syrupy salmon

Friends got us a cast-iron cookbook for Pi Day (what, you're not observant of math holidays?), and I sometimes browse through it for food ideas guaranteed to be excellent. This time, I was trying to find the Spanish Chicken Stew recipe I knew I'd made, but my efforts were in vain (turns out it was in my notebook, because I'd made up the recipe. I'll get to it soon, really). On my way from cover to cover, I made the mistake of showing the Chief Taster a salmon recipe with a full-page picture.

"Make that. Now."
"Now?"
"Tonight. Do we have a dinner plan for tonight? Can we make that instead?"

I had to buy a couple things I've never bought, but they were conveniently near each other in the "Asian" section of the grocery (four feet of shelves at the end of an otherwise unrelated aisle). And I didn't get the sauce thickened to the "glaze" consistency recommended, but she was still pretty happy with the results. More on the subject of making women happy follows the recipe.

Salmon with balsamic Thai chile glaze
4 scallions (white parts)
4 inches of the green parts of aforementioned scallions (I can never find scallions. Sources I've found say they're the same thing, so I always use green onion when a recipe says "scallion." No one has died, so I guess I was right. I did not see the "four inch" part of the recipe until typing this post, the day after making the food, so we had lots of green onion. I used the rest in breakfast the next day. No worries.)
salt and pepper
4 to 6 (6 oz) salmon fillets with skin attached (I bought a 12 oz slab of salmon and cut it in half. I didn't adjust sauce quantities. That's part of why I had so much sauce, but not why it didn't thicken)
2 T vegetable oil (or canola)
1 T Asian sesame oil
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 T grated fresh ginger root
1/2 C sweet Thai chile sauce
1/4 C firmly packed brown sugar
3 T soy sauce
3 T balsamic vinegar
1 to 2 T freshly squeezed lime juice (I cut a golf-ball-sized lime in half and squeezed the hell out of it in my hands. That gave me 2 T)

• Chop the scallion whites and set them aside. Thinly slice the green portions and set them aside. They'll be garnish later. The whites will go into the skillet with the sesame oil, garlic, and ginger, so you can put all of that in the same bowl if you want, but use a spatula to clear it so you get all the oil.
• Season the salmon with salt and pepper. I put on a lot, because that's how I cook steaks, too, but under the sauce I don't think I could taste it. Still, it's good to use when searing, so don't skip that.
• Heat a 12" skillet on high heat. Coat with the veg oil. Put in the salmon, skin side up, and leave it the hell alone for about four minutes. Don't flip them, don't move them around, don't peel them up and look at the fleshy side. Pretend they're your ex at a party and just turn your back on the damn things, ok? Maybe take a look every once in a while to see how they're cooking (you'll see a color change creep up the edges of the fillets). I used this time to frantically finish the sauce ingredients I'd forgotten, like the grated ginger and minced garlic.
• Flip the fish and let it cook skin side down for another 2-3 minutes, then move it onto a warm plate. (I neglected to warm the plate for two reasons. First: I was using the oven to roast some potatoes at 400F. Second, I was a little gun-shy after destroying one of our new pie dishes with a rapid temperature change. Luckily, the sauce cooks up quick, and the fish only cooled enough to be edible.) The book says to wipe out the skillet with a paper towel, but there was nothing in my skillet once the fish was freed, so I skipped that.
• Put the skillet on medium-high heat. Dump in all the stuff that goes with the onion whites. Cook and stir 30 seconds, until fragrant. I have almost no sense of smell, and that sesame oil was still plenty fragrant. Those of you whose noses are more than decorative will have no trouble telling when it's ready to:
• Add chile sauce, brown sugar, soy sauce, and vinegar. Stir and cook 2 to 3 minutes, or until syrupy. Turn off the burner, stir in the lime juice.
• Top each serving of the salmon with a generous dose of the glaze. Mine were practically swimming again, but I had all those roasted potatoes, too, and despite my careful application of seasoning (which amounted to pulling four or five jars out of the spice rack, thinking, "yeah, that sounds like a good idea," and then liberally shaking them over the taters), the sauce soaked in and overpowered everything I had done. We didn't care. It's good sauce. I had some left over, and I'm not sure what to do with it, but I'll find out this week. Top with green onions.

A while ago, I mentioned an idea I had for a cookbook called "How To Please A Woman." It's been a recurring theme of jokes and discussions ever since. One friend in particular has been campaigning hard for this idea. She may be more excited for it than I am. I have two hypotheses as to why. First, her outlook on publishing has not taken the pummeling that mine has. Second, I suspect she hopes to be a taste tester for the featured recipes. Can't blame her optimism.

I had been drifting away from the idea for a couple months now, because I've been disappointed with repeated failed efforts to get my work printed, and because, as I told the Chief Taster and our glass-blowing friend, "Every asshole with a food blog has a cookbook. But every other asshole with a food blog also has a big following. I can count my followers without removing my shoes."

Thing is, I'm pretty much the only person who understands what the title of this blog means. Starting a new site with a title like "How To Please A Woman" makes it much more appealing and accessible. The glass blower believes this will go a long way to attracting more followers. This is where you come in. You had to find this post somehow. However you got here, leave me a comment below (or you can contact me directly) and let me know whether you have interest in a new site with pretty much the same content (it's also been suggested that I could have polls connected to each recipe. I like that idea, too). Still me writing recipes to try, but with a specific goal in mind: scoring chicks!