Smoked Salmon Pasta a la Greta Garbo

 

Greta Garbo-- star of the silver screen, one of the most iconic faces of the Golden Era of Hollywood, well known for her roles in Anna Karenina and Camille -- was also famously Swedish, which means she shared her heritage with yours truly.  Okay, so we're not related that I know of, but we do have that DNA overlap.  Allegedly, this is her favorite pasta-dish, culled from one of my mom's Swedish cooking magazines, and I would like to imagine that on those days when she "Vanted to be alooone" she curled up in a cozy wool blanket with a big bowl of this stuff. 

This is another one of those stand-by dishes my mother has made since I was a little girl, and in fact, here is the original recipe that Dad scanned for me from Mom's cut-out recipes in a binder.  It is really quite quick to make, and something like elegant comfort food!

The heading there says "Celebrities' favorite recipes".  Even if you have no idea who this mega-star of the 1930s was, make this dish, and pour up a glass of crisp white wine...

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 lb smoked salmon, cut into small chunks -- (Also, please note that the type of smoked salmon that I use is the "hot smoked" salmon that is more firm, and crumbly, and still has skin on that needs to be peeled off.  The cold-smoked salmon that still looks more like Lox and still can be sliced into thin strips is not the kind I would recommend in this recipe.)
1-2 cloves garlic
1 tbsp olive oil
1 cup heavy cream
2-4 ripe, red tomatoes, such as plum, Campari or Roma (or one can diced tomatoes)
2 tbsp fresh parsley, (you could also use basil or oregano to sprinkle)

Pasta -- enough for four servings, preferably a thick toothy kind, like linguine, tagliatelle, pappardelle, or fettucine

DIRECTIONS:

Blanch the tomatoes in boiling water for a few seconds until skins split.  Set aside and cool to touch, and then peel off the skins. 

Cut up salmon and tomatoes, and mince garlic.  Start with one clove, add more if desired....

Heat the oil in a skillet or sauce pan at medium, and then stir in tomatoes, garlic and salmon.  Stir over medium heat for a minute or so to heat through, and then pour in cream.  Reduce heat, and let simmer, while pasta is cooking. 

Drain pasta, drizzle with more olive oil, if desired, and ladle into bowls, and top with salmon-sauce.   Sprinkle with grated parmesan if desired, and sprinkle on fresh parsley (or basil or oregano.)

Gluten Free Kale and Pepper lasagna

Happy New Year.  I don't make resolutions in general, but I hope to get my recipes rolling again.  So it's more of a hope, and not a resolution!  I'm happy to say I have recently hit 12,000 page visits since I started this blog and they just keep a-rollin' in, despite my failure to generate new content on a regular basis.

Bacon-Asparagus Lasagna

A few years ago, I found a recipe on Epicurious, that was basically like the recipe I’m about to post here. (I have since made a few substitutions.)   So the second time I decided to make it, was on the day that my in-laws came to our new house, after we got married.  It was only my third time of meeting them (once after our engagement, and then on our wedding and then this third time) so trying to be extra efficient, I started prepping all my ingredients in the morning so that we could just put it in the oven after they arrived from the airport.   Easy Peasy, Lemon Squeezy.  Right?

Pork Schnitzel with sauteed mushrooms and egg noodles

My husband and I recently celebrated our anniversary by going up to the quaint Bavarian-themed tourist town of Leavenworth, located in the Cascade mountains in Washington State.  Clearly, with the Alpine menu options that are prevalent, we had to do at least one “authentic German” meal.  So we had schnitzel, with red cabbage sauerkraut, and egg noodles with mushrooms. Now back in the day-to-day of normal life, I thought we would try to recreate that meal (all but the red cabbage sauerkraut which I didn't have...) to take a bit of Bavaria back home to us. 

Pasta with Chanterelle cream sauce

When I was a little girl in Sweden, we went out in the woods to pick Kantareller (or Chanterelles).  They peeked out of the moss and pine needles, like little golden trumpets in the woods.  They were so delicate and buttery in flavor, especially when sautéed in butter!  Fresh chanterelles are hard to find, as they are seasonal, and cannot be cultivated.  They seem to only grow in the wild, and only where they choose, but they seem to prefer evergreen forest conditions.  About once a year, there is a 4-5 week time frame when I can find these golden fungi at the grocery store or farmer’s market, but usually at a cost of $28-30 a pound.  CostCo sometimes has them, and then it’s more like $10-12 a lb, which is much better than $28 a pound. But still, pricey.

So imagine my delight when I heard through the grapevine that a girl from our church lived near a wooded area that seems to have prolific Chanterelle growth every fall.  Sure enough, I went out there this morning for about an hour or so, in my rubber boots, and carefully meandered around the woods behind her yard.  Carefully, since the mushrooms often were tucked underneath the moss & leaves, and even though brightly colored, they often just blend in with the autumn foliage on the ground. As soon as my ‘chanterelle eyes’ became accustomed to looking beyond and underneath the camouflage hiding these little gems, I started finding dozens and dozens of them, ranging in size from 1/2” in diameter to several inches wide.

I picked almost a whole grocery bag worth. And now that I have had my dinner, I thought I’d tell you what one of my favorite chanterelle-based meals is.

INGREDIENTS:

1-2 cups worth of chopped chanterelles – brush off dirt and debris with a pastry brush
2 tbsp butter
1/2 tsp salt
1 sprig fresh rosemary, de-stemmed, and finely chopped up (probably about 1 tsp of dried rosemary)
3-5 large sage leaves, finely chopped up (I suspect it would be about 2 tsp worth of dried sage)
1-2 tbsp flour
1/2 cup- 3/4 cup heavy cream

Sauté the mushrooms in the butter, until soft, and then sprinkle flour over them, and stir it in until absorbed.  Pour cream, and herbs and seasonings in, and allow to simmer over low heat until the cream thickens a bit from the flour.

Meanwhile, prepare your favorite type of pasta according to directions, and drain it.  Stir in the cream sauce over the pasta.

This pasta is particularly delicious when served with grilled poultry, such as turkey breasts or chicken.  I had chicken tenderloins (because I always have them in my freezer) so I defrosted them, marinated them with olive oil, sage, rosemary, salt & pepper (probably about 3 or 4 sage leaves, minced, 2 sprigs of rosemary, chopped up, 1/2 tsp salt, and 1/2 tsp ground pepper) and grilled them on a very hot grill for about 2 minutes on each side.  Then I cut the chicken tenders into bite-size pieces and stirred them in with the pasta.   I have also served this with chicken breasts stuffed with brie, and made a similar sauce to drizzle over grilled turkey breast.  Roasted rock hens are also excellent with chanterelles. 

The chanterelles are so delicate in flavor that you really don’t want to overpower them with a lot of other flavors or heavy meats.  I stick with sage, and rosemary as the only real seasonings. I don’t use onions or garlic with chanterelles, because just a couple of woodsy herbs are enough of a good complements, and the cream sauce just enhances it all.

 

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MACARONI AND CHEEEEEEEEESE!!!!!

I am seriously a cheese-addict. I eat cheese almost daily in some form or another, and tonight seemed downright autumnal for July (it was about 65 and overcast, and breezy) so I opted for a 'comfort food' meal of grilled pork chops, mac & cheese, and some steamed summer squash.

This mac & cheese is loosely adapted from one that I got from my husband's mother, although I use real sharp cheddar instead of Velveeta, and I usually just put in a pinch of nutmeg instead of pepper.

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 stick of butter
2-3 tbsp flour (I actually used whole wheat today with fairly good success)
1- 1 1/2 cups milk
1 cup grated cheese (sharp cheddar makes the most 'classic mac & cheese' flavor)
pinch of nutmeg

8-10 oz of uncooked pasta of your choice (I had bowties, so that's what I used)

DIRECTIONS:

Bring water to a boil and cook pasta while you prepare a 'roux' to make the cheese sauce.
(Roux is a flour & butter based sauce which helps emulsify cheese better than just stirring cheese into hot milk -- which, for the record, I've tried once, and got a giant ball of stringy cheese, floating in a pot of milk.)

Melt butter in another small sauce pan over medium heat, and stir in flour one tablespoon at a time, to keep it a smooth texture.

Stir in milk, very slowly, just an ounce or so at first. If you pour the milk in too fast, it will cool off the butter & flour mixture and make it lumpy.

Gradually whisk in the rest of the milk, keeping heat at medium, and taking care not to boil the sauce.

Next add a handful of grated cheddar cheese at a time, stirring it to melt it into the hot milk & butter roux.


Pour cheese sauce over cooked & drained pasta and either serve as is, or bake in the oven for ten minutes at 350 to "congeal it all" into its sticky, cheesy goodness.