Blog.EmealsForYou

(from www.emealsforyou.com Meal Plans/WOW (Watching Our Waists)?Healthy, Good and Tasty)

Pan-seared Salmon

I had to give a cooking lesson the other day. My brother-in-law (henceforth known as MBIL) asked if I would show him some easy recipes that he could cook. MBIL is a rocket scientist, he actually worked for the people who make the solid fuel boosters for the Space Shuttle. I mention this as it significantly effects how one has to approach the teaching lesson, that one would be me.

I cook basically like my grandmother cooked, a little of this and a pinch of that. On the other hand an engineer wants to know how much of this and that. As I explained how hot the pan had to be to get started, when the oil begins to smoke, he wanted to know what temperature that was. Then he stated that a study had been done on non-stick pans and they may give off toxic fumes when heated to high temps. Okay, good point I guess. BTW most studies state that the pan has to be heated above 600 degrees and most stoves can’t reach that temperature. Then he said his new high-end pans had a warning to not over-heat them. I put the salmon in the smoking pan and began to cook.

Did I mention that MBIL has a new camera? He not only wanted to learn to cook but try out his new toy as well. So when I flipped the salmon in the pan; yes I pulled the pan back, pushed it forward and then flicked my wrist and the salmon floated in the air, did a back flip and landed in the pan, he missed “the shot”. (for those keeping score again, yes that is a run-on sentence) Did I mention I was cooking in my mother-in-law’s kitchen?

MBIL asked if I could do that again, you know for the camera. As I had four 11/2 lb salmon filets to cook, sure why not. Every time I began to flip the salmon my mother-in-law would walk into the room and I had to try to avoid flipping the salmon onto her stovetop, resulting in yet another missed shot. Talk about pressure! Bottom line here is I didn’t miss the flips, he missed the photos and my mother-in-law liked the salmon. BTW this is one of his photos, the non-flip one.

This salmon took only about 8 minutes total to prepare. I have made this numerous times and always have several people ask me just what I did special to the salmon to make it taste so good. Well, it is simply as stated below, salt, pepper, olive oil and a very hot pan.