Something seems fishy...

by James Wampler
(Shelbyville, Ky. USA)

I had a few days off for Thanksgiving break - by days off, I mean planning lessons at home rather than at school, catching up on papers and turning in assignments for my Master's program - -

HOWEVER! One needs to sharpen the saw every now and then. I took some time to watch some clips of cooking to improve my methods. I came across a colorful English cook by the name of Gordon Ramsay. He used to be a soccer player, which gives him points in my book, but boy does the guy have a mouth on him!

For those of you who don't know about Gordon Ramsay, he seems to be a foul-mouthed version of Simon Cowell from American Idol. He is a hard guy to please. But he can do some impressive things in the kitchen, so ignoring his faults, it might be worth looking at his youtube clips when you have a minute. (A warning, sometimes those clips are not safe for younger children's ears!)

Here is the clip for his "crispy Salmon" (No curse words :))

I made a few changes from his suggestions. If he had been there I would have gotten an earful from Chef Ramsay - while the video suggests sliding some salt, basil, or bay leaves in the sliced portions of the fish...I drizzled honey in there.

It actually tasted nice, but probably could have waited until the end of the cooking process. On the hot middle of the pan, the honey dripped back out, caramelized and burned quickly. I moved the fish off of that area, and the fish itself didn't really burn, but it did make the pan look like a mess.

I also didn't cut the Salmon up into smaller pieces, which wasn't necessarily a bad thing - - but I made the cuts on the bottom wider than they needed to be.

Salmon is fun to cook because you can see when it is done. You can visually inspect whether the meat has gone a different shade of pink and flaky.

Next time, I might follow the video a little more closely. However, I would rank this dish up there with taco meat on the easy/fun scale. You don't have to mess with it that much, it cooks relatively quickly and is tasty.

In three weeks I begin planning my end-of year unit. Until that time...may the sun continue to shine on you!

-James