Every now and then, I get the urge to cook something. Well, not just cook something, but go above and beyond in the kitchen. This time I really outdid myself! Time and time again I’ve tried to get the perfect sear on a piece of fish and I finally came, cooked, and kicked it’s ass! I used all fresh ingredients too! I present to you a pan seared salmon, sauteed green beans, and a cheesy parsnip puree! But first, the process!

Here we have a nice cut of salmon which I took the skin off of already. A lot of people like to leave the skin on, and maybe I’ll try it like that next time, but I’m used to NOT having the skin left on my salmon! At this point, I have not seasoned it or anything, just got it ready…looks good!

I tossed the pasnips in some water with some fresh parsley and a little bit of salt. For those of you who aren’t all that familiar with parsnips, they are a distant cousin to the carrot I believe. But they end up having a very potato consistency. I never actually had them before now, but they turned out to be very easy to work with. I go the idea from passed seasons of Hell’s Kitchen lol. Anyway, I brought them to a boil and kept them in there for a ten minutes or so.

For those of you that know me (and those of you that don’t for that matter), I am not a fan of white wine–not even Moscato! Cooking with it, however, can really help bring out some special kind of flavors. This wine was especially sweet which is probably why women seem to love it so much. Give me a bottle of scotch and I’m just fine. Well, this is what ended up in the skillet in a minute.

 There are a lot of different oils and whatnot you can use, but I’m a fan of extra virgin olive oil. Make sure the pan is covered and hot before you drop in the fish. Never put it in a pan that’s not hot enough unless you just want it to soak up all the oil for no reason lol. You can see the salmon starting to cook and the color start to rise. You only want to flip this thing once! So wait till it cooks to about the middle before you turn it over. Once I turned it over, I added just a bit of butter to make sure the pan was nice and greased. Then after taking a swig, I poured in the wine! MMM!!! At this point I’m kind of cooking a bit seriously so I had to jump right to the finished product!

Voila! Looks delicious, don’t it?

Well believe me, it was! I can taste it just looking at it again! I can’t say it enough, I love salmon! So tell me, what’s your favorite fish?