seafood – Sheikah Plate

Monster Stew

October 31, 2018by Teri Mae2 Comments

When I saw the BotW recipe for Monster Stew I couldn’t imagine how I was going to pull it off. Meat, seafood, flour, milk? How on earth are you supposed to combine those together to make, not only something edible, but a stew? So I just went with it – totally making this up as I went along. It may not be the first recipe I’ve ever made up from scratch, but it is the first recipe I’ve dared share with people. So hopefully you all like it as much as I do… I’ll be super embarrassed if not!

Also, no scary story today… I couldn’t get it quite right. I’ll keep working and maybe I’ll post it a little later. But Happy Halloween anyway, right!?

Monster Stew

Let’s start with the beef. This’ll take about an hour to cook down, and the entire recipe will take about 2 hours, so give yourself plenty of time before you plan to eat. Otherwise you’ll be starving come 9 pm and you’ll order take out just because you don’t want to wait till it’s ready.

Cut the beef into 1 inch cubes. Add oil to the bottom of a heavy pot – as usual, I prefer my cast iron – and turn it on medium. When the oil is hot add the beef and garlic salt and stir until the meat is browned on all sides. Then add 4 cups of beef broth, wait for it to come to a boil, turn it down to a simmer, put the lid on, and step away for an hour. I’d recommend checking it every half hour to make sure the liquid isn’t boiling off too quickly. If it looks like it needs more liquid you can add more beef broth or water.

While the meat is cooking cut the carrots, onions, and peppers into bite size pieces. Also slice the Andouille sausage into bite size pieces and pull the tails off the shrimp. It’s pretty easy – I talk about it in my Seafood Fried Rice post. But here’s a quick recap: Properly thaw the shrimp. Then place the shrimp on a cutting board, lay your knife on the tail, and gently pull the shrimp away from the tail. It should just slip right out. Easy peasy.

When your beef has been stewing about an hour add the remaining beef broth and the rice. We are deviating slightly from the photos. After eating the stew it was determined (by me) that the rice takes way too long to cook and the shrimp and veggies are all overdone by the time the rice is done. I think this is inherent to the thick grain nature of the forbidden rice, which brings such a delightful color, but really takes a long time to cook. So instead, add the rice and broth to the beef and bring back to a simmer. Place the lid on and leave it alone until we add everything else. This will allow the rice to cook properly. A word of advice – if you’re using white rice, you probably need to add the rice and veggies/shrimp at the same time. If you’re cooking with brown rice, I’d recommend adding them early, like the forbidden rice.

We want to add the shrimp/veggie/sausage mixture in at about 15 minutes remaining in rice cooking time. So when the rice has been cooking for about 10 minutes heat another pan/skillet with the remaining oil until it’s hot. Add the sausage, shrimp, and creole seasoning and stir until the shrimp are just barely turning pink. At this point add all the veggies, stir them around until everything is shiny, and pour the entire thing into the soup pot. Stir it around to mix the creole seasonings in and cover again, letting it simmer until the rice is tender, about 15 minutes more.

Serve and enjoy this creepy, purplish black masterpiece!

Link’s Monster Stew recipe:

- Any Meat
- Any Seafood
- Monster Extract

Monster Stew

Servings: 4-5
Time: 2 hours
Difficulty: moderately easy
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Southern-style beef and seafood stew with forbidden rice

Ingredients

1 pound rump or chuck roast
1/2 pound shrimp, thawed and deveined
15-20 inches of Andouille sausage (about 3 links)
2 medium carrots
1 green bell pepper
1 medium yellow onion
8 cups beef stock
another 4 cups beef stock and water in case your liquid boils off too quickly
5 Tablespoons vegetable oil
1/2 – 1 teaspoon kosher salt, to taste
1/4 – 1/2 teaspoon black pepper to taste
1/2 – 1 teaspoon garlic salt
2-3 tablespoons Creole seasoning

Directions

1. Cut the beef into 1 inch cubes.
2. Add 3 tablespoons of oil to the bottom of a heavy pot and heat on medium.
3. When the oil is hot add the beef, salt pepper, and garlic salt and stir until the meat is browned on all sides.
4. Add 4 cups of beef broth and allow to come to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer, cover, and simmer for 1 hour. I recommend checking it every half hour to make sure the liquid isn’t boiling off too quickly. If it looks like it needs more liquid you can add more beef broth or water.
5. Cut the carrots, onions, and peppers into bite size pieces. Slice the Andouille sausage.
6. Pull the tails off the shrimp. To do this, properly thaw the shrimp. Place the shrimp on a cutting board, lay your knife on the tail, and gently pull the shrimp away from the tail. It should slip right out.
7. When your beef has been stewing about an hour add the remaining beef broth and the rice and bring back to a simmer. Place the lid on and allow to cook for 15 minutes. A note: if you’re using white rice, add the rice and veggies/shrimp at the same time as the cooking time is less for white rice.
8. Add the shrimp/veggie/sausage mixture in at about 15 minutes remaining in rice cooking time. So when the rice has been cooking for about 10 minutes heat another pan/skillet with the remaining oil until it’s hot. Add the sausage, shrimp, and creole seasoning and stir until the shrimp are just barely turning pink.
9. Add all the veggies, stir them around until everything is shiny, and pour the entire thing into the soup pot.
10. Stir the stew to mix the creole seasonings in and cover, letting it simmer until the rice is tender, about 15 minutes more.
11. Serve and enjoy this creepy, purplish black masterpiece!

Recipes

Seafood Fried Rice

February 16, 2018by Teri Mae11 Comments

It’s the first of two recipes this week! Since my mom lived in Taiwan for a few years when she was in her 20s we grew up eating Asian food (mainly Chinese and Taiwanese) made from scratch at home. Talk about an amazing childhood, right? Because of that I’m super picky about my Chinese and I usually just prefer to make it myself. Sounds complicated and too much to do, right? I mean, how do you take a delicious ethnic food and make it yourself? Well it’s actually super easy. Most east Asian food is just a combination of 4 things: sauce, veggies, a protein, and rice. Keep them separate and you’ve got the vast majority of Asian foods. Cook them together and you’ve got fried rice. So strap in, folks. We’re making the most delicious fried rice you’ve ever had!

Seafood Fried Rice

I hate to say it, but in reality you’re going to want a very big wok for this. I try not to force you to purchase new equipment for these recipes, but if you’re going to make proper and delicious Asian food at home, you’re going to need a wok. Large frying pans are the next best choice, but they’ll need to be awfully big to make up for a lack in wok. Pots won’t work at all – while there’s going to be plenty of space to keep all the ingredients, there’s not enough surface space to fry everything. You can heat a wok on high heat and, because of the way the wok is designed, the distribution will keep things from burning, but also keep everything hot enough to stir-fry instead of boil/burn/overcook. A wok is generally large enough to hold all the ingredients you’ll need to make really good Asian food, unlike most saute pans. And, lastly, a wok makes for a very healthy cooking surface – because of the way the wok is shaped you need less oil to cook than in a traditional saute pan.

So now, after that one paragraph, I’ve talked you into it and you’ve purchased the best wok you can afford, right? Good! Then congratulations! You are now the proud owner of one of my most-used pieces of kitchen equipment (note to self, that would be a great post someday). Wait – you’re telling me I didn’t convince you? Blast… Well you can still using a frying pan, it just won’t work as well. Pick the biggest one you’ve got (not a pot, just a frying pan) and let’s chat about ingredients.

Guys, I know you all wanted to see me make this with actual snails. But in reality, I’m not going to. Based on the photo and where Link picks these things up, I’m guessing they’re meant to just be shellfish. So, from now on, any recipe containing any of the variety of snails will be substituted with shellfish, usually shrimp. Trust me, you’ll thank me for that. And just like the Creamy Heart Soup we have to fudge a little in the real world.

First, we make the rice. Now, my wok is huge. My mom had one of her friends in Taiwan purchase a traditional wok for me for my birthday a few years ago and it can hold massive amounts of food. I’m guessing you weren’t that lucky. So I’ve toned down this recipe to fit a wok (or frying pan… sigh…) half the size of mine. That should (fingers crossed) work out alright. So let’s make rice, using the same directions I always post, but list in detail in the Meat and Rice Bowl recipe. Rinse the rice several times in water, fill it up with water to your first knuckle with your finger resting lightly on top of the rice, and turn on the rice cooker. One of these days I’m going to figure out how to make rice in a pot so I can teach you all how… but it is not this day! This day we use a rice cooker! For Gondor!

While the rice is cooking let’s chop the veggies. Measure out your peas (they don’t need to be thawed), wash your carrots, green onions, and cabbage, and let’s get going. Chop the carrots into larger bite-size pieces. Peel the outer leaves off the cabbage (this may just be a personal thing) and cut the cabbage in half. Slice into strips, turn the strips, and chop into small squares. Cut the green onions into inch long pieces and let’s do the shrimp.

Until recently I was incredibly nervous about working with raw shrimp. I was always afraid I would undercook it and get sick and die. As a microbiologist raw seafood is NOT on the menu. But once I discovered how easy it is and how delicious well-cooked shrimp is I’ll never go back. Most shrimp is frozen and farmed. It’s really the only way to get sustainably-sourced shrimp nowadays. That’s totally fine. Try to find something that still has it’s tail on but it deveined. While I know how to devein a shrimp I can’t go into it here. I don’t have any photos, you see, to show you. So take your properly thawed (put them in the fridge the night before in a ziplock bag. It’s as easy as that) shrimp and rinse them gently under cold water. Now take each shrimp and pull the tail off. Just place your knife along the tail, right up to where the tail meets the shell inside (so at the end of the flippers… fins? Then just pull. It’s super easy. Place them all in a bowl together and now we wait.

As soon as the rice is cooked heat your wok (or frying pan) on high, as hot as your stove will go. Add about 1-2 tablespoons oil and half the green onions. Now, it’s important you use the right kind of oil. You need a vegetable oil, an avocado oil, canola oil, something like that. Olive oil has a lower smoke point so it can’t handle the high heat we’re going for. When the green onions start popping add all the eggs and scramble until cooked. Don’t overcook them, we still want them soft and slightly squishy. Take them out of the pan/wok and set them aside.

Add more oil and the rest of the onions. Add the carrots, frozen peas, and cabbage. Stir fry (literally just stir as you fry) until the carrots are slightly tender, but not mushy. This’ll take anywhere from 5 minutes (if you have a wok) to 10 minutes. Take them out of the wok and again, set aside.

Add a smidgen more oil and, after 30 second or so, add the raw shrimp. Cook for several minutes (about 3) or until they are completely pink but not overdone. If they’re totally pink and really curling in a circle they’re probably a little overcooked. Once they start to show a little pink add the salt and continue to stir frying until pink all the way around.

Add the veggies back in and stir everything together. Add the rice and eggs and stir and mix until completely combined. Add all the soy sauce and stir until well-mixed. It’ll seem like a lot of soy sauce until it’s mixed completely. Once it is, maybe a minute or two, it’ll even out and be much better.

Serve and get ready for the compliments!

Link’s Seafood Fried Rice

- Rock Salt
- Hylian Rice
- Hearty Blueshell Snail or any Porgy

Seafood Fried Rice

Servings: 4 large servings
Time: 45 minutes, 20 minutes to cook rice, 25 minutes for fried rice
Difficulty: moderate
Print

Fried rice with shrimp, cabbage, carrots, eggs, and peas

Ingredients

1.25 cups calrose (or other sushi) rice
water to cook rice
3 eggs
2 carrots
1/3 head of cabbage
1 bunch green onions
1 cup frozen peas
15-20 raw shrimp, tail on, deveined
1 teaspoon salt
3 or so tablespoons vegetable or canola oil
1/2 cup soy sauce

Directions

Rinse the rice several times in water. Level the rice, place your forefinger gently on top of the rice, and add water until the level is up to your first knuckle. Cook in a rice cooker until done.
While the rice is cooking prepare the other ingredients. Measure out the peas and leave them frozen. Wash the carrots, green onions, and cabbage.
Slice and chop the carrots into large bite-size pieces. Peel the outer leaves off the cabbage and cut off the top third. Slice that third into strips, turn the strips, and chop into small squares. Cut the green onions into inch long pieces.
Ensure the shrimp has been thawed properly. They should be thawed in the fridge overnight in a sealed bag. Rinse the shrimp gently under cold water. Remove the tails by placing the edge of your knife along the tail, right up to where the tail meets the shell inside. Pull gently but firmly to remove the entire shrimp from the shell. Place all the shrimp in a bowl.
As soon as the rice is cooked heat your wok (or frying pan) on high, as hot as your stove will go. Add about 1-2 tablespoons oil and half the green onions. When the green onions start popping add all the eggs and scramble until cooked. Don’t overcook them, we still want them soft and slightly squishy. Take them out of the pan/wok and set them aside.
Add more oil and the rest of the onions. Add the carrots, frozen peas, and cabbage. Stir fry (literally just stir as you fry) until the carrots are slightly tender. This will take anywhere from 5 minutes to 10 minutes. Take them out of the wok and again, set aside.
Add more oil and, after 30 second or so, add the raw shrimp. Cook for several minutes (about 3) or until they are completely pink but not overdone. If they’re totally pink and really curling in a circle they’re probably a little overcooked. Once they start to show a little pink add the salt and continue stir frying until pink all the way around.
Add the veggies back in and stir everything together. Add the rice and eggs and stir and mix until completely combined. Add all the soy sauce and stir until well-mixed. Serve and enjoy!

Recipes

Fish Pie

July 26, 2017by Teri Mae8 Comments

Guys- I’m sorry about the whole “no post thing” yesterday. I’m currently preparing for a vacation on top of several fires at work and I completely forgot it was Tuesday…

Link sure has some serious pastry and cooking skills. This recipe, while not exactly difficult, was a bit strange. I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve never had fish pot pie before. I’ve never had fish anything pie before. And while I learned that a lot of people make seafood pie, hardly anyone uses fish – it’s typically crab, shrimp, or a combination of both. And if they do make fish pie, it’s made with a puff pastry crust, which isn’t quite as malleable and shape-able as shortcrust. But, from past general experience and a whole lotta luck, I bring you fish pie.

Fish Pie

This recipe gets a involved kinda fast. It feels like it starts off easy and then all of a sudden food is ready to be turned, you weren’t paying attention to correct cooking order and you’re dirtying extra pans just to make it all work, your crust starts to get too warm and difficult to roll out, and children start crying. At least, mine did! But you got this – because we are going to do this together.

First, in order to make things easier in the future, put a large cookie sheet in the fridge. Having something cold to put your crust shapes on while you roll everything else out will make sure they stay nice and flaky! Then we start with the filling.

Dice carrots and onion and get those peas thawed. You can do this by either microwaving for a minute or simply running them under water. The peas don’t need to be cooked, or even warm, since they will go through a few more heat steps before you eat them! Heat your pan on medium and then add your oil. Add your onions and saute (a fancy word for cooking in a minimal amount of fat over relatively high heat) until slightly tender and they turn translucent. Add your carrots and cook for a few minutes or until the carrots are tender. Add the peas next and cook until warm and mixed thoroughly. Remove your veggies from the pan to a plate or bowl and put your pan back on the heat.

Make sure your fish is thawed properly if it was frozen and, for the first time ever, we don’t need to warm it up to room temp or even pat it down! Add all your milk, your fish, and half the thyme, oregano, and dill to the same pan you cooked your vegetables in. Keep the heat on medium and allow to come to a boil. Once it’s boiling drop the heat a bit so it simmers. Simmer your fish for 2-3 more minutes on this side and then flip them and simmer for an additional 3 minutes. You don’t want to overcook it or the fish will get rubbery and gross in the pie. Remove the fish to a plate, and, if you did it right, it’ll be flaky and beautiful and still a bit glistening on the inside. Break the fish up on the plate into bite size pieces.

Now we start the roux. Roux can be seriously hard, especially if you’ve never done it before. I became really good at it when I was determined to make homemade mac and cheese. It took me a long time to get it right and I had to throw out a lot of batches before I really nailed it down. Here are my tips for a perfect roux:

Melt your butter in a heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat. You could probably use a regular saucepan, but I always use my enamel dutch oven since it keeps the heat nice and even. Wait until the butter is completely melted and bubbly. Once it is, whisk in half the flour. This is important! If you try and do it all at once it probably won’t melt back down. Once all the flour is incorporated and the mixture starts to melt and become a bit liquidy again add the remaining flour. Whisk is continually until it starts to melt again. At this point start timing – you’ll want to whisk continually for at least 2 minutes or until you reach the blond stage of a roux (a little darker than when you added it. you want all the flour taste to be gone!). Once the butter/flour mixture is melty and blond start slowly adding the milk that you left in the pan. Add about half the milk – the flour/butter may ball up on itself but just keep whisking. Just keep whisking, just keep whisking, just keep whisking, whisking, whisking… It’ll sort itself out! Whisk until the mixture is homogeneous and slightly thick. Add the remaining milk and repeat. If the mixture is too thick you may have added too much flour. Add regular milk until it reaches a nice, gravy-like consistency.

If you are unlucky and screw up your roux this is how you’ll know:

The flour and butter never reach that nice, melty stage after any flour addition
The flour/butter balls up when you add the milk and never mixes properly.

Don’t worry! If one of these things happen just throw it out and start again. Especially the first one – you can sometimes come back with even more vigorous whisking from the second but it’s very difficult to fix the first.

Once you have nice sauce add veggies, the remaining spices, and the fish. Stir until combined, adjust spices for taste, and remove from the heat. This we will set aside until the crust is ready!

Phew – all done with step one. Now on to step two… which is just as long and just as rough.

Start by adding ice cubes to a cup or two of water. You want the water to be as cold as possible! Add all the flour and salt for the shortcrust (which, for those of you who are normal people, is pie crust) to a large bowl and whisk to mix. Use butter flavored shortening (for a better flavor) and cut it into large chunks. Mix in the shortening, using your hands, by rubbing the shortening into the flour until it’s combined into a nice, crumbly texture with some pea-sized clumps.

From this point forward you’ll want to handle your crust as little as possible. The more you fiddle with it the tougher and denser the crust will be. And we want a light, flaky crust because that’s the delicious way! Slowly add the water 2 tablespoons at a time and combine it with the flour mixture. I mix by hand because I have a better grasp on how the dough is actually doing. Only add water until the mixture is just combined with some flour mixture not perfectly mixed in. Too much water and you’ll be left with a tough, dense crust. Take your cookie sheet out of the fridge and lightly flour a surface. Take about 1/4 of the dough, mash it into a ball, and roll it out. You’ll want it to be nice and thin, at least 1/8-1/4 inch, or it won’t cook evenly and your distribution of crust to filling will be weird.

At this point I took a knife and, using a template I made before I started, cut out the base of the fish. If your rolled out piece isn’t big enough just tack on more from the bowl and roll it out with the piece you’re working with to make it bigger. Place this on the cookie sheet, gather up the scraps and lay them to the side, and repeat for another 1/4 of the dough. Repeat two more times until you have 4 base pieces, which will be enough for two pies. Take all the scraps, mash them into a ball, and roll them out together. From this there should be enough, if you angle properly, to cut out all your designs perfectly. Lay them to the side (or leave them where they’re at).

Fill two of the fish shapes to within 1/2 inch of the edge – don’t fill them too high and don’t fill that gap or your pie won’t close properly and it’ll leak. Wet the edges with water (I use my finger because I’m super fancy), place the other fish shape on top, and press down along the edges. Crimp each edge with a fork to help seal the dough. Repeat for the second pie. Wet the back of each of the designs and place it down on the fish shape where you’d like it. Using a fork, poke a few holes in the top crust, ensuring it pokes all the way through to the center. This will help the steam escape and keep your pie from exploding! Beat and egg and brush the tops of each pie with it. Place in the oven and bake for 40 or so minutes until the crust is golden brown!

If you want my honest opinion this pie #1) tastes way better with tartar sauce smothered on top, and #2) is more work than it’s worth. Unless you want to make something extra special and pretty I’d just cover a pie dish with your shortcrust, add the filling, cover the top, seal, and bake that way! It’ll be much easier! But this way definitely turned into a show-stopper for looks!

Link’s Salmon Meunière

- Tabantha Wheat
- Goat Butter
- Rock Salt
- Any Seafood

Fish Pie

Servings: 2 large pies
Time: 2.5 hours
Difficulty: moderately difficult
Print

White fish pot pie with vegetables

Filling

3/4 lb white fish of any kind
2 cups milk
1-2 teaspoons pepper
1.5 tsp thyme
1 tsp oregano
1/2-1 tsp dill
2-3 tsp salt
1/2 cup carrots, diced
1/2 cup yellow onion, diced
1/2 cup peas, thawed
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
3 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons oil

Shortcrust

3 cups flour
1 cup butter flavored shortening
4-9 tablespoons ice water
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg, beaten, for egg wash

Directions

Put a large cookie sheet in the fridge or freezer.
Dice the carrots and onion.
Thaw the peas by microwaving for 1 minute or running them under water for 1 minute.
Heat the pan on medium. Add the oil and onion and saute until slightly tender and translucent. Add the carrots and cook for 3-5 minutes or until tender. Add the peas and continue cooking until warm and mixed thoroughly.
Add all your milk, your fish, and half the thyme and oregano to the same pan you cooked your vegetables in. Keep the heat on medium and allow to come to a boil. Once boiling, drop the heat to a simmer. Simmer your fish for 2-3 minutes on this side. Flip the fish and simmer for an additional 3 minutes.
Remove the pan from the heat, leaving the milk in the pan, and place the fish on a plate and break it into small pieces.
Melt butter in a heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat. When the butter is completely melted and bubbly whisk in half the flour. Once all the flour is incorporated and the mixture starts to melt and become a bit liquidy again add the remaining flour. Whisk continually until it starts to melt again. Continue whisking for about 2 minutes or until you reach the blond stage of a roux (a little darker than when you added it but not brown).
Once the butter/flour mixture is melty and blond start slowly add half the milk from the pan. Whisk until the mixture is homogeneous and slightly thick.
Add the veggies, remaining spices, and fish to the sauce and stir until combined. Adjust spices for taste and remove from the heat.
Add several ice cubes to a cup of water and set aside.
Add all the flour and salt for the shortcrust to a large bowl and whisk to mix.
Cut the shortening into large cubes. Add it to the flour and, using your hands, mix them together by rubbing the shortening into the flour until it’s combined into a nice, crumbly texture with some pea-sized clumps.
Make a small well in the center of the flour mixture and slowly add the water 2 tablespoons at a time. Using your hand mix the water and flour together until combined. Continue adding water until the mixture is just combined but not perfectly mixed in. Don’t add too much water and don’t overmix or the crust will be dense and chewy.
Take your cookie sheet out of the fridge and lightly flour a surface. Take about 1/4 of the dough, mash it into a ball, and roll it out to 1/8-1/4 inch thin. Using a template (or freehanding it) cut the base of the fish out with a knife. If your rolled out piece isn’t big enough just tack on some more from the bowl and roll it out with the piece you’re working with to make it bigger.
Repeat step 14 3 more times to make 4 fish shapes.
Take all the scraps, mash them into a ball, and roll them out together. From this there should be enough, if you angle properly, to cut out all your designs perfectly. Lay them to the side (or leave them where they’re at).
Fill two of the fish shapes to within 1/2 inch of the edge – don’t fill them too high and don’t go in that 1/2 gap or your pie won’t close properly. Wet the edges of the pastry with water, place the other fish shape on top, and press down along the edges. Crimp each edge with a fork to help seal the dough.
Repeat for the second pie.
Wet the back of each of the designs and place it down on the fish shape where you’d like it. Using a fork, poke a few holes in the top crust, making sure it pokes all the way through to the center.
Beat and egg and brush the tops of each pie with it.
Bake for 40 minutes at 425°F. Allow to cool for several minutes before serving.

Recipes

Salmon Meunière

July 18, 2017July 18, 2017by Teri Mae11 Comments

I learned a lot while making this recipe. Here are my top three – and then on to the food…

First: it is very important to choose your butcher carefully when you get seafood. I mistakenly used a grocery store butcher that I usually trust. Apparently the betray you when it comes to seafood. The salmon wasn’t scaled properly and still had all it’s pin bones. And, not only that, but the cut was uneven. I wound up slicing off a decent amount of fish that wasn’t really usable to get even portion sizes! I was pretty disappointed. So make sure you choose a reputable seller, double check that they scaled and removed the bones prior to purchasing, and then hope you have a very sharp knife if they don’t cut evenly!

If you do get unlucky enough to have to debone the fish yourself it’s really easy. Just annoying. Wash a pair of pliers with hot water and soap. Carefully push the flesh of the salmon in and grasp the tip of the pin bone. Pull it as carefully as you can to prevent the flesh from ripping. It’s not bad if it does, it just isn’t as pretty anymore. Make sure you get all the bones – you’ll be able to feel them if you gently run your hand down the length of the fish. If you are doubly unlucky and they didn’t remove all the scales just flip the salmon over to skin side up. Run the blade of the knife down the fish and watch all the clear, inedible scales pop off. But you can always skip both these steps by choosing a better store! Which I will do for all my fish from now on.

Second: experimenting with a very basic, traditional recipe turns out sub-par results. I tried really hard to fiddle with this this recipe a bit and make it my own. Turns out this recipe is so straight forward it doesn’t do well with a lot of tweaking. I tried the sauce twice before I finally gave up and realized sometimes the old school way is the best way.

Third: no matter how many times I try it I really, really hate salmon. It’s very fishy, even fairly fresh, and fatty. The flavor is just… not my favorite. If I’m going to spend this much on a protein you can bet it’ll be something I actually want to eat. Unlucky for me, there are still a handful of salmon recipes left in the official Breath of the Wild guide…

Salmon Meunière

You’ll find a lot of themes in these recipes. One of them is to allow the meat to warm up to room temperature and to pat it dry before seasoning. I explain why in my Meat and Rice Bowl recipe. And that’s exactly how we are going to start salmon meunière – take the salmon out of the fridge about 30 minutes before cooking and allow to warm up to room temperature.

While it’s warming up wash and pull the leaves off the parsley. It’s pretty easy, actually. Just grab the stems and line up the leaves, place the knife edge down right at the base of the leaves, and gently but firmly pull the parsley through the knife blade. It’ll get most of the stems off and leave you with a nice pile of leaves. And no, it’s not one of the piles that hides a korok seed. Sorry. Roughly chop the parsley into pieces, they don’t have to be perfect. You’ll want a small handful of parsley. If you’re using fresh lemon cut it in half and squeeze the juice of one of them. You only need 3/4 tablespoon so no need to go crazy. Smash the garlic by placing the flat of a knife blade against the garlic clove and smash your hand into the blade. Never do this on the edge of the knife and never smash the knife down – both these could result in some serious cuts and I refuse to be held responsible for that. When the garlic is smashed peel off the skin. Get the butter cut and ready to go and play a few rounds of Splatoon 2 until the salmon is ready.

When you’re ready to cook pat the salmon dry and season with kosher salt and pepper. Turn your burner on to medium, add your oil, and get your pan nice and hot. When the pan is hot add the butter. Be really careful, the butter will splatter and pop as the water cooks out of it! We add the salmon when the butter stops popping so when the mixture starts to calm down spread the flour out on a plate and dip and pat the salmon into the flour to completely coat it. This is called dredging and it’s a pretty awesome technique to get a nice, crispy, almost fried skin. Make sure you don’t dredge too early or the flour just gets soaked into the fish and it doesn’t fry quite as well.

Add the fish to the pan, skin down, laying it away from you to prevent any oil splatters. Let it cook for 3-4 minutes on this side then flip the fish and allow it to cook for 3 more minutes. Take it out of the pan, place it on a plate, and cover with foil. You’ll want to do this next part quickly – the longer the fish sits under that foil the less crispy it gets!

Using a few paper towels rolled in a ball and a heavy duty oven mitt pour out the oil into a heat safe container and wipe the inside of the pan. We don’t want to keep any of the old mixture since it’s likely to burn if it cooks too long.

Add the new butter and smashed garlic and wait for it to melt and cook down. It will take 2-3 minutes to turn brown and nutty and delicious. Remove the pan from the heat (don’t follow my photo example and just turn off the heat. It’s not good enough!). Add the lemon and parsley and stir to combine. Again, use caution, this mixture may splatter as well. Uncover the fish, pour the sauce over, and serve immediately. PS- if your pan is still really hot your parsley may brown pretty quickly and it’ll make your sauce look a bit burned. I promise, if you use this recipe it won’t burn and will still taste good!

Link’s Salmon Meunière

- Tabantha Wheat
- Goat Butter
- Hearty Salmon

Salmon Meunière

Servings: 2
Time: 30-45 minutes
Difficulty: moderately easy
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Salmon drizzled with a meunière butter lemon sauce

Salmon

2 8 oz portions salmon
1-2 tablespoons kosher salt
1-2 teaspoons pepper
2 tablespoons oil
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1/4 cup flour

Sauce

3/4 tablespoon lemon juice (juice from half a small lemon)
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
2-3 tablespoons chopped parsley
1 large garlic clove, smashed

Directions

Warm the salmon to room temperature.
Using the blade of your knife pull the leaves off the parsley by gently but firmly running the blade along the stems. Roughly chop into small pieces.
Cut the lemon and juice one half, making sure not to get any seeds in the juice.
Using the flat of a knife blade smash the garlic and remove the skin.
Pat the salmon dry and season with kosher salt and pepper.
Heat a pan over medium with the oil.
When the oil is hot add the butter. Be careful, as this will splatter and pop until all the water is cooked out of the butter.
When the butter mixture starts to calm down add the flour to a plate and dredge the salmon by patting it into the flour. Immediately add the salmon to the pan, skin down, by laying it away from you.
Cook the salmon for 3-4 minutes, turn, and cook for another 3 minutes.
Remove the salmon and cover with foil.
Acting quickly pour the remaining oil mixture out of the pan and wipe out with paper towels. Be careful not to burn yourself and use proper heat proof equipment.
Add the 5 tablespoons of butter and garlic to the pan and allow to melt and brown, about 2-3 minutes.
Remove the pan from the heat and add the lemon and parsley. Again, use caution when you add the lemon because it may splatter and pop.
Immediately pour over the salmon filets and serve.