Salmon Head Soup

"When the buffalo are gone, we will eat mice, for we are hunters and must have our freedom." - Chief Sitting Bull

Wouldn't you know the day I forget my camera is the day my boy catches his first salmon off the beach—on a Snoopy rod no less. (The photo at left is his second salmon off the beach, taken the next day. He's looking a little more blasé about the whole thing.)

Riley let out a whoop when the fish hit his lure, and I'm sure I probably thought it was a false alarm, some weeds or a bottom snag. But then I saw the Snoopy rod doubled over. Next came the yelling and screaming and carrying on. Other anglers on the beach interrupted their casts to take notice of the commotion. I ran over and set up a station behind the boy, making sure the fish didn't rip the rod right out of his grip. He reeled and kept the tip up like a pro. Pretty soon the fish was in the surf and I figured for sure it would break the line. But Riley held on and pulled that salmon right up onto the beach. The kid knows what to do.

We ate the fillets in two sittings. The heads I saved for something special.

My kids are big soup eaters. Because we live near Seattle's International District, at a tender age they discovered noodle houses and the "subtle yet profound" pleasures of an Asian noodle soup, as one blogger has jokingly put it, parroting cooking shows like "Iron Chef." These soups are so tasty and cheap that I never really considered trying to make my own before, but after reading Hank Shaw's post on the "nasty bits" of fish, I just had to give it a shot. Besides, we're fishermen here at FOTL. When the salmon are gone I suppose we'll fish sculpin; in the meantime we can do honor to our catch by eating every last morsel.

I haven't cooked many fish head soups. None in fact. Luckily we have the Interwebs from which to draw on a nearly bottomless well of inspiration. Two recipes in particular, in addition to Hank's, informed my final improvisation: [eating club] vancouver's Mama's Fish Head Soup is home cooking at its best, and gave me the courage to use canned Szechuan prepared vegetables; a column by Steve Barnes from Albany, N.Y.'s Times Union convinced me that the double-strain was the way to go, and that aromatics such as green onions and cilantro would give the broth extra depth when applied after the first straining.

The advice was good. I have to say, if you'll allow me, this soup was every bit as good as soups I've had in the I-District. Those of little faith might get spooked during the proceedings, especially when the salmon heads are rolling around in there with the leeks and other stuff, going to pieces and spraying their bones about willy-nilly. But that's what the strainer is for. Ever glanced into the kitchen of a back alley noodle house? Not a good idea. But all the crazy stuff going into that bubbling cauldron will eventually get strained out, leaving—yes—a subtle yet profound broth in its place.

Hank's Salmon Head Soup is in the Japanese tradition. We like that—but my kids are most enthusiastic about the many varieties of Chinese noodle soup, so I went down to Uwajimaya to see what ingredients I could dig up. Sure enough, they had the sketchy can of Szechuan prepared vegetables (some sort of radish, I think). I also got some udon noodles, our nod to the Japanese style. Here are the ingredients in full:

2-3 salmon heads, cut in half
2 tbsp peanut or vegetable oil
1 tsp sesame oil (optional)
1 3-inch thumb of ginger, peeled and sliced
2 leeks, tops discarded, chopped
4 green onions, chopped
4-5 cloves garlic, chopped
2 Thai red peppers, thinly sliced
Chinese cooking wine
2 tbsp fish sauce (optional)
rice vinegar (optional)
aji-mirin (optional)
1 can Szechuan prepared vegetable (optional)
1 can bamboo shoots
1/2 head Napa cabbage, shredded
1 handful cilantro for garnish, stemmed, with stems reserved
1 package Asian noodles (e.g., udon, soba, ramen)

Despite the long list and the double strain, this is actually a fairly easy soup to make without the sort of pitfalls that can bedevil other soup recipes.

1. Over medium-high heat, brown fish heads and ginger in oil for a few minutes, turning at least once. De-glaze pot with a splash of wine and add chopped leeks, garlic, and half the green onions and red peppers. Saute together for several minutes.

2. De-glaze pot again with another splash of wine, then add 8 cups of water and optional fish sauce. Bring to a light boil, reduce heat, and simmer for 30 minutes.

3. Strain contents, picking and reserving as much salmon meat as possible. Return soup to simmer. Adjust for salt. Add half the remaining green onion and the cilantro stems. (Optional seasoning: Add a tablespoon of each: Chinese wine, rice vinegar, aji-mirin; add a few heaping tablespoons of Szechuan prepared vegetables.) Simmer another 15-30 minutes.

4. Strain soup a second time and return to low heat to keep warm. Dole out reserved salmon meat into bowls, along with noodles, a handful of shredded cabbage, and spoonfuls of both Szechuan prepared vegetables (optional) and bamboo shoots. Ladle soup. Garnish with green onion, cilantro, and Thai red pepper. Serves 4.

Prepared Szechuan vegetables will be hard to find unless you have access to an Asian market. If you can find 'em, I highly recommend. I also recommend the optional seasoning, though you'll be tempering the fish flavor in the process. A second strain with green onions and cilantro stems (or similar aromatics) is de rigeur; this is where the umami effect really kicks into high gear. If you've eaten in a quality noodle house, you know what I'm talking about. How do they do it? I once wondered, savoring every last drop of broth in my bowl.

Now I know.

Salmon Sashimi

We're taking a break from the forced mushroom march at FOTL to enjoy a stellar lunch of silver salmon sashimi. I caught an immature silver and decided it would be put to better use raw. Normally I toss the younguns back, but this one was bleeding profusely from what looked like a mortal hook-wound, so I added it to the punch-card.

1 cup sushi rice
rice vinegar to taste
1 small salmon fillet, deboned
pinch or two of fresh ginger, minced
pinch or two of toasted sesame seeds
pinch or two of chives, chopped
pinch or two of cilantro, chopped (optional)
1/4 cup soy sauce
ponzu sauce (or make your own: 2 tbsp soy sauce plus 2 tsp fresh lime, lemon, or orange juice, or combination)
1 tbsp vegetable oil
2 tbsp sesame oil

Make the sushi rice. While it's cooking, wrap your salmon fillet and place in freezer for five minutes. Prepare minced ginger, chopped chives and cilantro, and ponzu sauce (if necessary). Remove salmon from freezer and using very sharp fillet knife, slice into sashimi strips, cutting in one direction (no sawing). Season rice with vinegar, wet hands, and form two hockey puck-sized patties, and set aside on plates. Place salmon strips in bowl with soy sauce. In small saucepan, heat oils until smoking. Drain salmon and pile on top of rice patties. Sprinkle with ginger and chives. Spoon a tablespoon or so of hot oil over salmon to sear it. Spoon a tablespoon or so of ponzu sauce over salmon. Garnish with cilantro and sesame seeds. Serves 2, with rice to spare.

Silver & Gold

I feel like Yukon Cornelius on Christmas! A silver salmon at dawn and golden chanterelles by dusk. You can't ask for better lucre than that, not in my book.

The silver was nothing to brag about—a small resident salmon caught at a local beach that made a good meal for the kids. The chanties came from a quick jaunt out to the foothills. It's been raining clams and oysters in the Puget Sound region for the last week and I figured there'd be some early gold in them thar hills. Sure enough, my usual spot produced a nice haul. If this weather continues, we're in for a serious fall of shroomery. The salmon forecast, on the other hand, is up for grabs.

Here's a killer chanterelle recipe that's much easier to make than it looks.

Chicken and Chanterelles in Tomato Madeira Sauce

1. Saute diced shallot and garlic in olive oil. Add chopped chanterelles and cook until mushrooms release their water. Season to taste. Meanwhile add penne pasta to salted boiling water.

2. Add 2 tablespoons of tomato paste to sauce and stir. In a separate pan, fry pounded-thin and floured chicken cutlets in butter.

3. Finish tomato-chanterelle sauce with madeira wine and add water as necessary.

4. Serve sauce over chicken over pasta, and sprinkle with chopped parsley.

Drained at Drano

I'm way behind in posting. Stay tuned for a multi-part post on the Native Shores Rendezvous of last weekend. In the meantime, re: Columbia River spring chinook fishing at the mouth of the Little White Salmon River in the Gorge last Thursday...

...got skunked.

No surprise, really. It's a boat show there, with limited access for bank anglers. Not really my kind of scene either. The boats circled one productive stretch near the bridge where most of the fish are hooked, putt-putting endlessly as if caught in a whirlpool (maybe that's why they call it Drano Lake), sometimes getting into shouting matches with the old salts on shore who think they're hogging the best water. Some of these old salts even made a point of landing their hardware inches from the hulls of boats that got too close. Whatever.

We tossed mag warts for a few hours and saw seven or eight fish landed by the boats. Considering there were 200-plus anglers on the water, that's not a very optimistic catch rate. Maybe the tributaries will start to heat up soon and I'll take another shot at a springer.

I Caught Eight Springers!

Here's a fun party game. Clickety to see how many spring chinook you can catch on the live Bonneville Dam Fish Cam. The image above came from a lucky winner on the Gamefishin' board. You can also see the Columbia River fish counts to date by clicking here.

In other Bonneville news, feds are now saying they think the killing of six trapped sea lions, including two ESA-listed Steller sea lions, was an inside job. Previously it was believed that frustrated fishermen somehow pulled off the hit. The deaths of the salmon-eating pinnipeds came shortly after I posted remarks about redneck fishermen venting (read: displacing) their anger over diminishing fish runs. It's a shame that a few knuckle-draggers give fishermen a bad name, although at times I'm persuaded that it's more than just a few.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?

I'm always amused by the accusations aimed at sea lions by angry fishermen. Can we get something straight? The sorry state of our salmon fisheries has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with a bunch of resourceful pinnipeds. It has everything to do with a bunch of resourceful bipeds.

Sea lions are opportunists by nature, sorta like humans. A few of them—the Lewis and Clarks of the sea lion crowd—discovered that you could swim 100 miles up the Columbia River and find easy pickings at the Bonneville Dam fish ladder. They told their buddies. Now there's a sea lion convention below the dam.

Last year while shad fishing at Bonneville, I ran into a crusty old sturgeon fisherman. He was catching shad for bait that day. Wrap-around mirror sunglasses and fatigues. A real hombre. He told me a sad story about how the sea lions had learned to target sturgeon when their usual tablefare wasn't around, said he'd witnessed it himself. "Ain't a pretty sight. Got-damn lion taking down a 80-year-old fish, fish been swimmin' around down there since before any of us were bornt."

As he was packing up to leave, the sturgeon fisherman gave me a wink and said there were ways to deal with the sea lions. A couple days later I read a story about a lion washing up dead, several bullet slugs in its head, and thought of my sturgeon fishing friend.

This year the feds are trapping some of the sea lions and hauling them off to zoos. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer has the story.

(photo by embot)

Warts and All

We're loaded for bear here at FOTL. Just picked up an arsenal of lures, swivels, weights, and the incomparable Smelly Jelly. The last four days have seen more than a thousand Columbia River spring chinook counted over Bonneville Dam each day, with more than 2,000 on two of those days. The time is now.

Down at the tackle shop the boys are talking up the Mag Wart, pictured above. Aren't those tempting little buggers? Personally, the hot red color has me fired up. I can just see my fly-fishing bretheren rolling their eyes. Look how far he's fallen. Thee Originoo Trouthole shakes his head sadly. What can I say? Fishin' is fishin'. I'll save the flyrod for shad. The chinook get the wart.

I've never fished for springers before, so this is terra incognita—or aqua incognita, as the case may be. My plan is to drive down next week and camp somewhere in the Gorge, then spend a day at the mouth of the Little White Salmon River—a place known, rather unfortunately, as Drano Lake—and see if I can hook into one of these upriver brights from the bank. It's mostly a boat show, so my expectations are not high, but I figure I'll learn a ton on this first exploratory mission.

Salmon aficionados consider Columbia River spring chinook to be quite possibly the tastiest salmon of them all. What makes spring chinook so special is their high fat content, fat translating into flavor. As the name implies, springers return to their natal rivers earlier than summer and fall chinook, which means they must survive the rigors of a freshwater environment for a longer stretch until the fall spawn begins. Since they won't be eating during that time, their bodies are equipped to handle the holdover with extra fat reserves.

If they're not eating, you might reasonably ask, how do you get them to strike a lure? Short answer: piss 'em off. The Mag Warts are outfitted with rattles to irritate the salmon, and they thrash around like an injured baitfish. A honking big buck of a springer just can't help himself; he must take a nip out of the Wart as it swims past his nose. In theory, at least.

This year's run of upper Columbia River springers, forecasted at 269,300 fish, is the third largest since 1977. This causes no end of confusion among those who don't closely follow the plight of salmon and salmon fisheries. Wasn't most of the West Coast just closed to salmon fishing? they ask. Yes, but not for the current springer run. The summer and fall runs, especially those in California, are looking dismal, hence the emergency closure. The springers are in better shape this year, and at FOTL we hope to tie into one and offer up a recipe or two soon.

Save Our Wild Salmon

Somehow I missed the official kick-off of Save Our Wild Salmon's road show in Seattle on April 9. Maybe you missed it too. I get tons of mass-mails from a variety of enviro groups. The cumulative effect can be a desensitizing. But now, with the emergency closure of much of the West Coast to commercial and recreational salmon fishing, Save Our Wild Salmon's newest campaign to spread the word is gaining traction. That's a good thing, because wild salmon and steelhead don't have much time left in the Lower 48.

The road show will travel 10,000 miles through 20 states on its journey across the country to Washington, D.C., "to educate the public about the Northwest salmon crisis and encourage people to be part of the solution."

At the center of the road show is Fin, a 2-ton, 25-foot fiberglass salmon. You can keep up with the migration of Fin at Save Our Wild Salmon's blog.

Bottom line: Breach four pork-barrel dams on the lower Snake River asap!

(Thanks to Buster Wants to Fish for bringing this to my attention.)

Wake-Up Call

California's coastal salmon season has been cancelled. That's right, all coastal fishing for salmon—both commercial and recreational—is kaput. The Governator has declared a state of emergency and filed for federal disaster relief. Even though the ban is for only one year, this could be the death-knell for the state's storied commercial salmon fleet. Much of Oregon will be shut down, too. The San Francisco Chronicle has the story.

FOTL's condolences go out to his brothers and sisters of the angle to the south, and though his home state dodged the bullet, Washington won't be looking forward to a stellar season either, with chinook spotty and coho numbers way down.

These are not good times to be a salmon and steelhead fisherman. We can only hope that a move as drastic as this will provoke the necessary soul-searching to effect change. Salmon evolved to survive droughts, floods, volcanoes, predation, periodic downturns in marine productivity, and whatever else Mother Nature could throw at them. But they're no match for dams, hatcheries, pollution, rapacious logging, profligate irrigation, flood-plain subdivisions, and desert golf courses. Do you want wild salmon? The choice is ours.

The Cost of Our Appetites...

...for cheap power, timber, produce, development, and so on.


A story in today's Seattle Post-Intelligencer by enviro reporter Robert McClure raises the specter of $40 salmon this season. That's $40 per pound! Federal authorities will be meeting near Seattle this week to decide the fate of California and Oregon's chinook fisheries. As reported earlier, the California fishery is on the verge of total collapse, with returns at historical lows. We keep hearing noise about poor ocean conditions beyond our control, but really now: Could it just possibly be that agricultural diversions, subdivisions, dams, pollution, and a host of other man-made problems up and down the Golden State have finally taken their toll?

The modern history of salmon is a history of depletion and collapse wherever humans have settled and fished, with government failing the people at every step. The first to go were Atlantics in Western Europe, then Atlantics in the New World, now Pacific salmon on the West Coast. Is Alaska next? Fortunately the State of Alaska is taking steps to safeguard its prolific wild runs, such as a ban on farmed salmon. But timber, mining, and development continue to knock at the door.

Let's look at McClure's article a little more closely, because at least we have a reporter here who gets it.

* In the 8th graf he notes the rising price of chum salmon, the species of Pacific salmon at the very bottom of the commercial totem poll, the salmon also called "dog" because it's frequently used to feed sled-dog teams rather than people way up north. This is a scary thought.

* The next graf is telling, with a quote from a seafood marketer who refers to America as a "nation of salmon eaters." Good for us. Salmon are a superfood, loaded with Omega-3 fatty acids. When managed correctly, they provide a renewable cocktail of nutrition on a massive scale. We would be beyond stupid to let such a resource slip away.

* In the 11th graf McClure explains that the Alaska catch forecast for this year is down from last year by more than a third—but no biggie, because last year saw a peak catch. Salmon are cyclical. While their numbers go up and down, if managed correctly the down years can still be good years, with no reason to fear the future.

* Graf 15 presents the enviro view of California: the slide is due to "diversions of massive amounts of water to farms and cities from salmon streams in California's Central Valley."

* The next graf is the usual hemming and hawing from the feds: "...an unusual weather pattern that pummeled the marine food web, killing tens of thousands of seabirds and leaving the young salmon with little to eat." Maybe. But nature doesn't usually conspire to eliminate a species as resilient as the salmon.

* A little further down McClure introduces an interesting wrinkle: the fact that, despite the catastrophic chinook projections, the commercial whiting fleet is dumping overboard an estimated 6,000 dead salmon off the West Coast, salmon caught in their nets known euphemistically as "bycatch." Hello? Can the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) please do something about this? And even if you're going to allow bycatch, can we please get those dead salmon back to shore so we can use them in the myriad in-river restoration projects going on that require salmon carcasses to replenish the nutrient load, projects such as this.

* Which leads us to graf 29 way down near the bottom of the article, the money graf in my opinion. In the larger picture this could be called a case of burying the lead, but give McClure credit—very few reporters ever get this far at all. In graf 29 McClure explains the nature of what is known in scientific circles as shifting baseline syndrome as it applies to Pacific salmon, and I'll quote the graf in its entirety: "Overall, salmon runs have been pummeled in Washington and Oregon, compared with historic levels. For example, while scientists estimate that perhaps 5 million to 9 million chinook returned to the Columbia River each year in the late 1800s, the number returning there from 1979 to 2006 averaged just 135,000."

There it is folks! Your greatest chinook salmon factory on the planet, the Columbia River system, has gone from producing an average of 5 to 9 million chinook annually to 135,000. California's great chinook nursery, the Sacramento watershed, is in similar straits. Blame this sudden 100-year plummet on poor ocean survival? I think not.

So when—if—you pay $40 for two serving sizes of salmon at the fish market, ask yourself just what the cost really is.

(top image Adam Holloway)

The King Is...Dead?

A story has been developing in the last few weeks about the Sacramento River and its mysteriously vanishing run of chinook, or king, salmon. Last year's run was 10 percent of the run just five years ago, and this year's is projected to be even smaller. The San Francisco Chronicle has an update.

Is this really a surprise?

Certainly salmon runs fluctuate over time. But when hit with the multi-whammy of dams, development, irrigation, timber harvest, pollution, and innumerable other man-made affronts, even these incredibly resilient fish are finally waving the white flag. What really disturbs me is that the current low runs in the Sacramento might be seen by my children as not so bad when they're older. This phenomenon is known as the shifting baseline syndrome, and it's at the heart of our predicament.

It's painful to imagine a day when salmon swim mostly in city fountains. (Photo by Stephen Rees)

A River's Return

Today's Seattle Times has a story about efforts to start rehabilitating Washington State's Elwha River in advance of dam removal scheduled to begin after 2010. The local Klallam Indian tribe has been placing hundreds of spawned-out salmon carcasses into the river above the dams to mimic conditions of anadromous fish runs.

Quote: "We are looking at how it affects the freshwater food web, and is it stimulating algae growth and creating food for invertebrates," said Sarah Morley, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric research ecologist in Seattle who developed the project.

The Elwha was one of the Northwest's great salmon rivers before it was illegally dammed in the early 20th century. Five species of salmon returned to the river each year, including legendary chinook in excess of 100 pounds. (To learn more about the Elwha and its salmon, check out Jim Lichatowich's definitive account of declining Northwest salmon runs, Salmon Without Rivers.)

As with the eruption of Mount St. Helens, scientists have a golden opportunity to study the before-and-after effects of a major environmental event. They also need to prepare the river for what hopefully will be an epic "comeback" story.

What's so cool about the impending dam removal is that most of the watershed won't require the sort of restoration that is usually necessary in such projects. The Elwha above the dams is in pristine condition (except for air-borne pollution we read about earlier this week) and is protected by Olympic National Park. The river is ready and waiting for salmon and steelhead to once again migrate up its waters. Bring it on!

Coming Soon: Upriver Brights

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife is forecasting a run of 269,300 upper Columbia River spring chinook this year, the third highest run since 1977. Of course, WDFW has been wrong before, so here at FOTL we won't be holding our breath—but we will be thinking about getting in on the action.

Apparently the getting should be good, because the state fish commission voted last week to re-jigger the catch allocations—in favor of recreational anglers. This is somewhat complicated stuff, but the bottom line is this: Columbia River wild spring chinook are listed under the Endangered Species Act; only 2 percent of the wild run can suffer mortality in the fishery for the hatchery spring chinook. Once that quota is reached, the fishery is closed. Under the new rules, the quota will be weighted toward recreational anglers vs. commercial at 65-35 percent.

Fishing chat boards all over the Northwest have been in full rejoice mode over the run numbers. The upper Columbia River spring chinook, known as "upriver brights," are among the most coveted of all the salmon. Sure, we hear about well marketed Alaskan salmon like Copper River sockeye and Yukon chinook, but ask salmon connoisseurs and commercial fishermen what race of salmon they'd most like to slap on the barbecue and you'll hear a nearly unanimous vote for Columbia springers. The only problem is that most years there isn't a big enough run to open a significant fishery.

Because the springers enter the river earlier and travel farther than almost any other race of salmon, they've evolved a life history that enables them to survive in a freshwater environment longer than is usual. This results in nickel-bright fish well up into the system, fish with a high fat content (read: flavor) and nice firm flesh. Before the Columbia and its major tribs were turned into a series of slackwater reservoirs for hydropower, irrigation, barging, and flood-control, the system famously produced strains of giant chinook that migrated deep into the mountain streams of Idaho, including the notorious "June hogs," which could tip the scales in excess of 100 pounds!

Native Americans revered the spring chinook. With the “First Salmon Ceremony,” a ritual common to many of the Northwestern tribes, they offered their respects at the beginning of the run to the Salmon People who sent their ambassadors up the rivers each year to nourish the tribes. The first salmon was captured and brought to the village as an honored guest, where it was ritualistically prepared and eaten by all members of the community. In this way, the tribe hoped the salmon would feel welcome and well treated and would return again. The skeleton of the first salmon was then floated back downriver so it could receive a dignified burial and reincarnation.

We'll be keeping our eye on how this highly touted fishery plays out. It's a serious gear show, so here at FOTL—primarily a fly-flinging outfit—we have some boning up to do. More to come...

(The photo above by D. Ryan/AP shows spring chinook navigating the Bonneville Dam fish ladder.)

Paying Out the Last Silver

With a heavy heart (and salivating chops) I defrosted the last of my silver salmon this afternoon. According to my laundry marker scrawl on the shrinkwrap, this fish was caught September 9th, a Sunday. I actually remember that day, because I caught two silvers within a span of 15 minutes. It had been a lazy Sunday and I didn't show up at the beach until right before low tide, which was around noon. The sun was out, but it was windy, with uncharacteristically large waves crashing on the cobbles. I had to take my place at the end of the line, far from the point, and, I was sure, far from the sweet spot. Because it was Sunday few of the regulars were around, just a bunch of weekend warriors tossing their lures out and hardly bothering to reel them back in. They didn’t expect to catch anything, I could see that right away. They were hiding from chores and honey-do lists.

Just then I saw an interesting sight through my polarized lenses: plain as day, a pod of silvers zipped by in the curl of a wave mere yards offshore, fin to fin like a squadron of Blue Angels in tight formation. I turned to the guy next me. Am I seeing things? He couldn’t summon the energy to answer and robotically cast his line way over the salmon, fifty yards out to sea (this was better than painting the garage, that’s for sure). A few minutes later and the squadron was back. I put my lure in front of the pod, just a few yards out. A fish peeled off the group and hammered it in less than a foot of water. Seconds later I had a six-pound silver on the beach.

The guy next to me was surprised. “Wow, you got one,” he said, as if we were all assembled there for some obscure reason that had yet to be revealed to us. Five minutes later and I had my second. A limit.

I guess we ate one of the two fish for dinner that night and froze the other for later. Now is later. The last of my freezer full of silver salmon.

In truth, this one has probably been in the freezer longer than is optimal. Three months, no problem. Almost five months? That requires my emergency "freezer burn marinade." Besides masking the burn without compromising the tender salmon flavor, it's ridiculously easy to make, taking about 30 seconds, including the time to rummage through my cabinets: one part Mongolian fire oil, two parts roasted sesame oil, and soy sauce to cover. Chopped garlic and ginger (or, in this case, rosemary) give it extra zing—and a couple minutes more prep time.

Such a marinade encourages a Pan-Asian presentation (I know, I know, we've seen enough of this sort of thing around these parts lately, but you work with what you've got). My usual sides are julienned vegetables—zucchini, squash, onions—sautéed in the same marinade, and jasmine rice or cous-cous. A salsa of diced red pepper, red onion, mango, and cilantro also pairs nicely.