Jamie All Week

Salmon with Couscous, Asparagus Tips, Matchstick Zucchini

When I’m alone, I usually opt for easy 2-step meals. Despite working at an award-winning, national food magazine, I often come home to unappetizing freezer-burned food and doggy bagged-goods. Yum.

Sometimes, I just skip dinner altogether.

J.O.’s Jamie’s Dinners cookbook has various recipes designed for the single, low-income folk. I shied from that section initially, not wanting to acknowledge my alone-ness. I avoided it the same way I avoid the self-help section in the bookstore, tiptoeing close by enough to see if I can catch some of the titles without getting caught. But then an image of pan-roasted salmon over a bed of couscous caught my attention. Salmon is a fish I rarely cook these days. It used to be a weeknight staple during my George Foreman-years in college. Remember those days? A little salt and pepper over supermarket salmon then tossed on the G.F. grill. Now that I’m embarking on my post-collegiate culinary practices, cooking protein on what is essentially a non-stick panini press just won’t cut it anymore. It’s time I duke it out with a real grill pan and some Atlantic wild caught salmon from Whole Foods.

The recipe called for zucchini sliced into matchstick-sized pieces, asparagus tips, and fresh salmon of course. The fish and veggie combo is served over couscous dressed in lemon juice, olive oil, and fresh roughly cut-tomatoes–a true Medi spread. I was excited about adding the finely diced red chili pepper.

Jamie is notorious for seasoning his food with red chili. Luckily, I picked up some red jalapenos at the farmer’s market over the weekend. (I realized later that having some on hand all the time is helpful since a lot of recipes call for red chilies).

Though the whole dish was quite easy to put together but assembling the plate (so that it looked appropriate for the obligatory overhead shot) was difficult. There was an array of colors and textures and precisely what my grandmother would be excited to see on my plate. As she likes to tell me in her Sichuan-Mandarin, “Food should be about balance”. And I think I achieved it with this meal.