Sunday Dinner – 23 December 2018

It was Alder Planked Salmon (and near disaster) this week.

We love salmon cooked on the grill, and alder wood is our favorite smoke flavoring for it. We’ve had good luck in the past cooking fish on cedar planks, so we decided to try alder planks this time. I soaked four planks in water for a couple hours before beginning to cook. Here’s how they looked on the Weber Genesis.

The process for the plank grilling is to char the planks on one side, flip them over, and then cook the fish on the charred side. The planks didn’t get very charred in the first few minutes, so I turned up the burners to high. That was my first mistake. The second mistake was to leave them unattended for four minutes.

When I went back to check them and opened the hood, there was a backdraft and a huge flameup that singed the hair off my left forearm. I was lucky that it didn’t catch my clothes (or rather longish hair) on fire. When the flames died down, the planks were nearly cinders.

Improvising, I scooped the mess toward the back of the grill, turned the burners to low, and closed the hood. I had four remaining planks that hadn’t been soaked, and decided to risk using them to cook the salmon steaks on over very low heat. I watched them closely, peeking under the hood every two minutes. Fortune was with us, and they turned out delicious, despite more than a “kiss of smoke.”

We’d grilled some asparagus and baked some potatoes on the Genesis earlier, and they were waiting in a warm oven while I finished the fish. Claudia also made a nice salad, and we served it with a simple creamy garlic dressing. That’s always Grampy’s favorite that he asks for when dining out. We found the old recipe from the Blue Mill restaurant in Decatur, Illinois online and decided to try it out.

• 1 qt Mayonaise
• 3/4 oz Lemon Juice
• 4 t Worcestershire Sauce
• 1.2 oz Grated Parmigiana
• 1 1/4 t Garlic Powder
• 1/4 c Water

Wines were a 2016 Marchesi Sauvignon Blanc and a 2017 Jacqueline Bahue.

4 November 2018

This week we had Kentucky Hot Brown sandwiches for Sunday Dinner.

It’s been several years since we made these. Aldi’s had a decent price on turkey breasts, so the meal suggested itself, even though it’s not Derby weekend. It was a nasty rainy day here in the Chicago Southland, which prompted us to cook inside for a change. The turkey was done after about an hour and a half in the Nesco roaster at 325 °F. I used white Cheddar in the sauce this time, and I think that was an improvement. We roasted some mini peppers in the oven with olive oil, salt and pepper. Claudia made Green Goddess dressing for a mixed greens salad, and also baked a Jewish Apple Cake with fresh whipped cream for dessert.

Wine was a delicious Evangelos Bagias Zinfandel from Lodi. I also snuck in a couple of Jim Beam Old Fashioneds, because Kentucky.

If you’re a fan of food history, here’s the story of the Hot Brown, from the hotel that gave the sandwich its name. They have a pretty decent recipe too, of course. 🙂