Friday, August 20, 2010

Cedar Planked Salmon for a Crowd!


This is an old photo from the 4th of July, but I just downloaded it to my computer so I though I should throw it on here. Those are two, 10 lb. sides of fresh Northwest King salmon on cedar planks so big I had to buy them at Home Depot. We did one with a asian style soy based marinade and the other got a brown sugar & paprika rub with dill & lemon.

We fed this to a crowd of about 100, along with 12 chickens, 14 whole racks of BBQ ribs, a 10 lb. beef brisket, 5 gallons of sloppy joes, and a potluck of all kinds of sides & salads. I was barley able to put a plate together before it was all gone.

Lemon Chicken, with Chorizo Potatoes & Butter Lettuce Salad

I got this chicken recipe from a Jamie Oliver cookbook. We stuffed the chicken with lemons & parsley, then roasted it over a bed of potatoes & chorizo so they suck up all the chicken fat that collects in the pan as it renders. It's topped with a mix of lemon, garlic, & parsley when it comes out of the oven hot.

The salad is one of my favorites that I stole from Bouchon restaurant. It's butter lettuce tossed with a ton of different herbs, like tarragon, thyme, dill, chervil, and parsley. The dressing is a mix of canola oil, dijon, and red wine vinegar. Minced shallots on top for some zing. We had a great bottle of Ridge zinfandel with it.

Halibut & Tomatoes



Wednesday night we put together a nice assortment from our garden. The first tomatoes of the year! We mixed about 4-5 varieties of home grown tomatoes with a fresh cucumber and some basil. Another salad of greens made with arugula, dill, and shallots in the wood bowl. Then for the main course a nice filet of halibut from our Alaskan fisherman friend Matty B. I poached it in some vegetable stock with carrots, celery, onions, thyme, parsley, and some little hot red peppers I picked earlier in the day. We served it over some rice.

This turned out to be one of the better spreads we've made in quite a while. It's crazy to think that almost everything came from my shoddy little garden.