spring slaw with herb-roasted salmon

spring slaw + herb-roasted salmon // millys-kitchen.com

As you’ve probably figured out from previous posts, I am not the best at keeping things short and sweet.

This is part of the reason I don’t post as often as some. I love the meandering process of creating new recipes. Paging through cookbooks. Weaving my way through the farmers market. Testing. Tweaking. Pulling linens and china and silverware to find just the right pieces to set the mood. Then photographing. And finally, finding the words to describe a memory sparked by a dish, or the grain of inspiration from which it came.

As to whether I regret this slow pace, I am of two minds. 

spring slaw + herb-roasted salmon // millys-kitchen.com

I post here to share recipes and thoughts and experiences. To encourage others to cook and travel and gather around the table with friends new and old. Part of me would like to share more. And more often.

And part of me knows that rushing the process would erode the joy. And likely the quality of what I create as well. 

But there is, of course, a time for short and sweet.

Right now I’m in Europe doing all sorts of marvelous things--taking a photography workshop, leading culinary tours in Paris, and doing research for a tour of Portugal in the fall. When I get back home, summer will have arrived. But I didn’t want to leave you without any spring recipe inspiration.

spring slaw + herb-roasted salmon // millys-kitchen.com

So here’s a recipe I put together to celebrate the tender spring produce that should be hitting farmers markets right about now. It’s my interpretation of a delicious spring vegetable slaw I had at Manolin in Seattle. (If you’re going to be anywhere near Seattle, you need to get on over there, pronto!)

In my version, tender shaved asparagus is the star of the show. Its delicate nuttiness is beautiful against a handful of sweet shelling and snap peas. And the cruciferous tang of thinly sliced baby turnips and broccoli stalks is balanced with a creamy honey-almond vinaigrette.

This crunchy slaw is great on its own or piled high on top of a simple filet of roasted fish. Either way, it comes together in no time, short and sweet--and just right for a fresh, springtime supper.

spring slaw + herb-roasted salmon // millys-kitchen.com

Spring slaw with herb-roasted salmon

  • 1 recipe herb-roasted salmon (see below)
  • ½ cup whole almonds
  • ½ cup neutral-tasting oil (I used sunflower seed oil)
  • 1 garlic clove, minced or pressed
  • 1 tablespoon sherry vinegar
  • 1 tablespoon lemon juice
  • 2 tablespoons honey
  • Pinch salt
  • Pinch cayenne
  • 3 tablespoons homemade or best quality store-bought mayonnaise
  • 12 oz. asparagus, shaved with a vegetable peeler
  • ½ cup shelled English peas (from about 12 ounces of pods)
  • 1 cup sugar snap peas, stemmed and sliced on a sharp bias
  • 5-6 baby turnips, very thinly sliced or shaved
  • 1 4- to 6-inch broccoli stem, peeled and julienned or shaved

*NOTES: Feel free to use whatever crunchy spring vegetables you find at the market for this slaw. Radishes would be lovely. Or fava beans. Morels or other mushrooms quickly sauteed with a little garlic would not be amiss. 

I use this peeler to julienne vegetables.

For a vegan version, simply omit the mayonnaise from the dressing and add an additional tablespoon or two of the almond-infused oil.


Preheat the oven to 375°. Spread the almonds out on a rimmed sheet pan and roast until dark golden brown and fragrant, about 13 minutes. Transfer the almonds to another sheet pan or plate to cool.

When the almonds are cool, place them in a food processor and process until coarsely ground. Place the ground almonds in a small saucepan and top with the oil. Heat over medium heat until the oil foams. Remove the pan from the heat and set aside to infuse for at 10 minutes. Strain the oil through a fine-mesh sieve, reserving the ground almonds.

To make the vinaigrette, combine the garlic, sherry vinegar, lemon juice, honey, salt, cayenne and mayonnaise in a small bowl. Whisk to combine. While whisking, gradually add ¼ cup of the almond infused oil. Taste and adjust seasonings. (Use any oil you have left drizzled over roasted vegetables or fish or mixed with a little honey drizzled over ice cream.)

Just before serving, dress the slaw to taste with the vinaigrette. Top with the reserved ground almonds and a sprinkle of sea salt.

Makes 4 servings

Herb-Roasted Salmon

  • 1 2- to 2 ½-lb. fillet wild salmon with skin, pin bones removed (I like Sockeye or King)

  • Olive oil

  • Coarse sea salt

  • A small bunch of mixed herb sprigs. (I used rosemary, thyme, dill, and tarragon.)

1 2- to 2 ½-lb. fillet wild salmon with skin, pin bones removed (I like Sockeye or King)
Olive oil
Coarse sea salt
A small bunch of mixed herb sprigs. I used rosemary, thyme, dill, and tarragon

Preheat oven to 300°. Arrange the herbs on a parchment-lined sheet pan. Lay the salmon on top of the herbs, skin-side down. Drizzle with olive oil rub the oil over the salmon to coat completely. Sprinkle with salt. Roast the salmon until medium rare, about 12 minutes per inch of thickness. You can start checking at about 8 minutes by inserting a paring knife in the salmon. You want it to flake and look moist, but not raw in the interior, like this. Keep in mind it will cook a bit more once you take it out of the oven.

Remove the salmon from the bed of herbs and place it on a serving dish. Serve warm or at room temperature topped with dressed slaw.

Makes 4 servings

spring slaw + herb-roasted salmon // millys-kitchen.com

dark chocolate chip cookies with pistachio and black sesame

dark chocolate chip cookies with pistachios and black sesame // milly's kitchen

I'm sitting on a plane as I type this, headed for my annual pilgrimage to the heat and sun of the desert. Raindrops are gliding down the windows and, in a proper Seattle send-off, it's cold and grey. When we land in Palm Springs it will be a balmy 85°. And when I arrive back in Seattle, we will have officially arrived at spring.

Perched on the thin edge between winter and spring, dark and light, feels like an opportune moment to celebrate the changing of the seasons.

dark chocolate chip cookies with pistachios and black sesame // milly's kitchen

There is a part of me that wants to close the book on our long Seattle winter and be done with it. Good riddance.

Yet as much as I look forward to longer days filled with dinners outdoors and working in the garden, I realize I am thankful for the stillness of the darker months as well. Opposites enhance; darkness gives form to the light, throwing the contours of our spring rituals into dramatic relief. The soil turned. The flowers picked. The sharing of an Easter meal.

dark chocolate chip cookies with pistachios and black sesame // milly's kitchen

Without the bare branches and drizzly afternoons spent in the company of good books, we would not rejoice as fully in the green tips of the first seedlings or summer days full of picnics and iced tea and languorous naps in the sun.

This week, I was in the mood to celebrate the last shadows of winter before heading into the desert sun. So I give you this small ode to darkness: Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies with Pistachios and Black Sesame.

dark chocolate chip cookies with pistachios and black sesame // milly's kitchen

They are intensely chocolaty, with deep, earthy notes from the pistachios and a subtle bitterness from the black sesame seeds--a decadent celebration of the end of winter.

In these final days of cold and grey, I hope you'll bake up a batch of these dark beauties and join me in celebrating winter's last hurrah and the arrival of spring!

dark chocolate chip cookies with pistachios and black sesame // milly's kitchen
dark chocolate chip cookies with pistachios and black sesame // milly's kitchen

Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies with Pistachios and Black Sesame

  • 10oz (2 1/4 cups) all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 8 oz (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
  • 5 oz (3/4 cup) lightly packed brown sugar
  • 5 oz (1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons) granulated sugar
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 large egg yolk
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1/4 cup black sesame seeds
  • 6 oz dark chocolate chunks or chips
  • 3 1/2 oz (3/4 cup) raw pistachios, roughly chopped
  • Coarse sea salt for topping (optional)
dark chocolate chip cookies with pistachios and black sesame // milly's kitchen

*NOTE: I used two Theo 70% Pure Dark chocolate bars, roughly chopped

 

Whisk the flour, baking soda and salt together in a medium bowl. Set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar at medium speed just until smooth, 30 to 60 seconds. Do not beat until pale and fluffy as this will cause your cookies to incorporate more air and spread in the oven.  

Add the egg, yolk and vanilla and beat until the egg is incorporated, 30 to 60 seconds more. Add all of the flour mixture and mix on low speed until halfway incorporated. Add the sesame seeds, chocolate and pistachios and mix on low speed until the dough just comes together. Take care not to overwork the dough or your cookies will be tough. 

Use a 1/4-cup scoop to form balls of dough. Place the formed dough on a parchment-lined sheet pan. Refrigerate overnight. I know this seems fussy and unfair considering how good this cookie dough is, but resting your dough before baking it off is the single most effective way to take your cookies to next-level, eye-rolling deliciousness. Trust me; it's worth it.

You can also freeze the dough balls. Once they are frozen solid, remove them from the sheet pan and store them in a resealable plastic bag in the freezer for up to two months. I always freeze my dough and bake from frozen as it makes for prettier cookies that hold their shape better in the oven.

When you are ready to bake off the cookies, preheat the oven to 325°F. Place racks in the center and upper third of the oven and line two sheet pans with parchment paper.  

Place 6 dough balls on each of the prepared sheet pans, leaving at least 2 inches of space around each cookie. (You can freeze the last 4 dough balls for emergency cookie cravings or bake them as a second batch.) Sprinkle the dough balls with coarse salt, if desired. Bake for about 18 minutes, until lightly browned around the edges and still soft in the middle (add 3 to 4 minutes if baking from frozen). If you're unsure when to take them out, err on the side of under- rather than overbaking them. Remove the cookies from the oven and allow them to cool on the baking sheet for about 3 minutes, then transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely. These cookies will keep for up to 4 days, stored in an airtight container.

Makes 16 large cookies

Adapted from Joy the Baker

dark chocolate chip cookies with pistachios and black sesame // milly's kitchen

banana tarte tatin

banana tarte tatin // milly's kitchen

We go through a lot of bananas around here. Especially in the winter months when more tender fruit and vegetables aren’t available. Along with kale, cabbage and root vegetables, it’s one of the hard-working staples we rely on year-round. However, unlike kale and its stalwart kitchen companions that we transform each week into soups, salads, braises and roasts, we never do anything exciting with bananas. And considering the enormous mountain of them that appears on our kitchen counter each week, the peel-and-eat situation was getting a bit monotonous.

Everything about this winter was starting to feel monotonous, in fact. Seattle, lush and verdant in the summer months, is all grey and drizzle in the fall and winter. Some people are immune to this seemingly endless series of overcast days. I am not one of them. And winter was starting to wear on me. 

banana tarte tatin // milly's kitchen

Thumbing my way through Instagram with its scenes of New York and Detroit and even Raleigh and Chatanooga under a winter blanket of white, filled me with nostalgia for snow days and hot cocoa and snowball fights. (I suspect those of you digging out from under huge drifts and mending frozen pipes might have less romantic notions of this year’s winter storms.)

Thus afflicted by the winter doldrums and feeling more than a little bit sorry for myself, I was casting around the kitchen for inspiration when my eyes fell on that pile of steadily ripening bananas. A recipe for a banana tarte tatin I’d seen ages ago flickered in the distant recesses of my mind. And just like that, that heap of boring bananas was full of delicious, caramelized potential.

banana tarte tatin // milly's kitchen

If you haven’t had a tarte tatin, it’s a beauty of a dessert: tender caramelized apples above layers of flaky, buttery puff pastry. Elegantly French, yet homey and familiar. No one in their right mind can object to a good tarte tatin. Substituting bananas for the apples would lend some of the irresistible charm of Bananas Foster and provide the humble banana an edge of sophistication. 

After tinkering with the recipe, I invited some friends over for dinner to act as my unwitting guinea pigs. Halfway through dessert, it struck me what folly it was to invite an incredibly talented pastry chef over to sample an untested dessert. Too late to course-correct; I fretted internally and carried on. 

banana tarte tatin // milly's kitchen

We tasted the tart with all sorts of toppings and decided in the end that less is more. It certainly wouldn’t be bad with, say, coffee-infused whip cream or cacao nibs or candied hazelnuts. But in order to let the nuances of the caramel and the floral notes of the bananas shine through, it was best with just a straightforward scoop of ice cream (I like vanilla or coffee), or simpler still, a dollop of tart crème fraîche. Whether you choose a minimalist approach or something more baroque, this banana tart is a winner.

While eating a leftover slice for breakfast (don’t judge), I started thinking about the transformation of a lackluster winter staple into a delicious dessert. How if you can coax yourself into seeing things from a slightly different point of view, fresh possibilities open up. On a walk later that day, it occurred to me that, of course, this lesson applies outside the kitchen as well. That caramelly tart reminded that there is inspiration in the everyday if you take the time to look for it. 

As I walked, I decided to stop mentally complaining about the monotonous Seattle winter and focus instead on the little signs of spring that are starting to emerge. Tiny, tender buds on branch tips. Crocus and daffodils gently unfurling. The first flushed breast of a robin. The air smells a bit different: loamy and rich with the perfume of cherry blossoms here and there. The afternoon sunlight, growing by a few minutes each day, seems more golden and bright. 

spring blossoms // milly's kitchen
spring blossoms // milly's kitchen

Grey days can still cast a pall over my mood if I’m not mindful. I wish I could say I now bound out of bed each morning singing show tunes! Alas, I do not. But I have decided to focus on the many good things each day holds, especially until spring is fully settled in and the sun returns. More walks. More laughs. More time in the garden. More cooking for no other reason than because it makes me happy. 

It turns out bananas and winter days, when seen with a fresh eye, are full of delicious potential.

banana tarte tatin // milly's kitchen

Banana Tarte Tatin

  • 3 tablespoons butter
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 1 tablespoon kosher salt
  • 2 tablespoons cream
  • 1 teaspoon lemon juice
  • 2 tablespoons dark rum
  • 5 bananas, halved lengthwise (ripe, but still firm)
  • 1 sheet puff pastry, preferably all-butter, thawed if frozen
  • Ice cream or crème fraîche, to serve
  • Flaky sea salt, to serve (I like Maldon)

Preheat the oven to 400° F. 

In a medium saucepan melt the butter over medium heat. Add the sugar and salt. Cook, whisking occasionally until the sugar has melted and turned medium-amber, about 6-7 minutes. Cook the caramel a shade or two less that your desired final result as it will continue to caramelize in the oven. Remove the saucepan from the heat and whisk in the cream, then the lemon juice and rum. Use caution as the caramel is extremely hot and will bubble up when you add the liquid ingredients. Don’t worry if it seizes a bit, just keep whisking until it’s smooth again. Very carefully transfer the hot caramel to your baking dish. Working quickly, spread the caramel with a spoon or flexible spatula to the corners of the dish before it hardens.

banana tarte tatin // milly's kitchen

Roll out the puff pastry on a lightly floured surface to a thickness of 3/16-inch. Using a sharp knife, trace a rectangle ½-inch larger than the bottom of your baking dish. Arrange the bananas, cut-side-down over the caramel, trimming them as necessary to make them fit. Carefully lay the the trimmed puff pastry over the bananas, tucking the excess dough between the bananas and the side of the dish. Bake until the puff pastry has risen and is golden brown, about 30 minutes. 

Remove the tarte tatin from the oven and let it rest for a couple of minutes. Run a butter knife around the sides of the baking dish to loosen any puff pastry or caramel that may have stuck. If there is caramel pooling in the bottom of the dish, carefully pour it off. But do not throw it away--it is DELICIOUS. Place a large platter or rimmed sheet pan over the baking dish. Grasp the baking dish and platter or sheet pan firmly with oven mitts or kitchen towels and invert them quickly. (They key is to flip quickly without hesitating.) Remove the baking dish. 

Serve the tarte tatin warm or at room temperature, with a scoop of ice cream or a dollop of crème fraîche and lightly sprinkled with sea salt. If you poured off any caramel from the bottom of the dish, it’s delicious spooned over the top or reserved for a killer ice cream sundae.

Makes 6 servings

banana tarte tatin // milly's kitchen