Fish Wednesday: Confusing Cookbook Edition

I’m a sucker for an exotic cookbook. Our stunning variety of ethnic grocery stores means that here in Seattle, we are able to fearlessly ferret out the bizarre and nonstandard ingredients. And our diverse community means that even the local Safeway has quite an impressive selection of ethnic foods. A good thing, diversity is. I’m for it.

The Vivid Flavors Cookbook, a very exotic selection indeed, has been on my shelf for quite along time, since I picked it up from a remainders pile somewhere. The index in this collection of complicated oddball recipes is, well, crap. I keep saying I’m going to get rid of it, and then, I crack it open and while browsing through in a half-hearted way, dammit, I find something something in there I want to make. Every time.

Case in point, tonight’s dinner. Broiled salmon glazed with honey, lemon, and chili paste served over rice noodles with garlic, ginger, roasted tomatoes, and cilantro. A lovely combination of sweet and sour, and pretty, too, with bright green cilantro leaves against the orange salmon and the red roasted tomatoes. Cookbook, you live another day.

Typically, when browsing my books, I go straight for the index. I look for the items in my fridge and then, I see what the books tell me to make. Yeah, I know, the Internet, blah blah blah, but I like flipping through cookbooks, I like that they fall open to the pages I use the most, I like seeing notes from meals past scribbled in the margins – “never mind vegan, this would be awesome with CHEESE” or “not worth the bother of baking, make the sauce and pour it over pasta.”

The sauce for tonight’s fish was very simple – the juice of a lemon, a teaspoon of red curry paste, and two big tablespoons of honey. I’m absolutely making it again, it would be good on just about any sturdy fish – halibut, salmon, cod, you name it. By next Fish Wednesday, I’ll be the proud owner of a Road Trip Grill and I think halibut steaks marinated in the aforementioned sauce and grilled are going to be oh so good.

I’m excited that grilling season is finally here. We cooked some chicken last weekend on the old Weber kettle grill (slathered in sweet chili sauce) and it was mighty nice to sit in the yard enjoying dinner in the warm evening light. Fish isn’t a summer only food, but the best of it arrives in Seattle in late spring with the long days, so it tastes like summer to me.

My mom cleaned off her bookshelves a little while back and I inherited The Barbecue! Bible. If the index doesn’t suck, maybe it will teach me a thing or two about how to cook fish.

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Side note: I got the new grill (partly) because I’m having a solstice party. If you’re in Seattle and you’d like to come, email me, I’ll send you an evite.