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Aetherflow – Autumn 2018
A traditional Keeper of the Moon dish consisting of a thick fillet of salmon breaded with flour and fried in rich butter and savory spices.
Our main course is a dish consisting of salmon, steamed buffalo beans, and popotos, nothing too fancy. We’ll be going to town with the dessert, so there’s no need to outshine it with an extravagant meal. Simple meals are a great way to experiment with flavors! Don’t be shy to combine supposedly odd things – you never know when you’ll create that next guest-favorite dish by accident! You would ideally have a double steamer on hand – however, it’s not really necessary.
You will need
300 g or 0,70 lbs green beans
2 salmon fillets, thawed if using frozen
5 medium white potatoes
About 50 g or 0,11 lbs of butter
1 TB sunflower oil (or any vegetable oil without strong flavor)
120 g or 1 cup flour
1 tsp each of sage and estragon
1 tsp each of salt and pepper
1 tsp each of garlic and onion powder
1 lemon, cut into slices
If you have the luxury of owning a double steamer, bring the water to a boil and reduce heat to medium. In the meantime, wash your potatoes and cut them into big chunks. You can use any type of potato, peeled or unpeeled, small or large size, whichever suits you best this is your dish, you get to choose what potatoes get served with your salmon filet. Just remember to adjust cooking times accordingly – so don’t run that quick roulette in the meantime as we all know that “quick roulettes” often turn out to be painfully slow.
To give rough estimates; big non-starchy potatoes tend to need at least 20-30 minutes steaming, where as small potatoes with higher starch content, or chopped up potatoes, usually only need 15 minutes to cook through. Just regularly poke your food until you can easily fork it! While the potatoes are on the bottom layer of your steamer getting that Kugane Hot Springs special treatment, it is time to prepare the green beans.
Wash, remove any strings, and chop long stalks in half so they fit into the top steamer. Stack your green beans on top of the potatoes and steam them for about 7 minutes, until you can fork your food. If you don’t possess a double steamer, you will need to cook both the potatoes and the green beans in separate pots. Here, cooking times are roughly the same, the only difference will be texture – especially potatoes as they are fluffier if you steam them vs. cooking. On to the fish!
Put the flour and spices in a bowl and mix. The spices I chose are basic spices that suit most palates, however, if you prefer things a little spicier, you can just replace the herb mixture and use some cayenne pepper with added chopped dried chilis instead. Looking for something a little wilder and more experimental? Cinnamon, cardamon, and dried ginger can be used as well! Just look at your spice rack and mix whatever you wish into the flour. At this stage, I highly discourage you from snorting the flour mix as spices tend to cause red and runny noses, sneezing fits, and teary eyes if inhaled too deeply. Not that you should be doing this kind of stuff anyway, right?
I highly discourage you from snorting the flour mix as spices tend to cause red and runny noses, sneezing fits, and teary eyes if inhaled too deeply. Not that you should be doing this kind of stuff anyway, right?
Now heat the oil in a frying pan and add the butter. Double fat you ask? Butter is a shy little fellow and doesn’t like heat all too much. If his greasy friends, such as sunflower oil, hold his hand, he would be absolutely delighted and melt away without throwing a spitting fit. Butter is incredibly fragrant, so if you want to pair him with an oil, choose one without a strong personality or else they will drown him out. Even fats deserve equal rights!
Wash your salmon filets under cold water and pat dry. Before they get a buttery dip, it’s best to coat them in that flour mix you prepared earlier. Just let them roll in all of that powder and get them covered well.
Once the butter is melted, it’s time to give your salmon filets the hot treatment. Fry them from both sides for about 4 minutes each – this depends on your taste. If your fish was previously frozen, it’s best to properly cook it through, so just add a few seconds more to each side. If your fish is relatively fresh, you can go down to 3 minutes on each side, just when the salmon is ready to flake out on you.
Once everything is cooked and complete, serve the beans, potatoes, and fish on a plate. Drizzle the fish with any remaining melted butter from the pan and serve with lemon slices. If you absolutely, absolutely, must drown the poor salmon fillet in more butter, I won’t stop you from melting a bit more in the same pan you used to fry the fillet. Though I’m assuming that the critical hit and direct hit bonus from this meal will be targeting your cardiovascular system instead.
