Salmon with Minted Peas & Warm Radicchio Salad
Maybe it’s because I don’t have a huge sweet tooth, or maybe my tastebuds are all out of whack, but I love bitter foods. I love hoppy, bitter beers, I drink double espresso straight and iced coffee black. One of my favorite leafy vegetables is radicchio, and I love eathing it raw. Radicchio is an Italian vegetable that comes in a few different varieties, all of which are extremely bitter.
It looks like a purple cabbage and is usually about the size of a softball. One of the most simple ways to eat radicchio (and one of my favorites) is to split the head in half and grill it with a little extra virgin olive oil.
The grilling or roasting does reduce the bitterness level quite a bit, and most chefs usually balance the bitterness with something sweet (like balsamic vinegar). I made a sweet vinaigrette that I served warm over the raw radicchio salad because the heat doesn’t really wilt the vegetable like most leafy greens would succumb to. I started off by sauteing some shallots and golden raisins in pancetta fat.
Once everything was soft, I transferred the entire mixture to a blender where I then added some whole grain mustard and extra virgin olive oil. The vinaigrette is a perfect balance of rich, tangy, and sweet…perfect for the raw bitter greens. I simply pan roasted the salmon until is was crispy on the top and pink and moist in the center.
I consider salmon to be a more oily, denser, meatier fish that has a sort of woodsy quality to it depending on how it’s prepared. This quality makes it extremely versatile when it comes to pairing with wine or other foods. I love the combination of earthy mushrooms and salmon because they play so nicely with each other. I grilled some meaty portabello mushroom caps and stuffed them with some minted peas; fresh peas that I simply sauteed with chopped, fresh mint.
Both side dishes to my salmon had impeccable balance which really brought the dish together as a whole. The peas and mint, freshened up the earthy mushrooms, and the sweet vinaigrette balanced out the bitter radicchio. It was a great, wintery fish dish with loads of complexity.
I served an Oregon Pinot Noir with the salmon because I feel that unless it is poached, salmon needs a red wine. The 2008 Forefront Pinot Noir is made by Pine Ridge Winery and uses 100% Pinot Noir grapes from the Willamette Valley, Oregon. Oregon is a great place to grow Pinot because of the warm days and cool nights, which produce tons of overly ripe, generous fruit; a major characteristic of great Pinot Noir.
The fruit in the Forefront bottle is finished for ten months in French Oak barrels which gives it a little more structure and spicyness. The wine has silky tannins, and bundles of fresh ripe, red fruit such as raspberry and pomegranate followed by a spicy, star anise finish. There’s plenty of acidity too which is a reason why it works so well with seafood.
It’s a good thing that I got another healthy dish under my belt before this weekend, because more playoff football and friends from college coming to town equals lots of unhealthy party food.
