Last night's dinner - Smoked Salmon Ravioli

[Really Nice!]

The content of this post is from an e-mail I sent to some friends last year, but I thought I'd offer it to you folks in this forum.

Have you ever looked at an item on the menu and say, "I can make that!" I have a habbit of looking at menus and if something stikes my fancy, I'll copy the description and try and make it at home without knowing what the original dish looks like or how it should taste.

I have to admit, the results are usually pretty good even if I am taking liberty in interpreting a chef's dish.

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My girlfriend and I went to Tia Lou's (a Mexican restaurant in the Belltown neighborhood in Seattle) for dinner Saturday night. We got there at 4:30, and since they don't open until 5pm, we headed up the street to Belltown Pub to have a beer. I was looking at their menu and it looked pretty good. One item that caught my eye was, "Smoked Salmon Ravioli -- Fresh smoked salmon ravioli in lemon-dill cream sauce with sauteed red onion, tomatoes, garlic and capers topped with candied walnuts."

With that as an inspiration, I decided to give this a shot on Sunday.

SMOKED SALMON

Salmon fillet

Smoked paprika

Wood chips

Water

Mix equal amounts of wood chips and water; let soak for 15 minutes. Dip a pastry brush in the smoked paprika can. Tap brush over salmon to lightly sprinkle. Place wood chips in a fish poacher. Insert rack and place salmon on top. Cover and cook over high heat for 10 minutes per inch of thickness. Chill salmon in refrigerator when done cooking.

RAVIOLI

Leftover pasta

sea salt, to taste

fresh ground pepper, to taste

Reduced balsamic vinegar

Champagne vinegar

I have a two-piece ravioli maker that looks like this. Roll pasta very thin to twice the amount you need. Place half the pasta over a ravioli mold; make indentations. Sprinkle each indentation with salt and pepper. Drizzle reduced balsamic vinegar in each ravioli. Add a slice of salmon and brush with champagne vinegar. Fold other half of pasta over; press down to seal and make individual ravioli.

CANDIED WALNUTS

1 1/2 tbsp water

1 1/2 tbsp sugar

pinch of salt

1/2 cup walnuts

Make simple syrup with equal parts water and sugar. Add small amount of salt to heighten the sweetness. Bring to a boil in a skillet and add walnuts. Stir constantly until sugar threads begin to show between the walnuts as you stir.

Place a sheet of parchment paper on a wire rack and spoon walnuts on paper. As they cool separate them.

LEMON-DILL CREAM SAUCE

1 tbsp EVO

1 garlic clove, minced

1/4 cup red onion, minced

1 tomato, seeded and chopped

1 tsp capers, rinsed in water

sea salt, to taste

fresh ground pepper, to taste

fresh ground nutmeg, to taste

1/2 tsp dill weed

16 oz heavy cream

zest from one lemon

Preheat oven to 400°F.

Heat EVO over high heat in a heavy stainless steel skillet. If you use aluminum it will turn the sauce gray. Add garlic and red onion. Fry for about a minute then add tomatoes, capers, sea salt, pepper, nutmeg and dill weed. Saute for about 1 minute. Spoon tomato mixture into a bowl. Reduce heat to medium and add heavy cream to skillet. Stir occasionally until mixture is reduced by half. Return tomato mixture to skillet; heat for about 2 minutes.

Place ravioli in bowls, pour tomato mixture over ravioli. Place bowls in oven for 5 minutes. Remove from oven, top with lemon zest, candied walnuts and serve.

Edited January 10, 2003 by Really Nice! (log)

[macrosan]

Some weeks ago, I ate tagliatelle with smoked salmon in a cream sauce at a restaurant. I felt ill for the next 24 hours. I was then told that warm smoked salmon can suffer the same microbial problems as warm fresh salmon and warm chicken, ie the proliferation of salmonella or other bacteria.

Is there any truth in this ?

[Really Nice!]

Any protien that sits in the TDZ (Temperature Danger Zone which is between 40°F and 140°F) is going to be a risk. This is a basic HACCP principle. If a dish is prepared early in the day it needs to be held either above 140 or below 40; and it's best to get through the zone as fast as possible. TDZ is most severe between 70°F and 120°F.

Fish goes bad faster because it comes from a cooler environment. A fish that lives in 55°F water and stored at 35°F only drops 20°. The bacteria can survive more easily. (Note that fish also have different bacteria than cows.) A cow that has a body temperature of 100°F and stored at 35°F has a drop in 65°.

For fish to be GRAS (Generally Regarded As Safe) it needs to have an internal temperature of 145°F held for at least 15 seconds.

[macrosan]

Wow, ReallyNice, thanks for the detailed reply. Would I be right in saying that in a salmon pasta dish, there's every chance the salmon wouldn't get up to that 145deg ?

[Really Nice!]

Would I be right in saying that in a salmon pasta dish, there's every chance the salmon wouldn't get up to that 145deg ?

Could be. With freshly made ravioli, the salmon most likely wouldn't get up to that temperature as the pasta would be over cooked and gummy.

If it's a cream sauce pasta, for example, then it probably would get up to temperature if the salmon was added early on as the sauce simmered.

Cooking is not the only time food can spoil. There are seven steps in the flow of food that need to be monitored. They are:

Flow of Food.....Time and Temperature

Receiving...............Receive and store food quickly

Storage.................Store foods at their recommended temperatures

Preparation...........Minimize time spent in the TDZ 40° - 140°F (5° - 60°C)

Cooking.................Cook food to its minimal safe internal temperature for the appropriate amount of time

Holding..................Hold hot foods => 140°F (60°C) and cold foods <= 40°F (5°C)

Cooling..................Cool cooked food to 70°F (21°C) within two hours and from 70°F to 40°F (5°C) or below in four additional hours.

Reheating..............Reheat foods to an internal temperature of 165° (74°C) for 15 seconds.

Failure to ensure proper storage and handling during any of the above steps can ulitmately make the customer ill.

[Fish]

For fish to be GRAS (Generally Regarded As Safe) it needs to have an internal temperature of 145°F held for at least 15 seconds.

Hmm, so how about that Croque Monsieur from Eric Ripert's new book, which is basically a grilled cheese and lox sandwich ? The lox is clearly not going to reach 145°F - does that mean it's unsafe ? Lox (in my experience anyway) is generally eaten at room temp - I've eaten a lot of it over the years, and I don't recall it ever making me ill.

- S

[Really Nice!]

Hmm, so how about that Croque Monsieur from Eric Ripert's new book, which is basically a grilled cheese and lox sandwich ? The lox is clearly not going to reach 145°F - does that mean it's unsafe ? Lox (in my experience anyway) is generally eaten at room temp - I've eaten a lot of it over the years, and I don't recall it ever making me ill.

Ahh, the loophole in the logic! For bacteria to thrive it needs an environment suitable for growth. This environment spells out the acronym, FAT TOM.

F Food

A Acidity

T Time

T Temperature

O Oxygen

M Moisture

Each one of the above has characteristics favorable for bacteria to grow. Take out one of the above out (i.e. make it unfavorable) and bacteria will have a more difficult time to reproduce.

Two things done to food that fight off bacteria on proteins at room temperature are salt (removes moisture) and smoke (removes oxygen). I don't believe lox is smoked (someone of authority can chime in here on that), but salt does ward off bacteria by reducing the moisture in the food. Keep in mind that if the salmon is received at the location where the lox is made is in bad shape to begin with, toxins from the bacteria will remain after it is made into lox.

There are many products out there that are salted and smoked at low temperatures, which is called cold smoking, that are perfectly safe to eat.

Over time, however, any product not properly stored can spoil.