I decided to try out a new concept: plain seasoning on my food with a bold sauce to kick it up a few notches. I was thinking that a pretty boring salmon fillet with a super flavorful sauce would be a fun way to put food on the plate. Sort of a "oh, this isn't that great, but wait! There's more!" kind of deal.
I just salted the salmon and poached it in olive oil. Meanwhile, I also made some mashed potatoes with some sautéed green onion and orange bell pepper mixed in. A little butter, a little cream, yada yada. The potatoes were great. The salmon was boring. So how about that sauce?
I made myself a roux (butter mixed with flour), then added in some white wine, and I let that simmer while I cooked the fish and potatoes. Unfortunately, it thickened up a bit much, so I added some more wine.
With the extra wine, it was too watery, so I dropped in some creme fraiche, all while repeating my Randy Marsh impersonation of saying, "creme fraiche!" That gave it a great consistency. I was starting to look forward to the meal.
Trying to be fancy, I did a little smear of sauce on the plate. You can almost see it if you squint. White sauces on white plates is not the best idea, I learned.
I scooped some mashed potatoes onto one side of the sauce and- oh God I can smell the sauce right now and it's been almost a week since I cooked this. For real, it was fucking garbage - and cracked a little black pepper on top, then dropped the salmon fillet- that fish was so fucking oversalted and overcooked that it was like eating dried canned tuna. It was fucking salmon! How did it end up like canned tuna left out to dry?! It was revolting! -and through a couple fried slices of carrot and some green onion strips on top.
Did I mention this was one of the worst fucking things I've ever cooked? It wasn't just bad: it hurt me physically and emotionally to eat it. The salmon was, once again, like canned tuna that had been dried out. The sauce was like warm, wine-flavored toothpaste. I actually threw a lot of it away. It was so goddamn bad.
The potatoes were pretty good, though. Kind of hard to fuck up mashed potatoes. But for fuck's sake, that sauce was wretched. I tasted it several times and tried to salvage it, but it just wasn't happening. Don't be like me: don't add more wine. That way lies madness.
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