Give a Man a Fish…

…and he eats for a day; show him how to glaze a whole salmon fillet, and serve it with a dill mustard sauce, and he eats very well for a day! This week’s Ben’s Day Wednesday meal was mustard dill salmon with crushed rosemary potatoes, and a side of Grandma’s applesauce from the freezer.

The salmon recipe’s origin has a long and confusing chain of custody, because proportions and amounts of sauce ingredients, along with cooking methods and times, have varied over the years (and that’s just in our household), but here was this week’s version:

Salmon Fillet with Dill Mustard Sauce

2 tablespoons brown sugar

3 tablespoons white wine vinegar

2 tablespoons dijon mustard

6 tablespoons vegetable oil

Salt and pepper to taste

1 tablespoon soy sauce

Chopped dill to taste (at least 1/4 cup – we used about a cup!)

1 whole salmon fillet (ours was just under 2 pounds)

1. Whisk together brown sugar, vinegar, and mustard. Add oil in slow stream, whisking vigorously, to form sauce. Season with pepper to taste.
2. Transfer 1/4 cup sauce to a small bowl, and add soy sauce to make glaze.
3. Spray a piece of foil with cooking spray, and place salmon, skin side down, on foil. Brush with glaze.
4. Grill salmon (on foil) for 13-15 minutes on indirect, medium heat.
5. To the sauce (from step 1) add chopped dill, and salt and pepper to taste. 
6. Serve salmon warm or at room temperature with sauce.

If you are feeding an army, instead of a party of three, try the Alpha recipe from Epicurious, that Ben’s Aunt Mary got us started on:

https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/glazed-salmon-fillets-with-dill-mustard-sauce-13238

The potato recipe was from my mom, and I’ll list it here, though we used bigger potatoes, so the cook time and crushing method varied.

Crushed Potatoes with Rosemary Salt

1 1/2 pounds small red-skinned new potatoes, unpeeled

1 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon rosemary salt (1/2 teaspoon each, coarse sea salt and chopped, fresh rosemary, ground together)

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1. Place potatoes in medium saucepan with enough cold water to cover. Bring to boil over medium-high heat. Add salt. Gently boil 10-12 minutes or until just cooked through but still firm. Drain. Cool until warm.
2. Meanwhile, heat oven to 450 degrees. Place potatoes on work surface. With flat side of meat cleaver, press gently on each potato to crush into 3/4 inch thick cake. Place on large rimmed baking sheet. Brush both sides with oil. 
3. Bake 30 minutes, turning once. Sprinkle with rosemary salt and pepper.

To serve Grandma’s applesauce, we recommend you get yourself a Mennonite Grandma who grows, cans and freezes all manner of produce, and then gives it to you to enjoy throughout the year.

If you regularly read this blog, you know that we have really been in shelter-in-place mode since March 13th. You also know that Ben is a social creature, so this lock down thing has been a long, lonely stretch for him (though we always try to focus on the positives.) 

This past holiday weekend, we had the pleasure of being with some of our favorite people, the Millers. We didn’t hug, or get too close, but we ate and swam and talked all afternoon, and into the evening. It was wonderful. Dan grilled burgers, and Barb and Leslie made a staggering number of delicious sides. As always, they packed Ben a “to go” plate to carry him through the next few days. 

I didn’t take a single picture (unless you count the one of all Phil’s wallet contents drying on the porch banister after he hopped into the pool before removing the keys, wallet and phone from his pockets. I wish I could say that this was the first time, but he did it last year, too. I wish I could say that this was the first phone he’s ruined in the Covid era, but he sent one through the washer in April. Good thing he sniffed out some great deals on phones (right, Dan?), because he goes through them like Saul on Breaking Bad.)

But, I digress. My lack of documenting our wonderful day was because I decided to live it, instead. Of course, it doesn’t take long to snap a few pictures, but sometimes gathering photographic evidence of a good day ends up shaping the narrative. Sometimes it’s just us and our friends, instead of the story of us and our friends. Thank you, Millers, for a wonderful day! It was good for our souls in a way that could never be captured in a picture, but will remain, in our heads, a highlight of summer.