Salmon Mac & Cheese

It's been months since my last post. Well, things have been very hectic lately with gazillion things that has to be done in a very short period of time.

Anyway, lil G has been having eating tantrum again. She didn't want to eat what the maid cooked her (mommy too busy to cook lately... i'm so sorry baby). This time, she really drove me to insanity. The only food she would eat pretty much unhealthy junk food. Cakes, chips, cookies...

Well, after finding a cute moon and star shaped pasta, I decided to try giving her macaroni and cheese or in this case I should call it moon and star pasta and cheese? hehehe.... I'm glad she finished almost the entire mini pot of the mac n cheese (with daddy finishing the last scoop), which she didn't even realized she was eating salmon. The one fish that she always refused to eat. Enough rambling, here is the recipe.

Salmon Mac n Cheese

Serve 2 mini pots (about 9 cm in diameter)

3 tbsp butter
1 tbsp flour
3 tsp djon mustard
1/8 cup cream
1/3 cup milk
1/3 cup macaroni (or cute kids pasta)
40 gr salmon filet
50 gr grated gruyere cheese
25 gr kraft quick melt or velveeta cheese
2 tbsp seasoned breadcrumbs

1. Preheat the oven to 180 C. Butter two mini cast iron pots (9cm) or ramekins, whichever you have in your kitchen.
2. Boil pasta 3/4 cooked, set aside. Pan fry salmon, 3/4 cooked and flake.
3. Melt butter in a small saucepan, add the flour once all the butter as melt mix well. Add the cream little by little while stirring followed by milk and mustard. Make sure the sauce is smooth. Continue stirring until it thickens. Add both cheeses and continue stir until thick.
4. Combine the sauce with pasta and salmon, mix well.
5. Pour mac n cheese mixture into the dish and sprinkle seasoned bread crumbs on top. Bake in the oven for +/- 20-30 minutes until the bread crumbs turn golden brown and sauce is bubbly.

Note: If you don't have seasoned bread crumbs, I normally just mix panko flour with some italian seasoning.

For this particular recipe, I didn't really measure my ingredients so it's an estimate how much ingredients I use in the mac n cheese.

Salmon Pie

Today is Gwynnie's salmon day! I was scratching my head, trying to find of something that she never tried before and i can hide vegetables in it. So I came up with salmon pie. It's not hard to make, you can use the ingredients that you have in your fridge.

 

Salmon Pie

150 gr salmon

1 large shitake mushroom, diced

brocolli, cut into florets, as needed

1/2 large potato

1/4 cup milk

1 egg, beaten

grated cheddar cheese as needed.

1. Preheat the oven to 150 C. Prepare and butter two small ramekins (about 7-8 cm in diameter).

2. Bake salmon in the oven for 10-15 minutes. Once it's done, flake it.

3. Soak shitake mushroom, remove the stem and diced into little pieces. 

4. Steam brocolli and potato until both are fully cooked. Once both are cooked, cut the brocolli florets and put in a bowl. Peel and mash or puree the potato, add half of the beaten egg and mix well. Mix the other half of beaten egg with milk. Leave a little bit of egg for the egg wash.

6. Put salmon, mushroom, broccoli florets and little bit of cheese inside the ramekins and pour in milk-egg mixture until barely covering the meat and vegetable. 

7. Top the ramekins with mash potato and brush with beaten egg for egg wash. You can sprinkle some cheese on top of the potato. Bake for 25-30 minutes.

You can use any kind of vegetable with this pie. It doesn't have to be mushroom and broccoli, other vegetables will do :)

Salmon Bites

This is a very simple and delicious recipe. I started making bite size pieces for my daughter when she didn't want to eat anything else other than her Gerber's puff. So I figured if I make her food in bite size pieces, she will think it's one of her snacks and eat it. It worked and I never looked back.

Salmon Bites:

150 gr salmon
1 cup flour
1 egg
1 cup panko flour
1/2 cup parmagiano reggiano cheese, finely grated

1. Heat the oven to 175 C
2. Prepare 3 bowls for the flour, egg and panko
3. Mix panko and parmagiano cheese
4. Cubed salmon into bite size pieces
5. Coat the cubes in this order: flour-egg-panko paramgiano
6. Put the bites in a baking tray lined with parchment paper and bake for 15 minutes.