I found seemed corrupted somehow, so I went with what sounded delicious to me. Into the pan went a bit of EVOO, finely diced red onion, and baby spinach. I cooked the spinach down until it was wilted tossing in some minced garlic, salt, and freshly cracked pepper and a squeeze of lemon juice. Into a bowl went some cream cheese and when the spinach mix had cooled, I mixed them together. It tasted delicious...just like a spinach artichoke dip but without the artichoke. Next I pat dried my four fillets, salt and peppered both sides. I used store bought puff pastry which I unfurled and rolled out fairly thin. Then, as above, cream mix, salmon on top, another tiny squeeze of lemon, egg wash on the inside, wrapped it up, flipped them over, scored them, or in the case of the ones on right, attempted to make a little decoration with the excess and then egg wash on the top.
Yes, it was going well so far. As a side dish, I decided to make some "baked" pommes frites, but geezus, did these not work out. I should have par boiled them or something because they were wonderfully soft on the inside but crackly as hell on the outside and some were soggy, it just wasn't a good look. After 30 minutes I went to check on the salmon and it looked beautiful. It really did. I should have scored the packet in the back a bit deeper, but that's just decoration right. I got the sense though from touching the bottoms that the puff pastry wasn't done, so back into the oven for another 15 minutes. I tested one of the flower designed ones and it was horribly soggy on the inside and it had burst a bit pooling the inner juices on the tray so I feared the worst for the rest of them. One of my guests, cut into the first of the scored ones, and said, it was delicious, absolutely delicious and HOT! with heat. But by this time, for me, everything in my mind was going wrong. The frites were a weird and rubbery potato, but with a nice flavor, and the soggy salmon I had put me in an off mood. I thought my guests were just humoring me telling me the fish was good, and I HATE that. I prefer people to be honest with me, but sitting at the dinner table, thanks be, their packets were fine, cooked well, beautiful as I had intended, but mine was a pile of dough so I had to pick around the thing while they enjoyed what took almost an hour and a half for me to make. I don't know why I'm so hard on myself. My guests were happy, I could see their packets were nice and flaky but I felt really embarrassed that the potatoes were weird and that I was digging for fish on my plate. I just take a lot of pride in my cooking and everything has been wonderful for so long, that this was like personal. Like how dare I mess up.
The cliff notes version of this, is I won't e preparing this for guests probably ever again. I know get back on the horse and blah, blah, blah, and usually I do. When I fail, the next day, and sometimes even the same night, I will re-make a dish to prove to myself, if no one else that I can do it, but my heart isn't in this one and it continues to remind me why I hate baking!!! I will never be a great baker, that's for sure. I cannot stand how you have to wait until the last minute to see if something works out in the baking process with no way to pretest unless its like cake where you can stick a toothpick in. Can't do that with salmon en croute, nope!
I guess, looking at the bright side, my guests left happy and full and at least their plates were good. Yup...yup, trying to look on the bright side.
In other news, I went shopping today. It is clear I was not meant for this season's clothes. It was all weird cuts of high low shirts and dresses, and see through things and floral this and that. It's so hipster, and that isn't my aesthetic. Wake me up when they swing back around to the 50's look again. I think other than the 30's, that was the era where women looked like real women, accentuating the curves in the right places. None of this man jeans, and boyfriend jackets. If I wanted to wear men's clothing, I'd walk over there and buy men's clothing! Grr!
191/365: SALMON EN CROUTE
9 JULY 14
In my quest to discover a new salmon dish, I happened to be watching one of my favorite daily vlogger's who made Salmon en croute for dinner. I thought it looked delicious, sounded delicious, and so I set about trying to make it. I haven't had a kitchen disaster in so long, that I think it really sort of floored me that everything all went wrong at once, but maybe I'm blowing it all out of proportion in retrospect.
The dish itself isn't particularly complicated. I wish I could have found the true traditional version of this dish, but all the recipes I found seemed corrupted somehow, so I went with what sounded delicious to me. Into the pan went a bit of EVOO, finely diced red onion, and baby spinach. I cooked the spinach down until it was wilted tossing in some minced garlic, salt, and freshly cracked pepper and a squeeze of lemon juice. Into a bowl went some cream cheese and when the spinach mix had cooled, I mixed them together. It tasted delicious...just like a spinach artichoke dip but without the artichoke. Next I pat dried my four fillets, salt and peppered both sides. I used store bought puff pastry which I unfurled and rolled out fairly thin. Then, as above, cream mix, salmon on top, another tiny squeeze of lemon, egg wash on the inside, wrapped it up, flipped them over, scored them, or in the case of the ones on right, attempted to make a little decoration with the excess and then egg wash on the top.
Yes, it was going well so far. As a side dish, I decided to make some "baked" pommes frites, but geezus, did these not work out. I should have par boiled them or something because they were wonderfully soft on the inside but crackly as hell on the outside and some were soggy, it just wasn't a good look. After 30 minutes I went to check on the salmon and it looked beautiful. It really did. I should have scored the packet in the back a bit deeper, but that's just decoration right. I got the sense though from touching the bottoms that the puff pastry wasn't done, so back into the oven for another 15 minutes. I tested one of the flower designed ones and it was horribly soggy on the inside and it had burst a bit pooling the inner juices on the tray so I feared the worst for the rest of them. One of my guests, cut into the first of the scored ones, and said, it was delicious, absolutely delicious and HOT! with heat. But by this time, for me, everything in my mind was going wrong. The frites were a weird and rubbery potato, but with a nice flavor, and the soggy salmon I had put me in an off mood. I thought my guests were just humoring me telling me the fish was good, and I HATE that. I prefer people to be honest with me, but sitting at the dinner table, thanks be, their packets were fine, cooked well, beautiful as I had intended, but mine was a pile of dough so I had to pick around the thing while they enjoyed what took almost an hour and a half for me to make. I don't know why I'm so hard on myself. My guests were happy, I could see their packets were nice and flaky but I felt really embarrassed that the potatoes were weird and that I was digging for fish on my plate. I just take a lot of pride in my cooking and everything has been wonderful for so long, that this was like personal. Like how dare I mess up.
The cliff notes version of this, is I won't e preparing this for guests probably ever again. I know get back on the horse and blah, blah, blah, and usually I do. When I fail, the next day, and sometimes even the same night, I will re-make a dish to prove to myself, if no one else that I can do it, but my heart isn't in this one and it continues to remind me why I hate baking!!! I will never be a great baker, that's for sure. I cannot stand how you have to wait until the last minute to see if something works out in the baking process with no way to pretest unless its like cake where you can stick a toothpick in. Can't do that with salmon en croute, nope!
I guess, looking at the bright side, my guests left happy and full and at least their plates were good. Yup...yup, trying to look on the bright side.
In other news, I went shopping today. It is clear I was not meant for this season's clothes. It was all weird cuts of high low shirts and dresses, and see through things and floral this and that. It's so hipster, and that isn't my aesthetic. Wake me up when they swing back around to the 50's look again. I think other than the 30's, that was the era where women looked like real women, accentuating the curves in the right places. None of this man jeans, and boyfriend jackets. If I wanted to wear men's clothing, I'd walk over there and buy men's clothing! Grr!