Recipe Nr1 - Salmon Meatballs

It's been quite a while since I've quited to be the trolley-case-pulling nomad. More than 6 months have passed since the last time I had to spend more than half of the month on the road.


Writing this last sentence actually felt a bit like as if I was making a speech at the "Travelics" Anonymous convention to receive a medal to celebrate my sixth clean month. Topic for another entry: "Hello, I am Dunning Kruger , I'm a Travelic. "



Anyway; even though being quite busy in Istanbul, not being a nomad anymore grants me access to some of the luxuries that I couldn't even imagine to enjoy while on the road. One of them is quality time in the kitchen.


Cooking is like a mediation session. Very few things are as sedative as cooking on my own in a well lit kitchen listening to some good music. When cooking, you are in complete harmony with your surroundings. You're a part of the kitchen and kitchen is a part of yours. You two become one. It almost feels like the womb.


When cooking, a number of tasks are listed and re-listed on your mind to achieve the correct timing and absolute efficiency. While you undertake the planned tasks one by one, you allow creativity to get involved a great deal where you let indigents dance with each other.


I generally trust my intuition when cooking and my senses didn't disappoint me much until now. Of course, there have been cases where I have messed up a complete meal by pushing too far in innovation, but generally I could say I rarely step on their feet when dancing with ingredients.


This intuitive style of cooking lacks a documentation methodology however where sometimes good ideas get lost as I never take time to note down what I have done. So I decided to use this blog space to record the ideas as generated.


So; a dish from the party we gave on Saturday evening:


Salmon Meatballs

1. Take fresh Salmon and stripe its skin carefully
2. Chop it into roughly into 3cm x 3cm cubes.
3. Then squeeze each of the cubes lightly trying to feel its bones. Make sure that you find and take out all of the bones one by one.
4. Then mince the cubes into smaller pieces - say half centimeter cubes. Smaller pieces are no good as we want the meatballs feel knobby in mouths.
5. In a stewpot, boil some rice. Preferably Basmati rice. You shouldn't cook it too much. It should feel "al dente".
6. Cool the rice and mix it with the salmon you prepared.
7. Add some soy sauce, fresh black pepper, two egg yolks, some lemon juice, some curry, some olive oil and very little amount of cinnamon.
8. Then mix everything and mould the mixture for about 5 minutes. It should become of the right consistency to give it the desired form.
9. Then take a handful of the mixture and roll it to meatball form. Dip the balls in Egg yolk and fry them.

The critical part of this recipe is the way cinnamon enriches the salmon and the way curry and cinnamon fit with each other. Also cinnamon is an excellent natural regulator for blood sugar. This also ensures a sense of fulfillment after the meal.

I'm afraid I'm not very good with scales and measures. So you will have to trust your own senses if you ever try these recipes.