Irish Whiskey Brown Sugar Salmon

I am so glad to be home in Boston. Today was super productive, full of dog walking at the MSPCA, a major grocery shopping trip to Trader Joe’s where I may have gone a little overboard (Note to self, only get the hand baskets, not a wheeled cart. If I can’t carry it, I can’t buy it!), a 2.5 mile walk and 20 minutes of power yoga, and a trip to Bin Ends for their monthly fine wine flea market. I’ll get to that later in the week, but seriously just when you think you got a good bargain last month, you go to the flea market again and bam! more incredible savings. We are in the market for a wine fridge and new wine rack, and if you have any suggestions I would love to hear them. We have also talked about turning our 1/3 of the basement in our condo building into a wine cellar. Too bad I am afraid to go down there. Our neighborhood has had some trouble with long-tailed squeaky little friends which terrify me, but who knows, a personal wine cellar sounds pretty sweet.

Anyway, I love being home to cook again. My brother in law pointed out this weekend that I have never cooked for him, and its true. When I get home to NJ I usually sit back and eat what everyone else is making which is nice, but I really should cook next time. I miss cooking when I am traveling.

Tonight’s dinner was a protein filled one. Part of my marathon training mandate for myself is eating more protein, and while I have a hard time finding protein sources that I like, salmon and shrimp are two that I do not get tired of. Salmon is delicious and easy to change up just by adding a different sauce and side. The sauce of the day was a beautiful Irish whiskey and brown sugar rub that melted over the top of the fish and hardened ever so slightly once out of the oven.

I started with some frozen Coho salmon that we had from Trader Joe’s. I actually made two giant filets, one for dinner tonight and one to serve over salad for lunch tomorrow. Cook once, eat twice!

The rub for the salmon is easy. You can make it by thoroughly blending the following ingredients. I simply mashed them with a fork.

3 TSP dark brown sugar

2 TSP Jameson Irish Whiskey

1 shake crushed red pepper flakes

1 TSP extra virgin olive oil

The salmon is prepared in a few easy steps:

1) Cook the salmon halfway through, skin side down, in a hot skillet. This is important because the brown sugar rub will burn if cooked for too long. You want the salmon to be a few minutes from done when the rub is put on.

2) Once the salmon is cooked halfway through, use a spoon to really get the rub into the fish. Keep it on the heat while doing this. As much as you try to keep it on the fish, the sugar will start melting over the sides. I did my best to use a spoon to scrape it back up onto the fish to avoid burning as much as possible.

3) Place the entire skillet (Make sure there is not plastic on it!) into the oven at 375. Let it cook for about 3 minutes or until it is done enough for you. We tend to eat it rare, so I put it in and within a minute turned the oven off, leaving the fish inside for a couple more minutes. Bubbling brown sugar is a good sign.

I served the salmon with roasted baby potatoes and zucchini fries. Later this week I will be posting about veggie fries and other fun veggie recipes on the Plummelo blog. Plummelo is a great site for recipe collecting and meal planning, and I am going to be periodically writing for their blog. I will let you know when the post is up, but check out the site before then if you get the chance!

I hope you are all feeling well rested after the holiday weekend. I definitely am, and I have been doing a lot of yoga which really makes a difference in everything from sleep to running to work.

Have a great Monday everyone! I will be posting more regularly now that I am home for a few weeks, so please check in for lots of recipes, workouts, and product reviews.

Goodnight ;)!