morning after Christmas breakfast

I was lucky enough to have spend Christmas day with Drew's family where we aquired massive amounts of leftover ham.

We were both off after Christmas so I was able to make a bigger breakfast.  I started with a frittata I made with ham and gruyere.  I served some potatoes and toast with farmer's cheese and honey to go alongside.  A satisfying meal to start a relaxing day.

Christmas morning

On Christmas day I was lucky enough to have some of my mom's leftover tamales. To serve along with this I had leftover champurrado that I brought to the dinner.  There is nothing more perfect than this combination on a cold winter morning.

The texture of the mass with the spicy pork filling went well with the rich cinnamon and chocolate notes of the champurrado.

smoked salmon scrambled eggs

In my previous post, I mentioned picking up some smoked salmon along with the shrimp.  I wanted to make a quick post about what I did. 

First I have to say that the piece of salmon I got looked delicious, it was calling my name from the cases at Calumet Fisheries.  The particular piece I got was rubbed in garlic in black pepper prior to smoking.  I had to eat a few pieces of it alone and it was delicious.  One of my favorite combinations with smoked salmon are eggs.  I think they compliment each other so well and really allow the salmon to shine through.

I proceeded to remove the meat from the salmon and set aside.  scramble was made simply: eggs, smoked salmon and a touch of bleu cheese.  I've had salmon omelettes and scrambled eggs in the past with cream cheese or goat cheese so I felt that just a touch of bleu cheese would give a nice tang. I beat the eggs and let tossed them in a large skillet.  I let them set up a little bit before moving moving them around.  I then folded in the salmon and a bit of the cheese, took off the heat and covered. I wanted the eggs to maintain their creamy quality.  I served along some corn bread that I cut into pieces and toasted which went well with the texture of the salmon and eggs.



smoked shrimp curry

Over the weekend I got the opportunity to check out Calumet Fisheries on the south side.  Once I walked in and smelled the smoked fish, I knew I was in heaven.  I picked up a lovely piece of smoked salmon (more on that later) as well as a few pieces of smoked shrimp.

I got to work on the shrimp by splitting them in half, discarding the vein and holding on to the shells to make a flavorful broth.

I began by taking the shrimp shells and frying them in a sautee pan before placing in the oven to roast until crispy and the shell turns a more solid pink.

After removing from the oven I placed teh sautee pan back on the burner and added water and proceed to boil to extract as much of the flavor from the shells as possible.

As the shells boiled I added to another pan onion, garlic, ginger, jalapeño, cumin and coriander, and sauteed until the onion turned opaque.  I added a couple of diced potato as well as a few ladlefulls of shrimp broth and slowly simmered.

 Just before the potato finished cooking I added back the shrimp meat and let everything simmer together.  The starch in the potato helped to thicken the sauce a bit.  To serve I placed over a bed of brown rice that was cooked in remaining shirmp broth.



The dish was delicious.  The way the smokey flavors of the shrimp worked in conjunction with the heat and spices in the curry really made for a satisfying dish.  The flavor of the shrimp broth really shined through in the dish.  I will definitely be heading back to Calument Fisheries soon to pick up some more soon!