In retrospect, maybe it wasn't the best idea to start blogging a couple of weeks before a conference. Not only was I away in Oregon for a week, I spent the week or two prior to the conference trying to run those last experiments and prepare my presentation, so I didn't have time to cook anything that required more than a milligram of thought.
I always try to bring my wife something unique from the place I go when I have to travel without her, which usually ends up being food. Among the items brought back from Oregon was a package of smoked Pacific salmon -- something I haven't had the opportunity to really try before, at least as far as I can recall. I was a bit unsure what to do with it, and although I have a little bit of experience cooking with fish, I'm still not as adventurous with them as I am with most things, since the flavor is more likely to clash with anything I might try to concoct than say, beef or chicken.
So I decided to keep things simple. The salmon was pulled into little bits with a fork and sprinkled onto a toasted sesame bagel with a layer of cream cheese, along with some chopped scallions and some freshly-ground black pepper.
Man, was that a good idea!
The salmon had a strong but rich smoky-fishy flavor that was perfectly underlaid by the smoothness of the cream cheese, with the scallions offering *just* enough contrast with their clean, sharp taste.
There are times when I love to just throw all sorts of flavors together and see what comes out, but it's easy to forget that most foods have a whole assortment of flavors just on their own, like the salmon in this case. Sometimes it's great to go the route of simplicity, pairing the ingredient with a couple of complementary flavors or textures, but letting the complexity of the food do the flavoring for you. I expect to be doing more simple eating as we move into summer with its abundance of fresh, seasonal fruits and veggies.
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