Fish are good and healthy, and you should probably eat more of them. That’s what my mama told me.
During a recent visit to an Asian grocery store, we found some bread called “Banh Da”. Honestly, we’re not sure if that’s the manufacturer or the bread type, as it’s all in Vietnamese. It’s a rice bread, and it says on the package it’s made entirely from rice flour and water. We’re not quite sure what all the little black spots are, or how it got so shiny, but it’s all part of the mystery we guess. So, we decided to try it out with a seared salmon appetizer arrangement.
When I was a kid I hated fish. My mother would cook cod and herring a lot, and I remember they were full of bones. Small tiny bones that just made it very uncomfortable to eat. In desperation, my mother promised to remove the bones, and offered me the equivalent of 10 cent for every bone I could find. She intended of course to make me believe her and eat the fish happily; knowing she would never offer such a prize unless she was absolutely certain there was no bones to be found. Instead, I started eating ever slower, trying to locate any bones I could. As it turns out, herring and cod has a lot of very small bones the likes and sheer numbers my mother would never have imagined. What followed were the inevitable negotiations over what constitutes a bone, what size a bone has, and so on. I believe my mother thought for a few years after that I would turn into a banker or a lawyer, because I ended up with quite a bit of extra pocket money before the rules was abruptly terminated and fish not served on my plate for a long time. I think I was pretty spoiled, but we always did have fun!
I still am not very fond of neither herring nor cod, but salmon and tuna are fantastic fish. In this sandwich creation, the freshness of the grapes brings out a tiny bit of crunch and a delicious moisture that enhance the taste of the smoked salmon. Dill seems to be made for the occasion, and the sauce is a mustard sauce you may be able to get in your local IKEA.
One of our favorite bakeries in San Diego is the Hillcrest bakery Bread & Cie. Not only are the breads good, it is also one of the only decent bakeries making rustic breads, ‘rustic’ being one of those words that can mean anything to anyone. To us, rustic means that it does not look like a soggy machine produced block of bread, and that the crust is crunchy, and the crumb tasty. “You know it when you taste it”, we say. With a little help from Costco, we found some more of their great cilantro lime shrimp, and having some leftover homemade Caesar dressing, we took this baby for a spin.
We do love smoked salmon in our house, and it makes for great appetizers or snacks. Salmon is also fairly easy to combine with other ingredients, as long as you keep the taste influences light so as not to overpower the subtle fish taste. It works particularly well on fresh bread, or lightly toasted older revived bread.
Continue reading Appetizer: Homemade Pesto, Greens, Smoked Salmon And Grape Tomato
‘Twas the eve before Christmas and all through the house, the smell of Jamaican Christmas ham was tempting my nose. Okay.. a poor attempt at a rhyme, but you get the message. We were starving and still had a few hours before the traditional Scandinavian Christmas (Eve) dinner. Scandinavian countries celebrate Christmas on the 24th while Jamaicans (like Americans) reserve our celebration for the 25th. To satisfy each of our cultural programming, we have two celebrations in our home- in effect, two Christmases. We spend Scandinavian Christmas with some dear friends with whom Anders is able to reconnect with his childhood memories and reserve Jamaican Christmas for the two of us. A necessary component of any Jamaican Christmas dinner is a slowly baked ham infused with the combined flavors of cloves, pineapple and brown sugar. It was a hit at last years Scandinavian dinner (go figure) so this year we decided to make it a staple. Yeah to cultural crossovers!
In the midst of the baking of the ham, we got hungry. So to satisfy the empty stomach, but not sacrifice too much space for the barrage of food that is Christmas dinner, we created this sandwich. A fresh ciabatta from Bread and Cie in Hillcrest forms the base, and is lightly warmed until the Spanish Valdeon cheese starts melting. We are always stacked up on smoked salmon from Costco. The sandwich turned truly international when we decided to add a hint of sweetness with a spoonful of tomato relish from Meyer’s (in Denmark). The combination of ingredients may seem surprising, but it was absolutely sublime. Hunger abated, we could now wait until dinner time.
This sandwich is one of the many that can be created almost entirely from Costco. No, they don’t sponsor us. We just like a lot of their foods (psst, Costco, if you read this, get in touch!!). We particularly love it when they feature cheeses on the tasting floors. In fact, we get practically giddy like children in a candy store. This past weekend, we walked in and were greeted with the sign announcing “Cheese Tour”. Now, this always puts us in a quandary as we struggle to justify the purchase of yet more cheese. At any given time, our refrigerator is home to at least four different varieties of cheeses. After this weekend’s purchase, we now have 7. We are such cheese maniacs that we purchased Parmesan Reggiano even though we had a big block at home. There is something just more intense about the flavors and textures of a freshly cut cheese. The cheese guy was kind enough to yield to Wendie’s pleading that he cut her only the teeniest of pieces since this was to be eaten right away. If you are familiar with the family (nay, restaurant) sized packages at Costco, you know how absolutely sweet it was of him to oblige her.
So it was home to make the most elemental of sandwiches – potato rosemary bread with freshly cut Parmesan Regianno cheese. Yum. That was the appetizer which was quickly followed by another made with cilantro-lime shrimp, another Costco food that we have grown to love and find multiple applications for.
Large and succulent, they don’t need much else, so we try to limit the extras. On this particular sandwich, the most significant other ingredient is a small amount of mustard, so be very careful to measure that exactly, or it will completely overpower the taste of the shrimp.
A fresh little appetizer for parties or just for Wednesday night. It’s so easy to make, there really is no reason not to make everyday food a little more interesting. This is also our first ‘sandwich’ without bread, so we’re now starting to push the envelope of our sandwich blog :-).
Surprise your loved one with appetizers after a long day at work, and you’ll be the star of the evening.
Continue reading Appetizer: Cucumber With Smoked Salmon, Curry-Fraîche, Capers and Dill
After making a fantastic tuna sandwich, we made a few variations of tuna appetizers the next day. This is one of them, and it’s great. When working with tuna, be very careful not to overpower the subtle taste. We added a very mild Saint Faron cheese as a spread almost, and topped it with a small amount of balsamic vinegar reduction. Notice how the vinegar brings out the texture of the tuna in the pictures. This is a bite of food heaven.
“Pizza!” you may be saying with increduility as you wonder at the seeming incongruity of providing pizza recipes on a sandwich blog. Well, please bear with us while we provide this rather plausible and very convincing rationale.
In Scandinavia, there is a long tradition of open-faced sandwiches (or smørrebrød as they are called in Denmark). Open-faced sandwiches are essentially bread, with layered toppings. So it’s not much of a stretch to call a pizza, a sandwich. After all, it is just that: bread with layered toppings. For the pizza purists among the readers, this might seem like too much of a stretch, but we say that pizza by any other name is still an open faced sandwich. Convinced yet?
Continue reading Smoked Salmon Pizza – The Way My Mother Never Made It
A simple appetizer, but not cheap due to the tuna. However, well worth the money if you like us love seared tuna. We got a few nice steaks at Costco and decided to make Tuna Sandwiches, and appetizers from the leftovers. This is one of them, and it belong in the very tasty food group 🙂
