Spicy Coconut Curry with Poached Salmon

William and I are notoriously terrible at coming up with ideas for dinner, but lately we have both been craving soup.  If someone just suggests "soup" to me, my first thoughts are of vegetable or chicken soup:  two American classics that I would really rather pass on.  Sure they're fine, and I know a lot of people would think I'm blasphemous for saying that, but when I want soup, like soul-satisfying, curled-up-in-a-blanket, serve-me-a-mixing-bowl-full-of-that soup, I want Asian soup every time.

 Usually I want the Vietnamese classic pho when I have a soup craving, but I don't personally have the patience to roast beef bones in my oven for 5 hours.  Thai curry, on the other hand, can be made in under 30 minutes and with minimal ingredients (yes, I'm basically Rachel Ray), and it is ridiculously satisfying.  Follow the recipe, but then taste away.  Keep out your lime, fish sauce, sugar, and cayenne, and play around with the curry until you love it--and trust me, you will!

Spicy Coconut Curry with Poached Salmon
-1 inch of peeled ginger
-4 cloves of garlic
-3 Thai chilies
-zest and juice of 1 lime
-1 stalk of lemongrass (softer inside part only)
-1 Tbsp canola oil
-2 cans coconut milk
-2 tsp fish sauce
-2 tsp sugar (palm sugar is best; I used turbinado; I've also made it with white--use what you have!)
-1/2 lb salmon, cut into large-ish bite sized pieces for re-heatability purposes
-cilantro and scallions for garnish
-rice for serving

Combine the ginger, garlic, chilies, lime zest and juice, lemongrass, and canola oil in a food processor and blend until a paste is formed.

Add this paste into a sauce pan and cook over medium high heat until very fragrant--this will make your kitchen smell absolutely insane!

Pour in the coconut milk, fish sauce, and sugar, and let everything simmer together for a while.  This is also the time to adjust the seasoning to your liking.

When the curry is all balanced out, reduce the heat to medium low and add the salmon.  Allow this to simmer very gently until the salmon is just cooked through, about 5 minutes.  Serve over rice, topped with chopped cilantro and scallions.  Such a comforting meal!

Tips:
-Don't use low fat coconut milk!  All of the spices and aromatics in this dish need a little fat to cling onto and make their way to your palate.  Plus you will be avoiding several sketchy ingredients like guar gum and carrageenan that are used in the low fat kind.
-Make sure you have extra lime, fish sauce,  sugar, and even a little cayenne on hand when balancing out the curry.  This is a great recipe for getting to know your palate, and as long as you just add a little at a time, you certainly aren't going to mess it up.
-Curry tastes better the next day, so make extra! 

Pan Fried Kingklip with Quinoa Salad

Any good chef will tell you to go to the market without a real plan in mind for dinner.  It opens you up to using whatever they have that looks best that day.  Let's be real, most of us don't the time to think about food this way, or a market for that matter, but when it does happen, it can be a great thing.

Yesterday I went to the grocery store with no plan in mind except that I really needed to make something delicious since William will be leaving for field school soon.  I started at the fish counter, where I spotted a gorgeous white fish that I had heard of but never cooked with before--kingklip.  From there I picked up some fennel, a couple of oranges, and a bottle of white wine, and I had a plan.

Pan Fried Kingklip with a Shallot, Lemon, and White Wine Pan Sauce
First, pull out your fish and let it rest outside of the fridge for a while.  You don't want to throw cold fish into the skillet.  While this is warming up a bit, get your dredging station ready.  I used GF all purpose flour seasoned with salt and pepper, a basic egg wash, and lastly GF breadcrumbs which I seasoned with red pepper flakes, grated garlic, and lemon zest.  After the fish is dredged, again let it rest for about 10 minutes.  This will help the coating really stick to the fish when it's cooking.

During this time you can get the ingredients ready for the incredibly easy pan sauce.  Just slice a shallot finely, cut a lemon into wedges, and open a bottle of white wine.

Next, we'll fry the fish.  Depending on the thickness of your cut, turn your burner onto medium high, and get your pan and canola oil nice and hot before adding the fish to it to ensure nice, crispy breadcrumbs.  Flip once everything is golden brown, and you're pretty much done.  Just remove the fish and let them drain on a paper bag while you make the sauce.

If there is too much oil left in the pan, pour a little out.  Then add a nice amount of white wine to deglaze everything at the bottom.  Add the shallots, and let them start to wilt.  Finish with a big squeeze of lemon juice and butter or olive oil, and you're done!  William Loved this!

Quinoa Salad
Until now I have only ever liked quinoa for breakfast, but now I'm a believer.  I think the trick for me was going the extra mile and cooking the quinoa in chicken stock instead of just plain water.  Here's how:  first make sure you wash your quinoa.  Measure it out, add it to a bowl, and fill it up with water.  Then give it a good shake around and drain it slowly.  Then add your quinoa and your chicken stock (1:2 parts quinoa to chicken stock) to a stock pot and let them come to a rolling boil.  Then cover them, and reduce it to a simmer for 15 minutes.  Finally uncover it, and if there is an liquid left or it just doesn't seem quite dry enough (it should be similar to rice) then let it cook at a very low temperature uncovered until it is just perfect.  Then set your quinoa aside to cool.

While that is cooking, get your other ingredients ready.  I added shaved fennel, shaved red onion, toasted almonds, orange supremes, mint, and a little squeeze of lemon juice, and it was AMAZING!!!  Seriously, I haven't stopped eating this stuff, which is fine because you can't get anything much healthier than this!

Risotto with Shrimp, Snow Peas, and Mint

Yumm you just have to love a big bowl if risotto on a Snowy March night! And it really is the easiest thing to make. I made shrimp tacos the night before and turned my shrimp shells into the most basic of stocks by simmering them in salted water.

To make my risotto, I sweated a small diced onion plus a couple of cloves of garlic in a medium sauté pan with a little olive oil. Then I added and toasted 1 1/2 cups of arborio rice. Once I could smell the nice toasty rice, I started the process of adding the simmering shrimp stock: add a ladle, stir until fully absorbed, repeat. This process will take between 20 and 30 minutes but is sooo worth it! At the end, I follow the same steps but with a nice glug of white wine. I then finish the risotto with a little lemon zest, salt, and lots of black pepper.

On the side, I sauté together shrimp and snow peas and finish this with a chiffonade of mint. Plate this on top if risotto!! It is perfect!!

**side note--many people would cook their shrimp and vegetables in the same pan as their risotto--I do this with mushroom risotto, for example--but in this case, you want to be careful not to over cook the shrimp and to keep the snow peas slightly crisp, so cooking them separately just makes sense. Also...it just looks prettier, and that really Is important!