Sesame, Salmon, and Salsa

This week I'm exploring the newly released Tupelo Honey Cafe cookbook. The cafe is located in Asheville, North Carolina and is a local legend; the book is flavored with pictures of the city. There are pictures of farmers, people, landmarks - a great blend of the now and then.

That's also what you'll find when exploring the recipes. The book starts with a dynamite larder chapter for various and sundry staples you'll use to prepare recipes. For example, the Peachy Grilled Chicken Salad with Pecan Vinaigrette is composed of larder items Peach Fennel Salsa and Pecan Vinaigrette with an an addition of anotehr item that very well could be a larder member: Tupelo Honey Chicken Marinade. There are also pictures of many of the recipes.

I started with the Bronzed Wild Sockeye Salmon with Roasted Corn Salsa and added in the Benne-Coated Asparagus for kicks. I was hoping to find recipes that made my mouth "sing" like Chef Brian Sonoskus suggests on page twenty one:

"Just remember, it's all about the fun of experimenting an discovering the personal combinations of tastes and tones that make your mouth sing." 

The Roasted Corn Salsa came together easily. I used frozen corn and combined it with olive oil. This went into the oven until golden and somewhat carmelized. I set this aside to cool and chopped up the red pepper and red onion. When the corn was cooled, all ingredients were combined and the result was beautiful!

Roasted Corn Salsa

The asparagus required a bit more work, but not so much that I was the least bit intimated. Here's Miss Jasmine K. Kitty ignoring the lovely asparagus.

I chopped the asparagus and then blanched in salted, boiling water. once drained, the asparagus went into a pan along with sesame oil. If you haven't tried sesame oil in a recipe, you must, as it adds unique flavor and depth. I've used it to dress up such lame items as Ramen Noodles with passing success.  Once coated with sesame oil, I added in the benne (sesame) seeds, and some salt and pepper.

The last item to prepare was the salmon, which went along so quickly it was almost like not cooking. First I mixed up some creole spice (sugar, salt, paprika, cayenne;) the recipe for the spice recommends two additional kinds of pepper but if you've been reading long enough - you know I didn't add much heat.

Creole Spice Mix

The creole spice was patted delicately onto the salmon, and the salmon was placed in a heated saute pan along with some canola oil. The cookbook recommends about three minutes per side and I have to say that was just right for my piece of salmon.

These three dishes made for one exquisite dinner. The salmon was absolutely perfect and tasted almost like butter - it was that smooth. The roasted corn salsa and benne-coated asparagus topped off my first excurion through the recipes of Tupelo Honey Cafe cookbook. I'm ready to sing along!