seven,..Catch

Funny word this one,..ever notice it,..usually it has a positive connotation,.."Nice catch" when someone throws something at you, or "she's a good catch, a real keeper" ..which i always thought funny 'cause i think that relates to a fish right? talking about a potential soul mate as a fish,...."catch of the day!" that doesn't sound very monogamous. However i guess you can catch hell from your boss, or catch a bullet, or catch the flu. no one ever says ''nice catch" when you catch the flu, it's opposite then,..you throw things then, throw that Kleenex away, I'm throwing you out of work, your sick,..then i go home and throw up. funny these words.
   i guess you catch catch a crook right? or catch something on fire, or catch someone in the act of something,...you know now that i think of it the word has more negative connotations than positive.  i'm sleepy now so maybe catch some Z's.
  just kiddin i had had to finish the joke, but "catch of the day" reminded me of food, and i want to mention something about cooking in these blogs.
         Maine folks have a problem with fish ,..but that's just me, i am a westerner,...they have wonderful fish here, lobster, clams , mussels, haddock(not very good),..but they can't cook salmon, or halibut,...they bake it it seems. so i want to talk about fish.
             fish should be cut right, the cut should be even as possible, i know that it can't, but it's not too hard to cut fish for home use.  fish cooks pretty quick you see so uniformity is important so as not to have dried out piece of fish on the end and rare piece at the top....okay i think i've gone over that enough.

            Now, salmon  i know pretty well having worked in seattle hotels and restaurants for a while,...i have found salmon, even though i am quite sick of it, always turns out better when seasoned(S+P) and at room temp, put into your pan, cast iron if you have it, with clarified butter on the skin side mind you. Now that doesn't mean there has to be skin, it just means the side the skin was on, i rather like the skin on however. anyway a good sizzle from the fish, and then add the cubed unsalted butter to the pan with thyme and a clove of garlic that you just smashed with you knife. tip the pan so the melted butter pools to the bottom, and with your spoon, gently pour this aromatic butter over the raw side of your fish. "basting" it i think is the term,..i like calling it "cooking the fish right" but basting is one word and easier to say, plus it sounds professional,...okay off the subject.

now when the fish is done cooking you will be able to tell by the way it looks,....nice crust on the bottom and gets more rare to the top, as we never flip it, we let the butter do the cooking from above, meanwhile, the thyme and garlic perfumed the butter, and now you remove it from the pan and present it with the seared side up on some rice or spinach, or really whatever your cooking now, and one has salmon ,..not steamed or grilled but in my opinion,....cooked how it should be to represent seattle.!

   hope my hopelessly style of a recipe was easy enough to "catch"