Salmon Trout with Sherry Vinegar-Honey Glaze and Spicy Tomato Relish

The August issue of Bon Appetite only had one worthy recipe... grilled corn, sprinkled with chipotle chili power, topped with a drizzle of sour cream, lime and cilantro. Simple, an easy crowd pleaser. As a result, last Friday night at 2 am, instead of sleeping, I searched through a few of my cookbooks for new recipes.

The first book I opened was Bobby Flay's "From my Kitchen to Your Table." I initially purchased the book at the Strand bookstore located on Broadway and 12th Street a few years ago and I have never made a recipe from it previously. Many of the recipes tilt toward using ingredients that my wife dislikes, like olives. However, I decided to go for the Salmon Sherry Vinegar-Honey Glaze and Spicy Tomato-Relish because it is the beginning of tomato season and I was in the mood for something with a Spanish flair.

Unfortunately, when I went to North Shore Farms on Saturday, the Jersey tomatoes on offer looked pretty sad. Nevertheless, I decided to march forward with the recipe with the invariably sweet grape tomatoes.

The dish was relatively simple to make. Bobby first instructed that one should reduce the sherry vinegar for a half hour until it forms a syrup. Thereafter, simply combine the reduced vinegar with Dijon mustard, honey and chili powder and walla your done. The side relish was actually too simple and rather intuitive. Combine tomato, parsley, onion and vinegar and place it around the fish upon serving. I omitted the red pepper flakes due to my wife's aversion to the Italian spice.

The final result, an ok meal... nothing special. The bottom line... mustard sauces usually taste rather similar because it simply overpowers the remaining ingredients.

FYI: My two year old daughter didn't touch the salmon. "No daddy, don't want it, no." However, she did eat the corn and dipped it into the sour cream sauce. She was more interested in eating cottage cheese on her kitchen that my sister Sheri purchased for her birthday.

Quick Chili

Who knew that when I moved to the Southwest my favorite recipe for chili from "Pasta Presto" by Norman Kolpas would continue to be so satisfying. Harvey demands a bowl of it at least twice a month, and enough to take to work with him the next day. Instead of pasta I use a combination of basmati and wild rice. The sauce can then be made as hot as you want, and I always use San Marzano canned tomatoes, breaking them up with my hands, and adjusting the flavoring as I go.

We have many southwestern and Mexican restaurants here in the valley of the sun. We visited the Heard Museum and had lunch at the excellent Arcadia Farms restaurant. My salad had a southwestern kick to it, and I can't wait to try their new branch at the Heard Museum North. We also like to eat at Sam's Restaurant downtown, where in the winter you can eat under the open air plaza, they have the most amazing tortilla chips, as well as a delicious salmon.

Our favorite southwestern restaurant is the Spotted Donkey, located in the El Pedregal shopping center where you sit among thousands of year old boulders,and have a view of the desert while sipping your Margarita. I do hope they do open their promised new restaurant, I hear they may be taking over at the Boulders Resort. We also love their Geronimo Restaurant in Santa Fe

Chicken Paprika- Second Avenue Deli Cookbook

While growing up, mom always made chicken paprika on Friday nights. I always thought of it as her way of continuing the tradition of sabbath in a culturally, but non-religious Jewish family. Because she never worked on Friday's, (what a life!) she always came home with a pullet from the kosher butcher and a challah from the bakery located in the Vincent's shopping center in Albertson. To complete the meal, there was always a side salad of romaine, tomatoes with oil and balsamic vinegar. For some reason, I think that we ate the same side salad at every night.

The meal was always excellent. The chicken was invariably juicy and tender. Unlike the classic Hungarian version, mom's Jewish version omitted sour cream. The challah produced at the bakery in Albertson was and still is outstanding. To this day, I still believe that the specimen they produce at that bakery is the finest. Second place... Hot and Crusty. I still remember tearing off pieces of bread and mopping it up with the sauce. The next morning, I usually polished off the loaf with temt tee cream cheese.

Chicken paprika is one of the few dishes that I make on a regular basis. I have a rule against repitition. Unfortunately, I do not have mom's recipe (you need to forward it), so I turn to the Second Avenue Deli Cookbook. Sadly, Second Avenue Deli is closed. However, their version is very similar and you should give it a try. Both Isabella and Tracy love it.

BBQ Ribs, Buttermilk Coleslaw, Lemon Potato Salad with Herbs

July 4, 2007 at the casa de Abramson. The guest for the day.... the Schachters.

The weather outside was grey, certainly not a beach day. The Schachters were scheduled to arrive at 4:30. With a full day ahead, with no particular plans, I decided to make a time consuming meal. At first I was planning to recreate the July 4th menu from Bon Appetite. Tracy was not in the mood for the different types of burgers planned. So... she flipped through some books and she decided on ribs. Little did she know that proper bbq ribs take hours...

Anyway, Bella's and I went off to North Shore Farms to pick up the ingredients. 5 pounds of spareribs, ground sirloin for burgers (for the kids and in case ribs to not appeal) and the ingredients for the rest of the menu.

The recipe for BBQ ribs came from the Cook's Illustrated Family Cookbook. Incidentally, this book is definitely my most used cookbook in my collection. Thanks to mom for the gift.

For the ribs, I started with a rub, which contained, among other things, chili powder, salt, pepper brown sugar and a few other secret ingredients. The ribs marinated in the rub for an hour. While the ribs were marinating, I soaked some wood chips. After an hour, I placed the ribs on the Weber for a total of three and a half hours, rotating the ribs every half hour. After each hour I added 8 briquettes of charcoal. At the 3:15 mark, I added a Texas BBQ sauce that I made from a recipe from the same cookbook. After the ribs finished cooking on the BBQ, I allowed them to rest for an hour. The results... simply amazing. The spareribs fell off the bone. The ribs had brown char and a smoky flavor.

The sauce was easy to make... just combine ketchup, brown sugar, molasses and a few other ingredients and simmer for 25 minutes. Thereafter, I allowed it to cool for an hour.

As an appetizer, I made two different cream cheese dips, both from Cook's Illustrated. One was made with cilantro, lime juice and chipotles, the other with sun dried tomatoes and Romano. Unfortunately, no one ate either one. I thought both were very good.

For the coleslaw, I combined a the recipe for coleslaw from the current Bon Appetite issue. I first chopped green and red cabbage and allowed it to soak with a tablespoon of salt for an hour. I then added fresh corn, that I boiled for 5 minutes, with cilantro, buttermilk, rice wine vinegar, onion and a few other ingredients. The slaw was great. It had that great balance of sweet and sour.

For the potato salad, I combined red potatoes with low fat mayo, low fat sour cream, lemon zest, cider vinegar, dill, cilantro and a few other things. Again, very very good.

Grilled Prime Rib Steaks

We had Lenny and Sabriena here for the weekend in sunny and hot Scottsdale. We had a light dinner at Armitage Wine Bar and a delicious lunch on Saturday at T.Cooks restaurant, which has become my favorite restaurant here since settling in the Valley of the Sun from NYC a mere ten months ago. As a former NY foodie, like my son Fred, I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of food in the Phoenix/Scottsdale area.

Now it was time to get to some serious cooking of my own. Trips to the gym are made necessary by my frequent eating out, so when I watched Bobby Flay cook a barbeque while I gazed from my treadmill at the Village Health Club, I decided to give my Weber a try.

The next day I printed the recipes for his Grilled Prime Rib Steaks with Bourbon-BBG Baste and Stacked Tomato Salad with Black Olive Tapenade and Sweet Basil Dressing.

I sauntered down to our amazing local gourmet supermarket, AJ'S, which rivals and is even better than my former NYC haunts of Agata and Valentina
and Citarella's. Lucky for me the aged prime ribs steaks were reduced to $17.99, so I bought three of them. To make the recipe easier I bought Gold Label Reserve seasoning rub, and used Blues City Cafe's barbecue sauce, purchased when we crossed Memphis last summer. AJ's has a fabulous produce departments, where I found Tuscan melon, and red (yes RED) corn.

Harvey manned the Weber, and grilled the steaks to perfection. They were truly delicious and worth every penny. The stacked tomato salad was made with heirloom tomatoes, and I was lucky to find fresh California made bufalo mozzarella. Layered with the tapenade and the fresh sweet basil dressing this was a visual and edible winner. After all, I had to wow my future daughter-in-law Sabriena, who is a caterers daughter.

Lenny, the Santa Monica foodie and wine lover, got us a Chalone reserve Pinot Noir, which after the margaritas served pre-meal, made me quite tipsy.

Dinner was finished with Illly decaf, AJ'S apple pie, and cinnamon vanilla and butter pecan gelato. Treadmill, here I come.

Trout with Herbed Butter- Bon Appetite July 2007

After a long day at the office, a simple meal was on the agenda. This recipe contained only 4 ingredients: trout, butter, tarragon and parsley. I simply seasoned the trout and then microwaved the butter for 20 seconds. Due to my wife's aversion to tarragon, I substituted thyme. I then mixed the butter with the thyme, butter and a handful of parsley and dabbed it on top of the trout. After 8 minutes in a 425 degree oven, the meal was complete. On the side a simple plum, spinach, lime and basil salad. FYI, plums are outstanding right now.

My two year old daughter's verdict: "yummy fish."

Thoughts on Saveur Agenda section

Each issue of Saveur starts with a section entitled Agenda. For some reason, I am unable to remember a single highlighted event after reading it. I find it difficult to focus because the listings are on the left side and there is additional, unrelated text to the right. The section, like the magazine itself, is visually appealling.

Bouley

Happy Birthday to my lovely pregnant wife Tracy. We celebrated by embarking on a $48 lunch tasting menu at Bouley.

As you enter, you are hit with an immediate smell of apples. My wife loved the effect. However, I was a bit suprised with the choice because apples aren't in season.

We arrived at approximately 1:15 pm without a reservation and were seated immediately. Anyway, the food was well presented, complex and technically flawless. The food was very trendy i.e. King salmon with foam, an amuse of tomato contrasting warm tomato essence on top with a tomato sorbet on the bottom. The deserts were excellent.

Rethinking Grilled Chicken Breasts- Cook's Illustrated July/August 2007

Sunday was another beautiful, sunny day on Long Island. Perfect grilling conditions. The Webber was out again, despite my wife's disdain for "burnt food." I am still trying to overcome the various food aversions that were ingrained from birth from her mother.

The goal of the night's meal seamed simple, to create a juicy grilled chicken breast. For those who watch America's Test Kitchen on PBS, the first segment stars the editor of Cook's Illustrated who provides a worst sample of the star food attraction. Last week, my brother in law's version of grilled chicken breast would easily fit the bill. The outside of the breast was dark brown. He cut into the bird on a few occasions while cooking to check the if breast was finished. He made sure to push down on the breast so that all the juices would end up on the grill. The final result: chicken as hard as a rock. Needless to say, my wife didn't eat the chicken.

Fast foward to Sunday. This time, chicken breast at my house. The final result, very good, but not great. The reason, according to my wife, too much flavor. According to her, there was too much marinade. In her opinion, the meal took too long. I really liked the breast.

Grilled chicken is suppose to be fast home cooking. This version took over an hour from start to finish. FYI, my daughter liked the chicken.

On the side, grilled summer squash from the latest issue of Food and Wine, simple made with oil, thyme, lemon, salt and pepper. As the starch, oven baked potatoes from the Cook's Illustrated family cookbook, which is always a winner.

Shrimp (salmon trout) Boil Hobo Packs- July Food and Wine 2007

Seafood boil hobo packs are apparently popular in the south. Unfortunately, I have never consumed one in a proper restaurant.

This is the second hobo pack recipe that I have prepared and it was excellent. Last year I reproduced a version from Cooking Light which I remember being pretty good. I am a sucker for seafood/wine combos. The Food and Wine version was simple, quick and tastey.

For this rendition, I substituted salmon trout for the shrimp, as my wife was not feelin' the shrimp. I added a few minutes to the recommened cooking time as salmon take longer to cook. This version was especially delicious due to the arrival of the first summer corn.

Anyhow, I placed salmon trout, mussles, corn, keilbasa, fresh thyme, vermouth (as per cook's illustrated in place of white wine) and butter in foil and slapped it on the grill. Turning once, after 12 minutes the meal was complete.

As the foil was placed near my 2 year old daughter, she said oooooooo... as the steam consumed the air. She went straight to the keilabasa. Anyway, a satisfying meal.

N.B. I noticed Marcus Samuelsson's latest cookbook about African cuisine on the remained rack at a bookstore in Huntington, N.Y. Does this bode well for Marcus' new restaurant based on the same theme?

From the latest issue of Cook's Illustrated

On Bringing Gyos Home:

Tonight I made that Greek-Style Lamb Pita Sandwiches with Tzatziki Sauce from the latest issue of Cook's Illustrated. I am normally a very big fan of the magazine. However, in my humble opinion, this recipe was a miss. Ms. Wue promised a restaurant style Greek Gyro that you can make at home. It tasted like a new rendition of hamburger. The pita bread was mushy. Perhaps this was due to the fact that my pita was initially frozen. They should have called for more tzatzki sauce.