A good piece of fish should really be celebrated by using simple seasoning and cooking methods so that the beauty of the fish shines through!

Wild Alaskan Salmon Poached In Vinho Verde with Garlic Scapes:

When you have a beautiful piece of fish, you really don’t need to do a whole lot to it.  Rather, restraint is really the rule of the day so that the subtle flavors really shine.  As such, poaching is a great way to cook a special piece of fish.  There’s no browning, crisping the skin, etc.  It’s just a very simple and fairly quick way to prepare the fish, imparting slight flavors from the poaching liquid but really still keeping things simple.  Here, I chose to poach the salmon in a Vinho Verde and I chose it for a couple of reasons.  First, this type of Portuguese wine is relatively inexpensive, which makes it a great choice to use as a cooking wine.  Secondly, it is a young wine that doesn’t have too much complexity in terms of taste.  It just has a nice straight forward taste that has nice acidity.  It’s easy to drink and, when cooking it adds just enough flavor to a dish without completely overpowering the dish.

Garlic scapes, also called garlic shoots, are pretty great.  They look interesting in that they are bright green and have a curly shape.  They possess a garlic flavor that I think is slightly less dramatic than regular garlic cloves.  Scapes can be found right around this time and for a few more weeks moving forward at farmer’s markets and certain specialty stores.  Here, I kept them whole but you can chop them up as finely or as coarsely as you like and you use them just as you would a regular clove of garlic.  Since they are only available for a few weeks, if you find them, I’d suggest stocking up…they freeze pretty well!  Recipe follows after the jump… Continue reading →