date night – Florida Girl Cooks http://floridagirlcooks.com Seeker of sunshine + exquisite food Sun, 03 Feb 2019 18:29:26 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.1.1 96532064 SALT CRUSTED FINGERLING POTATOES WITH HERB BUTTER http://floridagirlcooks.com/salt-crusted-fingerling-potatoes-with-herb-butter/ Thu, 06 Aug 2015 17:14:57 +0000 http://floridagirlcooks.com/?p=400 As if the grilled salmon with smoked tomato wasn’t enough from Sur-La-Table’s Date Night: Sensation Summer Cooking with Tom Deni in Boca Raton, you’re in for a treat with this extremely simple to make ...

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]]> As if the grilled salmon with smoked tomato wasn’t enough from Sur-La-Table’s Date Night: Sensation Summer Cooking with Tom Deni in Boca Raton, you’re in for a treat with this extremely simple to make and fresh potato & herbed butter recipe. For some, especially those who do not like salty foods, this may seem a bit too salty. My husband and I thought this was a perfect companion to the rest of the dish we made on our date night cooking class. You’ll find the post a few posts ahead of this one with the entire menu and links to each individual recipe. There’s nothing tricky here and it’s a fix it and forget it type of dish. I did, however, have a bit of trouble finding regular fingerling potatoes and settled for a bag of mixed gold and purple fingerling potatoes, but it came out perfect and didn’t take away from the flavor or presentation of the overall dish. Salt crusted fingerling potatoes with herb butter is sure to compliment your summer meal and could even be eaten as is for a lighter meal.

Salt Crusted Fingerling Potatoes with Herb Butter

Ingredients

8 cups cold water
1 cup kosher salt (original recipe calls for 2 cups, but that tasted too salty to me)
3 pounds well-scrubbed fingerling potatoes
4 ounces (1 stick) unsalted butter
½ tsp thyme leaves
1 tsp finely chopped flat leaf parsley
1 tsp minces chives
Freshly ground black pepper

Prepare

1. In a large pot combine water, salt, and fingerlings and bring to a simmer over medium-high heat.
2. Cook potatoes until tender, about 25 minutes. Drain thoroughly but do not rinse and transfer to a serving bowl.
3. In a small saucpan, melt butter and add herbs and season with pepper.
4. Pour butter into small individual dipping bowls and serve with salt crusted potatoes.

Salt Crusted Fingerling Potatoes with Herb Butter
Serves 6
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Prep Time
10 min
Cook Time
25 min
Total Time
35 min
Prep Time
10 min
Cook Time
25 min
Total Time
35 min
Ingredients
  1. 8 cups cold water
  2. 1 cup kosher salt (original recipe calls for 2 cups, but that tasted too salty to me)
  3. 3 pounds well-scrubbed fingerling potatoes
  4. 4 ounces (1 stick) unsalted butter
  5. ½ tsp thyme leaves
  6. 1 tsp finely chopped flat leaf parsley
  7. 1 tsp minces chives
  8. Freshly ground black pepper
Instructions
  1. In a large pot combine water, salt, and fingerlings and bring to a simmer over medium-high heat.
  2. Cook potatoes until tender, about 25 minutes. Drain thoroughly but do not rinse and transfer to a serving bowl.
  3. In a small saucpan, melt butter and add herbs and season with pepper.
  4. Pour butter into small individual dipping bowls and serve with salt crusted potatoes.
Adapted from Sur-La-Table
Adapted from Sur-La-Table
Florida Girl Cooks http://floridagirlcooks.com/
IMG_7794

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]]> 400 GRILLED SALMON WITH SMOKED TOMATO VINAIGRETTE http://floridagirlcooks.com/grilled-salmon-with-smoked-tomato-vinaigrette/ Wed, 05 Aug 2015 16:37:22 +0000 http://floridagirlcooks.com/?p=398 When it comes to seafood I consider myself a non-discriminator and would like to think I love every single kind of seafood out there. Up until now, for the last few years, I have ...

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]]> When it comes to seafood I consider myself a non-discriminator and would like to think I love every single kind of seafood out there. Up until now, for the last few years, I have secretly hated salmon. I have unfortunate experiences where I had too much “bad salmon” in the sense of being prepared the same way over and over by other people that I just thought salmon was plain gross. I am glad my husband and I recently took a cooking class together at Sur-La-Table titled, Date Night: Sensation Summer Cooking. It was no mystery to me in advance that salmon was to be on the menu for the evening, but everything else sounded so good I figured it would be ok. I’ve had salmon grilled before but this was on a whole other level of grilling. They had us use a Le Creuset round Cerise skinny grill and it came out so juicy and flavorful. I had been trapped in the mentality for over 11 years that anything grilled has to be either on a regular gas/charcoal grill or a small Foreman grill, not that there’s anything wrong with that but it’s obviously limiting. The grill pan keeps all of the salmon’s juices and oil from coating on the pan and maintains the fish nice and moist.

So after this experience salmon wins and let’s just say that my small Foreman grill has been demoted and the Le Creuset skinny grill now takes it’s place in the kitchen.

Now moving on to what can be the more intricate part of creating this dish let’s talk about smoking the tomatoes. In class they introduced a poacher, which tends to be primarily used for cooking/smoking fish. They filled a thin layer of applewood chips at the bottom of the poacher, placed the metal tray with holes next, and placed the tomatoes on top. The holes allow the applewood chips to breathe through, thus smoking the tomatoes. Being that I have a possibly near kitchen tool hoarding problem I opted out of buying a poacher and decided to make my own. I took a large skillet, lined the bottom with a round piece aluminum foil and placed the applewood chips on top. I did this first step to avoid staining my skillet with the burnt applewood chips. From here I created a similar round piece of aluminum foil except I gently poked holes into it to mimic the inner tray of the poacher from class. I turned up the heat, placed the tomatoes on top, covered the skillet with a lid, and let the process of smoking begin. Voila! It came out just like the tomatoes we made in class. Discard the apple wood chips when you’re done. See my pictures below for an example of the wood-chips set-up. The rest is history! Well, at least it’s in the directions below so please consult with those…haha! 🙂 Fire up your grill one last time and enjoy this savory grilled salmon with smoked tomato vinaigrette before summer comes to a close!

grilled salmon with smoke tomato vinaigrette, summer grilling, sir-la-table, date night, summer entertaining

grilled salmon with smoke tomato vinaigrette, summer grilling, sir-la-table, date night, summer entertaining

grilled salmon with smoked tomato vinaigrette_florida girl cooks_05

grilled salmon with smoke tomato vinaigrette, summer grilling, sir-la-table, date night, summer entertaining

Grilled Salmon with Smoked Tomato Vinaigrette

Ingredients

Vinaigrette

Applewood Chips (not for consumption)
1 pint cherry tomatoes
1 tbsp sherry vinegar
3 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1 tsp chopped thyme leaves
1 tsp light brown sugar
kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Salmon

4, 5 oz. salmon fillets, skin on, bones removed
2 tbsp canola oil
kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Prepare

1. Soak applewood chips in a bowl of water for an hour, drain water and set chips aside. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Set up a poacher with applewood chips underneath tray and heat on medium over two stove burners.
3. Once there is smoke coming from the poacher, place tomatoes inside the poacher and smoke for 10 minutes.
4. In a small mixing bowl, add tomatoes and remaining ingredients, stirring to combine. Taste and adjust with salt and pepper.
5. Preheat a grill or grill pan to medium-high. Coat grill grates or grill pan with a thin coat of canola oil, using a silicone pastry brush.
6. Brush salmon filets with canola oil and season both sides with salt and pepper.
7. Place salmon filets skin side down and grill for 3 – 4 minutes.
8. Using silicone spatula, carefully flip the filets over and grill to medium, 2 – 3 more minutes.
9. Bake salmon filets in oven for five minutes, remove and serve on four plates and top with smoked tomato and vinaigrette.

 

Grilled Salmon with Smoked Tomato Vinaigrette
Serves 4
Write a review
Save Recipe
Print
Prep Time
1 hr
Cook Time
10 min
Total Time
1 hr 10 min
Prep Time
1 hr
Cook Time
10 min
Total Time
1 hr 10 min
Ingredients
  1. 4, 5 oz. salmon fillets, skin on, bones removed
  2. 2 tbsp canola oil
  3. kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Instructions
  1. Soak applewood chips in a bowl of water for an hour, drain water and set chips aside. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
  2. Set up a poacher with applewood chips underneath tray and heat on medium over two stove burners.
  3. Once there is smoke coming from the poacher, place tomatoes inside the poacher and smoke for 10 minutes.
  4. In a small mixing bowl, add tomatoes and remaining ingredients, stirring to combine. Taste and adjust with salt and pepper.
  5. Preheat a grill or grill pan to medium-high. Coat grill grates or grill pan with a thin coat of canola oil, using a silicone pastry brush.
  6. Brush salmon filets with canola oil and season both sides with salt and pepper.
  7. Place salmon filets skin side down and grill for 3 - 4 minutes.
  8. Using silicone spatula, carefully flip the filets over and grill to medium, 2 – 3 more minutes.
  9. Bake salmon filets in oven for five minutes, remove and serve on four plates and top with smoked tomato and vinaigrette.
Adapted from Sur-La-Table
Adapted from Sur-La-Table
Florida Girl Cooks http://floridagirlcooks.com/
grilled salmon with smoke tomato vinaigrette, summer grilling, sir-la-table, date night, summer entertaining

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