Sunday, September 26, 2010

HAPPY 10TH BIRTHDAY ANNABEL!

Quite an honour that Annabel chose to have her birthday lunch with us, my traditional roast chicken is one of her favourites.  Keeping this honest I must say that she had her sleepover birthday party last night, but I will take what I can get!  I still remember the evening that Julia told me she was pregnant, we had not known each other that long - another blog......!
Perfect day to eat lunch outside, it was warm but not sunny, so very comfortable.  You will have no trouble finding various roast chickens on this blog, but the star today was the lemon cake Godfather Uncle Iain brought for the celebratory dessert.  Quite delicious, and perfect for Annabel's sophisiticated taste buds at the grand old age of 10!
I used to do an orange and almond cake years ago that I had forgotten about, it was a middle eastern recipe. Apparently this cake was a variation of a similar recipe, adapted because of Annabel's love of lemon cake.  The link is to a Martha Stewart cake which looks ok BUT when Iain sends me the recipe for the real deal I will add it......

Saturday, September 25, 2010

SALMON FOR JOSEPH

Alan has been traveling lately and I am feeling very hard done by as a single working commuting parent! Last weekend Joseph and I only managed to have dinner together once and I wanted to cook something he likes that would also be healthy! Came across a salmon recipe when I was browsing through my various cookbooks for inspiration. I had printed it from the Weber site a couple of years ago and had never made it.  The recipe seems to no longer be on the site, but it was short and easy:

Pepper-Crusted, Maple-Glazed Salmon
Marinade:  In a freezer bag, mix together  3/4 cup of maple syrup and 1/4 cup of soy sauce. Add 4 skinned salmon fillets, about 6 ozs each. Press as much air out of the bag as you can and squish around to make sure all fillets are coated. Marinate in fridge for at least 4 hours but ideally 24 hours, turn occasionally.   Remove fillets from marinade and brush or spray both sides with oil, then coat top side only with 1/4 cup cracked pepper, divided between the 4 fillets.  Cook as per your favourite method.  We did not BBQ, I start the fish off in a very hot pan on the stove top for a couple of minutes then put into the oven til it is done through, mine took about 5 minutes but of course the thickness of your fish will determine the time.

Notes:  Can marinate for up to 48 hours but only prep with pepper just before cooking.  Easy to adjust the marinade for however many fillets you are cooking, keep proportion 3 parts syrup to 1 part soy; there was quite a lot of marinade,  I'm sure the above amount would be fine for at least 6, so if you are doing more do not increase proportionately.

I bought wild Scottish salmon from FishTails in New Canaan, which no doubt contributed to why it was so delicious!  I also bought a jar of cracked pepper, saved time.....  Apologies for picture being soft, taken on my phone as Alan has our camera with him - how sad is that, a shared camera......