Steamed salmon with green beans, caramelized shallots, and toasted pecans

On Top Chef last week, there was a discussion about the importance of keeping Italian food simple.  In other words, you shouldn't make things too complicated by including too many ingredients.  I think one of the greatest challenges people often face when wanting to get into cooking is trying to figure out how to make really delicious dishes that are also very simple.  If you flip through most cookbooks or cooking magazines, you'll generally find recipes whose ingredients lists are very long. 

Last night, I made one of those simple meals that sounds fancy but is actually incredibly easy.  A key to the success of these dishes, though, rests in the ingredients you do use.  Yesterday's chili recipe had a lot going on in it and cooked for a long time, so the reality is that I could use things like dried oregano rather than fresh.  When you are cooking with just a few ingredients, it is necessary to use really nice, fresh ingredients.

The salmon I used last night was wild caught from Alaska.  It is fairly easy to identify salmon that has been wild caught compared to farmed salmon.  Wild caught salmon has a much deeper color to it than farmed salmon, which tends to be a very light pink.  All I did to this particular cut of salmon was steam it for about 20 minutes then squeeze fresh lemon juice on top of it.  It was such a nice piece of fish that that is all it required.

For the green beans, which was based on a recipe by Tyler Florence (I told you I was working my way through that cookbook!), I started out by putting them in boiling water for 3 minutes then quickly drained them.  I cut two shallots into little rings and put them into hot olive oil I had going on the stove.  I cooked those for about 3 minutes, at which point they were starting to get some nice color.  I then added pecans to the dish and cooked them for about 3 more minutes.  At this point, the pecans were nicely toasted and the shallots were looking a nice caramel color.  I added the beans to this dish, tossed them for a moment, then squeezed half a lemon over it.

The end product:

I also had a grapefruit with this.  But this is literally all it took to make a really delicious meal: salmon, lemon, green beans, shallots, pecans, olive oil, and a grapefruit.  Seven items and just over 20 minutes of cooking time.  Sometimes, simplicity is best.