Ranchos - Pescado salmón asado á las parrillas, a Pinedo recipe

I am nearly finished translating Encarnación Pinedo's cookbook, El cocinero español.

What caught my attention recently was this rather simple-looking set of instructions.  You can find it on page 197:

My Translation:

I love salmon and my grill was clean and ready to play, so it seemed like the right time to try it.

My Redaction

10 ounces of salmon fillets

olive oil (fine, of course!)

salt and pepper to taste

two pieces of parchment paper, each big enough to wrap around both fillets

a preheated grill

I poured some olive oil in the bottom of a container big enough to hold the fillets and spread it around to cover the entire bottom.  The salmon went on top and then more oil was poured over it.  I pushed the fish around in the oil to make sure all surfaces were generously coated.  The container went into the refrigerator.

Pre-cold

My intent was to marinate the fish for about an hour, but a scheduling glitch meant I had to wait a day before I could cook them.  In total, they were in the oil for about 26 hours.  I think this did not make a big difference because the oil became solid.  

Post-cold

As the grill preheated, I put two layers of parchment paper on the counter and spread the top surface with some of the olive oil from the fish.  I then sprinkled some salt and pepper on the oil.  This wasn't measured -- I just sprinkled what looked like a good amount without feeling like I was putting on too much.

I pushed the pepper around with my fingers to get a better distribution.

Then I put the salmon on top and sprinkled it with more salt and pepper.

I reversed the thin and the thick sides.

Finally, I wrapped the paper around the fish, making a neat little package and tying it with a string.  The paper ends were both folded to the same side, putting more paper on that side than the other.

Two layers on top, ten on the bottom

The grill's temperature was 400 degrees F when I opened the lid, which I don't consider a very moderate heat, so I turned the flames down to their lowest setting.  The packet went onto the grill rack (bow side up!) over the two active flames, and I left the lid open while it cooked.  I could hold my hand over the heat for about 5 seconds before it became too warm to continue.

It took just a few minutes before I heard sizzling.  After ten minutes, I could feel that the upper surface was no longer refrigerator cold, so I turned the packet over.

I let it cook another five minutes and declared it was ready (and hoped I guessed right).

Here is the result when the packet was opened:

Notice the moisture and oil around it.  It smelled great, it looked great. 

 The Verdict

I served each filet sliced, on top of a Caesar salad that also had Romaine lettuce, fresh avocado, Parmesan cheese, croutons, and a Caesar dressing.

Dressing was added after the picture was taken

I tasted the salmon by itself first.  It was ... marvelous.  Moist, tender, flavorful.  The salt, pepper, and oil combination seemed to enhance the flavor of the fish without shifting it away from tasting like salmon.  Not too salty, not too anything.  I wanted to eat the entire filet right then after having the first bite.

My guest taster liked it, too.  He prefers his salmon to be very rare, so I was concerned I would overcook it with my timing.

It was not very rare, but it didn't matter to him.  He enjoyed it all the same because it was so moist and flavorful.  You can see in this close-up that the fish was cooked thoroughly, but it did not get dry at all.

The entire salad was excellent, too.  The salmon went well with the Caesar combination.

I loved this cooking method and would gladly do it again.  It was nice to know that I could cook it without overcooking it, that it would stay moist and flavorful.  A simple olive oil, salt, and pepper seasoning was just perfect.

It occurred to me that wrapping the fish in paper would be good for a party or gathering.  You could prepare the packets in advance, then cook them at the event, giving your guests their own packets of hot fish.

Native American - Seed Gathering

Picture credit:  California Horticultural Society

The Native Californians ate seeds.  That is something I learned early on in my explorations of their food habits.  I saw a number of references to it in the first books I reviewed and almost didn't put much focus on it because of the way their preparation was described:  "ground and cooked into a mush".  That didn't seem like a big deal; after all, the same was said about acorns but acorns are given a lot of emphasis in the literature.  The impression I got was this was common but not an important or even large part of their diet.

That impression was wrong.

My first error was assuming that seeds were hard to collect or that, if it was easy, no one gathered them in any great quantity.  My second error was believing the mush was made just from the seeds of a particular plant and that the food was bland or dull.  Then I came across this document:  

Edible Seeds and Grains of California Tribes and the Klamath Tribe of Oregon in the Phoebe Apperson Hearst Museum of Anthropology Collections, University of California, Berkeley

From the introduction (page 1):

California and Oregon Indians relished the taste of many kinds of small seeds and grains, gathered from the inflorescences of wildflowers and grasses. Packed with fiber and protein and loaded with flavor, these served as breakfast cereal, seasoning, snack, hearty porridge, and sustained Indian runners on long journeys. ...

These wild seeds were gathered from every kind of environment: chia from the Mojave Desert, annual semaphoregrass (Pleuropogon) grains from moist pockets in fog-dripped coastal redwoods, pond-lily (Nuphar) seeds from crystal clear freshwater marshes, and biscuitroot (Lomatium) fruits in chaparral openings. Today, western wildflowers offer visual sustenance to the hiker and subject matter for the artist, but in former times these plants were the Indian’s bread and butter. By knowing the edible qualities of the flora of one’s regional territory, California and Oregon Indians exemplified what it was like to truly live in a place-based culture where the local and regional flora becomes part of one’s physical, mental, and spiritual make-up. ...

The California and Oregon grasslands were the most productive breadbasket regions. Millions of pounds of seeds were gathered from the grasslands and vernal pools of the Central Valley; grasslands on serpentine outcrops throughout California and Oregon; the prairies of northern and southern California and Oregon coasts; the meadows of the various mountain ranges; and the cold and warm desert grasslands of the California’s interior...

"Millions of pounds of seeds" tells me this was not a sometimes food item.  The paper goes on to explain how the California landscape differed from before contact to after.  For example, originally the fields "were configured with perennial bunchgrasses and a few annual grasses, interspersed with annual and perennial wildflowers".  Then, with the arrival of Europeans, changes occurred (page 9):

... with the grazing of livestock, exotic grasses and wildflowers were brought into California both deliberately, through direct seeding for livestock feed, and unintentionally, through seeds carried in hay bales, folds of textiles, hooves of livestock, and a thousand other means (Gerlach 1998; Bossard et al. 2000). Many of these plants came from parts of Europe with a Mediterranean climate, very similar to the climate of California. Thus, they took hold and spread rapidly, growing in association with and also overtaking the native plants.

This would change what and how much was available.  "When certain nonnative plants replaced many of the native plants, Indians shifted their diets to embrace these new plants." (page 10)

Before and after contact, the seed-bearing plants the Native Californians recognized as important were tended and encouraged (page 4):

In many places where wild seeds were gathered, landscapes were tended. Plants were beaten with a seed beater, knocking the seeds into a wide-mouthed basket. In the act of seed beating, native women deliberately scattered seeds into the surrounding areas, acting as seed dispersers (fig. 3). Seeds were also sown, sometimes into burned areas and scratched in with a brush harrow (Anderson 2005a). According to Elizabeth Renfro (1992), the Shasta in northwestern California broadcast seeds, and many Shasta bands practiced controlled burning of areas to clear out undergrowth and encourage the growth of particular plants. While California Indians did not fully domesticate food crops, the saving and sowing of seeds likely caused some genetic changes in the native plants (Anderson and Wohlgemuth 2012).

My hope is to acquire different seeds and cook them in a variety of ways that might mimic what the Native Americans did.  I know I can acquire chia seeds in quantity.  I am not certain at all about other seeds, but that won't stop me from looking.  I need to explore what was available more thoroughly.