Category: Main Dishes

Sarah’s Salmon Sauce

My best friend and his wife at the University of Virginia had a baby daughter who has grown up to be a talented writer and the patient wife of a diplomat who travels the world, as well as a devoted mother and good cook.

Like my wife, Sarah believes in the “make do” school of cooking.  Here is what she wrote when I asked for more guidance on making her salmon sauce.  “I’m a great fan of experimentation….Sadly, some of the quantities are terribly lacking and I threw this together as “a little bit of this, a little bit of that, hmmm, how much of something do we have in the fridge?…”

Her explanation really describes how all recipes came to be.  Some overworked woman getting supper in the cave said to herself, “There’s not enough meat to go around, so I’ll just throw some of these leaves and roots in the pot” and the next thing you know, people were eating vegetable mammoth soup.

“Sarah’s Salmon Sauce” actually was named “Sarah’s Divine White Saurce” by her husband who first had it when they were living on St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands.  With her permission I have renamed it “Sarah’s Salmon Sauce” because when I make it, it is salmon colored and has salmon in it.  Maybe I put too much tomato pesto in it, but it is a delicious way to serve salmon.

INGREDIENTS:

2 T olive oil
3 cloves garlic
1 bunch (8 or 10) green onions
1 medium or 2 small Zucchini
3/4 cup finely chopped parsley
1 1/2 cups half and half
1 can cream of asparagus soup
Fresh ground black lypepper
1 T sour cream
1 T tomato pesto
Two shakes hot sauce
1 can sliced water chestnuts
1 lb. salmon fillet
Spice rub for fish
1 to 2 tsp. capers

PROCEDURE:

Rub the fillets with your choice of spice rub and grill or sauté them until done,  Remove from heat.  Wash and finely chop the parsley, discarding the large stems.  Mince 3 large cloves of garlic and clean and chop the onions. Clean and chop the zucchini into bite-sized pieces.

Heat a tablespoon of  oil in a 3 ot 4 quart pan and sauté the garlic and onion for about two minutes.  Add the zucchini and sauté for another minute.  Add the soup, half and half, sour cream, pesto, capers and about 1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper.  Drain the water chestnuts and add them to the sauce.  With a fork break the fish into bite-sized flakes and add them to the sauce.  Stir in about a quarter teaspoon hot sauce and the parsley.  Taste and adjust the seasoning if needed.

Serve over rice or pasta with bread and a green salad.

Boneless Pork Roast

When I fetched a pork roast from the wooden chest in the red shed on those cold winter mornings, I knew that Mom would be making pork pot roast for supper that night.  I don’t remember her ever roasting pork (with the exception of hams) or beef in the oven.  She browned the roasts, then simmered them slowly with vegetables until they were fork tender.  I loved her pot roasts then and still do my best to imitate her recipes.

Mom was an avid experimenter, but mainly with salads and casseroles.  Show her a new way to use Jell-O or Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom Soup and she would try it.  Her main dishes tended to be more conventional.  Then too, we had a big garden every summer, so potatoes, carrots and onions were always available and virtually free.  These were one-pot meals with plenty of food for everyone.  Conventional but delicious, especially with homemade bread and dessert.  

My dietary horizon expanded when I went to the University of Wisconsin at Madison. As I look back at those years in residence halls, I realize today that I had lucked into a golden age of cafeteria food.  Van Hise Hall had a chef who had cooked, we were told, at a four star hotel. After some misunderstandings between students and chef were rectified, we began dining in ways that today’s college students would envy.

I learned that hams, turkeys and chickens were not the only meats that could be roasted in the oven. We had prime rib, Baron of Beef, roast pork and what was described as leg of lamb.  My guess is that the “lamb” was really “ram” that had been stored in old army blankets before being shipped to Madison.  I think that this was the only roast almost universally rejected by dorm residents.  We had it once.

The chef did not share his recipes but I think that this one comes close to capturing the magic of a perfect pork roast.  The herbs and spices create an aromatic taste treat and the flour worked into the outside of the meat produces a wonderful crisp crust.

INGREDIENTS:

One boneless pork butt roast, 3 to 4 lbs.

3 medium or 2 large cloves fresh garlic

3 T flour

1/3 to 1/2 tsp. salt

1/4 to 1/3 tsp. dried crushed rosemary

1/4 to 1/3 tsp. basil

1/4 to 1/3 tsp. paprika

Dash of cayenne

1/8 tsp. fresh ground black pepper

1 tsp. olive oil

PROCEDURE:

Preheat the oven to 450º.  Peel and slice the garlic cloves into thin spears.  With a thin knife tip, poke holes in the roast and insert a spear of garlic in each hole.  You should have twelve to fifteen spears in the roast spaced evenly over the surface.  Rub the teaspoon of olive oil over the meat.  
Crush the rosemary in a mortar and pestle or with a cup and spoon.  Mix the flour, herbs and spices together on a sheet of waxed paper.  Roll the roast in this mixture and press the mixture into the surface until nearly all of the flour is stuck to the meat.  

With an ice pick or nail, make a hole in the roast and insert a meat thermometer into the center.  Place fat side up on a roasting rack in a pan in the hot oven.  Turn heat down to 350º, and roast until the thermometer registers 160º (about thirty minutes per pound).  Remove the roast from the oven and let it sit for four or five minutes before removing any netting that might be around the roast. 

NOTES:

Serve with cranberry or apple sauce, parsley potatoes or boiled potatoes, gravy and a green or yellow vegetable accompanied by fresh bread.  The USDA revised pork cooking guidelines say you can serve pork roasts with an internal temperature of 145º.  I prefer the older standard, but you will get a juicier roast at the lower temperature.