Sockeye Salmon Steak, Slow-Roast Tomatoes, Potato Discs, Cannellini Beans, Pancetta

Dinner, brought to you by JS.

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The time to make this dinner: approximately 45 minutes, but that's because I'm not that fast.

I was running late all afternoon, with work and errands, and had to come home in time to make dinner.

I did not even have anything in the fridge to make dinner with. So, on the way home, we stopped by our regular Chinese supermarkets for our selection of entrees.

I saw some beautiful wild sockeye salmon and knew that these were going to be our dinner tonight.

Side note: I am terribly frustrated by the lack of wild sockeye this year -- and we are in Vancouver, BC, for heaven's sake! This is the first time I've had wild sockeye this season, and yes, I am getting angry at the state of our fisheries and how we've managed to bring them to the brink of destruction.

Deep breath.

Hopefully, next year will be better.

I heard on the radio the other day that the sockeye that is sold this season is sockeye from Russia. Either way, there is a very limited supply of sockeye, so if you see sockeye, grab it!

By the way, I don't know if these sockeye steaks are from Russia. Our superduperconvenient Chinese supermarkets (T&T and Osaka, which are the same thing) do not usually carry sockeye and this is just the first or second time I've seen sockeye in their displays.

I'm hoping that they might be wild BC sockeye, but in any case, BC or Russia, these salmon steaks were delicious. I adore sockeye salmon, and one bite into these steaks, I suddenly remember what I've been missing for the whole year.

Sockeye Salmon
I like my sockeye to be simply prepared. Usually, I will just throw them on the grill with some olive oil, lemon, salt and pepper, but given the limited time I had, I decided to do them on the stovetop instead.

I slathered on whole grain mustard, sprinkled salt and pepper, on the steaks and seared them on medium heat in some olive oil until a crust forms. Repeat on the other side.

Slow-Roast Tomatoes & Roast Potato Discs


As side dishes, I sliced some tomatoes thinly, as thinly as I could with a dull knife, and roasted them in the oven.

I also sliced some potatoes into discs, seasoned with salt, pepper, and rosemary, and roasted them while the tomatoes were roasting. (Sorry, they were just roasted with olive oil. This was BDF: before duck fat.)



Cannellini Beans in Tomato Sauce
I did not get to use all of the tomatoes I had intended to slow-roast, because slow-roasting all of them would have taken more time than we had before the troops mutinied, so I decided to do a quick tomato sauce with white beans.

I chopped and seeded the tomatoes and then put them in a pot with olive oil, garlic, and pancetta. The white beans I used were just regular canned white beans. I added some thyme to flavour the beans.

A couple of lemon wedges to sprinkle on the salmon.

Here you go.



P.S. by [ts]:
The slow-roast tomatoes on top of the potato discs were fabulous eaten together, on their own.



Here's another shot of the potatoes, just because they're soooo good-lookin'!