Author Archives: Jack & Barbra Donachy

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About Jack & Barbra Donachy

Writers, photographers, food lovers, anglers, travelers and students of poetry

Alaskan Chinook Salmon En Papillote

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Salmon Challenge #5: Wild Alaskan Chinook en papillote (in parchment paper) on mushroom-pine nut purée and garnished with Alaskan shrimp.

I got the idea for this recipe in A. J. McClane’s North American Fish Cookery, a thin volume of just over 100 fish and shellfish recipes. In his day, McClane was perhaps the most well-known contemporary name in angling literature and journalism and was a gourmet chef to boot. Now 31 years old, this book is very much worth having if you can find a copy. McClane used petrale sole in the original recipe. Salmon was the first of several modifications I made. I would have loved to have had sherry for the mushroom-pine nut purée, but the miso soup used instead gave it a very nice flavor.

To make two servings you will need two oven-proof plates and two sheets of parchment paper large enough to cover the plates. A pair of charger plates to set the hot plates on when they come out of the oven are a nice touch.

Ingredients

  • 3/4 pound fillet of wild salmon, cut in half. Skin on or off is cook’s choice. I leave the skin on in virtually all recipes.
  • olive oil
  • 1 cup chopped mushrooms
  • 3 or 4 cloves of garlic, chopped coarse
  • 1/2 cup sweet onions, chopped coarse
  • 1/4 cup pine nuts
  • 1/2 cup miso soup flavored fairly strong
  • 1/2 tablespoon dry tarragon
  • ground black pepper
  • sea salt
  • soy sauce
  • sherry (optional – to add to mushroom-pine nut purée while sautéing).
  • carrot sliced into julienne strips – enough to place a few on each fillet without overwhelming the fish
  • shrimp peeled and deveined, 2 to 5 for each fillet, depending on size of shrimp. Other garnishes could include thinly sliced lemon, julienne squash, shellfish (small oysters, shrimp, scallops, mussels, crab meat), or fresh herbs

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).

2. Rinse the salmon fillets, pat dry with paper towels, sprinkle with ground pepper and sea salt and set aside.

3. Very briefly sauté the julienne carrots in olive oil and a little soy sauce, stirring continuously till just limp but still crunchy. Remove from skillet and set aside.

4. Prepare 1/2 cup of strong miso soup and set aside.

5. Place about 3 tablespoons of olive oil in a skillet and heat over medium-high heat. Add the onions and cook for a minute or two. Add the mushrooms, garlic, pine nuts, tarragon, a few grinds of pepper and sea salt. Add the miso soup. Sauté till liquid is mostly evaporated and ingredients are cooked through. Set aside.

6. Purée the mushroom-pine nut mixture in a food processor or blender. If more liquid is needed, add a small amount of water and olive oil.

7. Arrange one sheet of parchment paper on each ovenproof plate and put a little olive oil in the center (where the purée will go) to prevent sticking.

8. Spread half the purée on each sheet of parchment paper. Place salmon fillets atop the purée. Top the salmon with julienne carrots and shrimp.

9. Seal parchment paper by crimping or folding ends together and folding under.

10. Bake on plates on center rack for 20 minutes.

Try this exceptionally flavorful entrée with a glass of Champagne.

If you like this post you might also like:

Salmon Calzone

Wild Alaska Sesame Seed Salmon

Alaska Silver Salmon Pizza

Salmon Burgers with Caesar Slaw

Wild Alaska Salmon Lox

Salmon Pesto Ravioli

Molten Lava Chocolate Cake for Two

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One bite reveals a dark, rich, molten chocolate center. Served warm, this dessert tastes like a celebration.

When we got word that the seller had accepted our offer for our new home, Jack and I both thought “Champagne!” With that not being possible in Point Hope, we went for the next best option – a gourmet celebration meal. Jack created a perfect dinner of seared strip steaks topped with bleu cheese and garnished with a sautéed medley of onions, mushrooms, and garlic. He served the steaks with carrots and parsnips sautéed with a hint of maple syrup. Foil-wrapped baked potatoes and sour cream finished off the plate.

My contribution was dessert. I had read several recipes for molten lava chocolate cake that sounded just right – rich, warm, chocolate and sized to serve individually. I adapted my version from a blog that had scaled down the recipe to two.

Jack had purchased these beautiful ramekins when he lived in Japan. My original thought was to serve the cakes in the ramekins as pictured. I decided to experiment with mine and inverted it. The jam spread perfectly under the cake. I dusted the inverted cake with a bit more powdered sugar. It was a perfect end to a perfect meal.

Molten Lava Chocolate Cake

adapted from Sweetebakes

Ingredients

  • 1/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
  • 2 tbsp unsalted butter
  • 1/2 cup powdered sugar, plus extra for garnish
  • 1 egg
  • 3 tbsp all purpose flour
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
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Directions
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  1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Butter two ramekins and place on baking sheet. Set aside.
  2. In a double boiler, melt chocolate chips and butter, stirring until smooth.
  3. Scrape chocolate mixture into a bowl and add powdered sugar. Mix until incorporated.
  4. Add egg and whisk until smooth.
  5. Stir in flour and vanilla extract until smooth.
  6. Pour batter into prepared ramekins and transfer baking pan to oven.
  7. Bake for 12 minutes. Cakes should puff to surface of ramekins.
  8. Allow to sit for 1 minute.
  9. Place a dollop of raspberry or peach jam on cake before inverting onto plate.
  10. Dust with powdered sugar to garnish.

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If you liked this post, you might also like:

Way-Better-Than-Pecan-Pie Bars

Crunchy, tasty, chocolatey goodness

What to do with half of a bag of marshmallows and a Saturday afternoon…

Banana Split ala Alaska Bush

Bread Machine Challah

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A five-strand braid Challah will provide us with this week’s bread. If we’re lucky, it will last until next weekend to be the main ingredient of a perfect French toast.

Challah was a special occasion bread when I was growing up. Traditionally, Challah is a Jewish celebration bread enjoyed on most Jewish holidays and on Shabbat. It does take time and effort. As warm as our Arctic home is, I never could get the “let the dough rise in a warm, draft-free place” down. If you’ve been following along, you know I depend on my bread machine as the warm, draft-free place.

This challah recipe came from 300 Best Bread Machine Recipes by Donna Washburn and Heather Butt. The bread was eggy and had the texture and taste I remember growing up. The machine did all the work kneading and rising. As for the braiding technique, I followed a terrific tutorial on theshiksa.com.

Ingredients

  • 1 cup water
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 1/4 tsp salt
  • 3 tbsp granulated sugar
  • 3 tbsp butter (room temperature)
  • 4 cups bread flour
  • 1 tsp instant yeast

Glaze

  • 1 egg yolk
  • 1 tbsp water

Directions

  1. Measure bread ingredients into baking pan in the order recommended by the manufacturer. Insert pan into the oven chamber. Select dough cycle.
  2. Remove dough to a lightly floured board; cover with a large bowl and let rest for 10 minutes.
  3. Divide dough into 5 portions. Roll each with the palm of your hand into long, smooth ropes (1 inch in diameter). Braid. See tutorial (www.shiksa.com) for directions. Pinch ends together. Cover and let rise in a warm, draft-free place until doubled in volume (30 – 40 minutes).
  4. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
  5. When the dough has risen, beat egg yolk and water. Brush braid with glaze.
  6. Bake in preheated oven for 25 minutes, or until braid sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom.

If you liked this post, you might also like:

Pesto Bread

Rosemary Tomato Bread

Züpfe – Delicious Swiss Bread

Arctic Ocean in February

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The Arctic Ocean pushes sea ice into jagged heaps of translucent blue near shore. Further out, fog swirls on the horizon below a brooding sky.

Storm coming.

Point  Hope, February 18, 2012.

Yelloweye & Grits: Breakfast Onboard Gillie

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Yelloweye rockfish (Sebastus ruberrimus), a species of the Pacific Coast from Baja Mexico to Prince William Sound Alaska, is prized for its delicate flavor.

We’d spent most of the night on our C-Dory, drifting over deep water on Prince William Sound, admiring the moon and stars in the clear summer sky, talking about our life and occasionally dropping heavy, water-slicing knife jigs to the rocky bottom 160 feet below. Fishing was slow – a few small lingcod notwithstanding. The night was as still as a painting, the inky water mirroring the heavenly lights. With the engine cut off, the quiet was enveloping. When the yelloweye hit, I knew right away it wasn’t another ling. “Might be our yelloweye!” I said to Barbra as I worked the fish up from the depths.

And sure enough, it was. Barbra expertly scooped it up in the net, I did a quick fillet job, put it in a plastic container which I set in our cooler, and we headed back to port for some well-earned sleep. It was already early morning, though not quite yet dawn.

A few hours later when we woke, the sun was already high in the sky and the marina was bustling with activity. With daylight burnin’, we walked up the dock to the showers, blue skies and a few puffy white clouds overhead, deep green hanging on the mountains rimming the harbor.

Back onboard Gillie I put the Coleman stove on the aft deck, fired it up, and after Barbra made coffee I fixed a fisherman’s breakfast of southern-style grits topped with easy-over eggs and a couple of yelloweye fillets along with the collars – that especially sweet piece of meat that includes the pectoral fin muscle. (The collar looks a little like a lobster in the above photo.)

Not a fancy breakfast, but a special one. I kept the seasoning simple: a little sea salt and black pepper ground coarse. The steaming plates of food accompanied by French roast coffee made for a great start to another day in paradise.

To Sea “from whence we came”

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During our sailing class last summer, we took one of the sailboats out to this cove on Resurrection Bay where we anchored and then took the dinghy ashore to look around. Barbra caught me gazing wistfully across the water, contemplating the day we might have our own blue water cruising vessel. “We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch – we are going back from whence we came.” John F. Kennedy

This past week we made an offer on a sailboat. She was docked in Seward, where we took sailing lessons and were camping most of the summer. We went onboard to look her over a couple of times, and then, just before we left Seward, we saw her hauled out for a new coat of bottom paint. She’s a lovely vessel, neither too large nor too small by our sights, sea  worthy and sea kindly enough to take us to any destination we have the guts and gumption to chart a course for, well-appointed enough to allow us to live in comfort once we arrive.

For the past seven months we’ve been kicking it around, researching other vessels, researching blue water sailboats in general, running numbers and scenarios and…

And we finally came to the realize that this – sailing – is like most other things in life that are worth doing: at some point there is nothing left to do but make a decision, push your chips forward, and go all in.

Today we received word that our offer was accepted. So we’re all in. Guess we’re going to learn something about boats and sailing!

Banana Bread with Crunchy Walnut Streusel

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We brought these beautiful loaves of banana bread to a staff potluck, supplying cream cheese for a spread. They were an instant hit.

I have a tried and true banana bread recipe. It’s actually a fruit bread recipe in which I swap out the fruit and the spices. The recipe results in bread that is moist and flavorful. With an impending potluck, I wanted to amp up the recipe and my thoughts turned to coffee shop offerings where muffins and slices of sweet bread covered with streusel topping are always among the favorites. We love to slather a thick slice of this bread with cream cheese and then press the cream cheese into whatever crunchy walnuts may have fallen off. This makes for one decadent slice of bread!

Banana Bread with Crunchy Walnut Streusel

Makes two loaves

Ingredients

  • 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tbsp ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
  • 1/2 cup applesauce
  • 1/2 cup melted unsalted butter
  • 4 eggs
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 2 cups mashed bananas – the older the better

Topping

  • 1 cup walnuts
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup all purpose flour
  • 4 tbsp butter, room temperature

Directions

  1. In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and baking soda. Set aside.
  2. In a mixing bowl, beat granulated sugar, applesauce and 1/2 cup of melted butter together. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Stir in vanilla.
  3. Stir wet ingredients into dry ingredients until just moistened. Stir in bananas.
  4. Prepare streusel topping. Mix 1/2 cup flour, nuts, brown sugar and 4 tbsp butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Set aside.
  5. Pour banana bread batter into two greased 8 in. x 4 in. x 2 in. loaf pans. Bake at 350 degrees F for 30 minutes.
  6. Pull loaf pans out of oven and pack streusel nut mixture on top of loaves. Bake for an additional 30 – 35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for at least 10 minutes before removing from pans to wire cooling racks.

Pour yourself a big cup of coffee. Cut a thick slice of this bread and smear a generous amount of cream cheese onto it. Sprinkle any crumbs that have fallen off your slice back onto the cream cheese. Put on some coffee shop music. Close your eyes, take a bite, and imagine yourself in coffee shop in one of the world’s great cities… or in a hometown bakery.

Salmon Calzone

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Number four in the Salmon Recipe Challenge. Savory salmon in a creamy cheese mixture enhanced with red bell peppers and spinach; all neatly wrapped in a warm Parmesan crust.

The salmon challenge was intended for Jack. After all, he is the master chef. But after a night of studying (I’m going for a master’s in education technology), I relaxed by surfing cooking and baking blogs where I came across a photo of a delicious-looking calzone. “Wouldn’t a salmon stuffed calzone be divine?” I thought.

I would start this recipe by saying that we dusted off our favorite mechanical kitchen device, our Zojirushi bread machine, but the truth is this machine never has time to collect dust. We use it once a week on slow weeks and more frequently than that on most weeks. We love our Zojirushi bread machine so much that we wrote a review on it for the company from which we bought it. Among the advantages a good bread machine offers is that it solves the often vexing problem of having the right environment for dough to rise.

The calzone dough is a standard pizza dough recipe adapted from the book 300 Best Bread Machine Recipes by Donna Washburn and Heather Butt.

Dough Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 cups water
  • 1/4 nonfat dry milk
  • 1 1/2 tsp salt
  • 2 tbsp granulated sugar
  • 3 tbsp vegetable oil
  • 4 cups bread flour
  • 1 tsp yeast
  1. Measure ingredients into baking pan in the order recommended by the manufacturer. Select dough cycle.
  2. Remove dough to a lightly floured board. Cover with a large inverted bowl and let rest for 10 – 15 minutes. Divide dough into 10 portions. Roll out each into a 6-inch circle and let rest.
  3. Prepare filling.
                            .
Filling Ingredients
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 4 cloves garlic, chopped fine
  • 1 red bell pepper, chopped
  • 2 generous handfuls of fresh spinach, cleaned and stemmed
  • 1 fillet salmon, approximately a pound
  • 8-oz. brick of cream cheese, softened (simply leave out at room temperature)
  • 3/4 cup ricotta cheese
  • 1 1/2 cups grated Swiss cheese
  • 2 tsp dry tarragon
  • 2 tsp dry oregano
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 2 tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
  • 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

4. In medium skillet, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add onion and sauté for 4 – 5 minutes. Add bell pepper; sauté for 3 – 4 minutes until crisp-tender. Add garlic and spinach and cook until spinach is wilted. Set aside.

5. Season salmon with salt and pepper. I also added a garlic herb mix. Broil salmon, skin side down. After salmon cools, flake salmon and set aside.
6. In large bowl, beat cream cheese until soft and fluffy. Gradually add ricotta cheese, beating until combined. Stir in onion mixture, tarragon, oregano, salt and pepper, then add Swiss cheese and flaked salmon.

7.  Place filling on one half of each circle. Fold calzone over, sealing the edges tightly with your fingertips making a scalloped edge. Cover and let rise in a warm, draft-free place until doubled in volume, 30 – 45 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

8. When calzones are formed, brush with 2 tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil and sprinkle with 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese.

9. Bake in preheated oven for 20 – 25 minutes, or until the calzones sound hollow when tapped on the bottom.

These calzones were terrific out of the oven. They make great lunches, too.

Perfect Pork Cutlet with Cowboy Rub & Roasted Raspberry Chipotle

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When it comes to preparing pork loin cutlets, time on the grill – or under the broiler – is everything. We prefer cutlets cut thick – generally one-and-a-half to two inches. That translates to 16 to 18 minutes cooking time under a broiler or over fairly hot charcoal. The rub and attention to cooking time prevents these tender, lean cuts of meat from drying out. We purchase our cutlets in bulk from Costco and repackage them in pairs for freezing. In our experience, the quality of Costco meats is on par with that of specialty butcher shops.

The Perfect Pork Cutlet

  1. Pick a rub with some heat and thoroughly apply it to the cutlets. (I used The Spice Hunter’s Cowboy BBQ Rub this time.)
  2. Preheat a broiling pan under the broiler on high heat.
  3. When the pan is hot, spray or brush it with olive oil. (Refillable pump spray bottles are perfect for this.) Continue preheating another minute or two to get the oil good and hot.
  4. Place the pork cutlets on the broiler pan. They should sizzle.
  5. Set a timer for 16 – 18 minutes.
  6. After 8 minutes, use tongs to turn the cutlets over and continue broiling for remainder of time.
  7. Remove cutlets from broiler and let them rest for a few minutes to lock in the juices.
  8. Place a generous dollop of your favorite chipotle sauce (or apple sauce) – warmed – on a warm plate, place the cutlet on the sauce, and serve. (If you haven’t tried Fischer & Wieser Roasted Raspberry Chipotle Sauce… It’s delicious and has inspired me to create a cloudberry chipotle from berries we pick this coming summer. Look for that recipe on this blog in late summer, 2012.)

In winter, roasted vegetables go well with this dish. Add a Pinot Noir with lots of dark cherries or berries.

Manhattan-Style Razor Clam Chowder

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Growing up, soup usually meant opening a can of Campell’s. Their Manhattan clam chowder was my favorite. When I got out of the navy and began cooking for myself, Craig Claiborne’s Manhattan Clam Chowder was probably the second recipe I attempted – right after his chili recipe. The results were a revelation, and I never went back to Manhattan from a can.
Generous amounts of thyme, tomatoes, onions, potatoes, clams, carrots, celery, and a hint of heat from red pepper flakes keep this recipe close to the spirit of Claiborne’s, but with the addition of corn, green beans, and chard it strays from tradition, although I doubt the Portuguese immigrants who introduced this style of chowder would object. The smoked sea salt gives this soup a hearty warmth.

This recipe makes about 3 1/2 gallons.

  •  4 lbs razor clams chopped coarse
  • 1 cup clam juice (Razor clam juice is milky and will detract from the soup’s color if more is used.)
  • 6 pounds potatoes cut in 1/2 inch cubes
  • 3 1/2 pounds sweet onions, chopped fine
  • approx. 3 cups collard greens or chard, leaves cut away from the main stems and chopped into approx. 2″ squares
  • 1 lb. carrots, sliced
  • 1/2 lb. celery, chopped
  • 1/4 pound fresh green beans, chopped into 1/2″ pieces
  • 3 cups sweet corn
  • 1/3 pound bacon, broiled, drained and cut into small pieces
  • 2 tbsp dried thyme
  • 3 bay leaves
  • several cloves garlic, chopped fine
  • 72 ounces (4.5 lbs) diced tomatoes with liquid (fresh or canned)
  • 12 ounces tomato paste
  • freshly ground black pepper
  • olive oil
  • smoked sea salt to taste
  • 1 tbsp pepper flakes
  • olive oil
  • water

Chopping up all these ingredients is a bit of work. After that the cooking is pretty standard. This chowder freezes well and allows for many substitutions – including substituting a white-meated fish for the clams, or adding mussels, shrimp, squid, octopus, etc.

1. Mix tomato paste and thyme with approx. three cups of water and two tablespoons of olive oil and set aside

2. Cover the bottom of a large pot with olive oil and heat over medium-high. Add the carrots and cook for a minute stirring occasionally. Add the onions and cook for two minutes, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat to medium and add the celery, green beans and garlic, stirring occasionally for about three minutes.

3. Add the diced tomatoes, the tomato sauce mixture, the potatoes and remaining seasonings. Add enough water to cover the potatoes and simmer until soft. If the soup seems watery, add more tomato paste. Stir occasionally. Depending on the type of potato and size of cubes, this takes 20 to 50 minutes.

4. When the potatoes are of desired softness, stir in the chard or collard greens. Continue simmering for about 2 minutes.

5. Stir in the sweet corn, the clams and the clam juice. The corn will add considerable sweetness, as will razor clams. Give it a taste to see if it needs more salt, pepper, chili flakes or thyme.

Don’t overcook. As soon as the clams and corn are heated, the chowder is ready to serve. Garnish individual servings with a very thin slice of lemon, a few strips of nori, or grated parmesan cheese and serve with a hunk of crusty, fresh-baked bread.

(For more posts on razor clams, click on the tag “razor clams” in the upper left below the photo. Or click here for New England Razor Clam Chowder.)