Cookaholics Bulletin Board

All,

The reason for the cilantro "thing" is because cilantro contains aromatic compounds which it shares with several brands of deoderant soap, notably Irish Spring, but also including various shampoos and dish soaps. As a result, people who first encountered those compounds, as children, in soap, before eating food with cilantro in it, often cannot get over the association with soap. Contrawise, folks who grew up somewhere they eat lots of Cilantro (like Cambodia) find themselves getting hungry if they wash up with Irish Spring. There's a study on this, but I'm feeling too lazy to search for it right now.

Since here in the USA, the "soap" population is something like 30%, I've largely given up cooking with it. I will say that a few of my friends aren't in the "soap" camp, but simply don't care for cilantro that much.

My favorite way to prepare really good salmon skin-on filets, though, is the simplest, learned from Hugh Carpenter:

1. place salmon filets on lightly oiled, aluminum-foil-wrapped metal sheet pan.

2. rub salmon with a little olive oil, optional mashed garlic, and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

3. heat the broiler

4. place salmon under the broiler until the topmost portions start to turn light brown and speckled, about 5 to 8 minutes (depending on thickness).

5. if filets are more than 3/4" thick, finish them in a 375F oven, 5 to 12 minutes depending on thickness.

It's really hard to improve the flavor of just-broiled fresh salmon. I do actually make some sauces for it, the most particular of which is the "sephardic sauce" from Pike Place Market Cookbook. Garlic-yogurt sauce is also nice, especially if you overcooked the salmon slightly and it's a bit dry. I can post a recipe for either of those if you still have salmon left.

Yes, Fuzzy, I'd love the recipe. We have a LOT of salmon left and this dinner isn't until Thursday....
Thanks!

Which one? Sephardic or yogurt?

all of the above?

Well, let's start with the yogurt sauce because I don't have to look anything up:

2 cups Greek-style yogurt, pref. full-fat
1 small bunch chives, or 5 scallions, chopped fine, around 1/4 cup
1 small bunch fresh dill, minced, around 1/4 cup
1 lemon
1/4 cup olive oil
1 clove garlic (see below)
fine-ground black pepper, around 1/4 tsp
salt

Put the yogurt in a bowl. Mix in the herbs, olive oil, and squeeze around 1 1/2 TBS juice from the lemon (about 1/2 lemon). Add the pepper.

Using a garlic masher, add a small amount of mashed garlic, around 1/2 tsp. If you can roast or poach the garlic cloves first, you can use up to two of them, for a better-rounded flavor, but that's not worth the effort separately. Be careful not to add too much garlic -- the garlic will get more potent as the sauce sits.

Whip together with a little salt. Add salt gradually, and taste, until the tart edge of the sauce is gone. This is usually around 1/2 tsp salt for me, but it varies with the ingredients.

Let sit for at least 1/2 hour, up to overnight in the fridge.

If this recipe looks like Tzaziki without the cucumber to you, you're right.

Here's another take by NPR on the cilantro question -- it particularly concerns whether or not a taste for cilantro is genetic (which Harold McGee argued a few years back). Fuzzy's right about the odor; this just digs a little deeper. By the way, I love the quote from Julia Child, who hated cilantro: "just pick it out and throw it on the floor."
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/09/14/161057954/love-to-hate-cilantro-its-in-your-genes-and-maybe-in-your-head?ft=1&f=139941248

Lindsay,

Well, there's no cilantro in French cuisine.

Interesting article - side rant- why oh why in studies do they just say "twins". My twin brother and I are not genetically the same (thankful spouses) and dropping that word annoys me. Can't tell you how many people insist that boy/girl twins can be identical. sigh.

Any chance of smoking some of that salmon? Or curing it? Yum.