I was asked recently by a new friend what I did for work. She’s a bit younger than I, a Peruvian immigrant who is trained as a chemical engineer. She has been working in the US as a nanny. She and her husband, also an engineer, worked since they have been here to put their two children who followed their footsteps to become engineers through college. I told her that I studied folklore at university and worked in museums. She was interested in my very different work path.

Working in museum collections calls for organizational skills. I carry those practices home with me and, thus, my recipes (and lots of other stuff) are organized. Those recipes harvested from the internet are transformed into word documents and filed in a Recipe folder on my desktop. Many, many recipes are further organized in a way probably only I can fathom. I do try to mark their titles so I know which of them I’ve prepared.

Recipes gleaned from print sources are carefully filed in page protectors in loose leaf binders. Again, the system is one perhaps only intelligible to me.

Along with my cookbooks, there they all sit, and sit, and grow in number when new ones are added. Yes, from time to time, I weed through them and dispose of either digital or print recipes that have not been tried or on second thought will not be tried.

Enough! A few weeks ago, I decided that enough clippings were waiting to be filed and better yet, tried. Based on ingredients available in the refrigerator and pantry, of course, I took a kind of Asian route with Jammy Onion and Miso Pasta (print copy) and Broiled Salmon with Scallions and Sesame (digital copy). Constant Companion and Daughter both voted “keeper” to both of these recipes that are being duly marked and returned to the archives.

Broiled Salmon with Scallions and Sesame. Start by making the marinade, whisk 2 minced garlic cloves with 3 tbsp lime juice, 2 tbsp soy sauce, 1 tsp honey, 1 Tbsp. oil, and ½ tsp. sesame seeds in a small bowl. Season salmon fillets with salt and place in a resealable plastic bag; add half of marinade. Seal bag, pressing out air, and let salmon sit 30 minutes. Reserve remaining marinade.

Preheat your broiler. Toss 1 bunch of trimmed scallions and 3 or 4 cut baby bok choy* with 2 tsp. oil; broil until lightly charred, about 3 minutes. Remove salmon from marinade and set on top of scallions. Spoon some reserved marinade over and broil until salmon is charred around edges, about 6 minutes.+ Spoon more marinade over; top with thinly sliced fresno chile (if you like spicy). Sprinkle with more sesame seeds

*Bok choy is not in the original recipe, but it was waiting to be cooked and seemed like a fit.

+I use salmon filets from Aldi which tend to be quite thin. Be careful to not cook them too long or they will dry out.

Jammy Onion and Miso Pasta. I had a good collection of onions that had sat too long. I carefully peeled and thinly sliced them, then cooked them down to a brown jammyness. one of the recipes waiting to be filed called for 2 large onions, thinly sliced. I probably had more.

Heat 2 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil and 2 Tbsp. unsalted butter (I just used oil, no butter) in a large skillet over medium-high. Add the sliced onions seasoned with kosher salt. Cook, stirring often, until onions are softened and brown around the edges, 10–14 minutes. Add 4 thinly sliced garlic cloves and cook, stirring constantly, about 1 minute. Add 1 tbsp white miso, continue stirring about 1-2 minutes. Add 1 cup beef or chicken broth (or water). Scrape up the stuff* stuck to the bottom of the pan. Cook, still stirring, until the miso is dissolved.

*If you watch Chopped, Amanda Freitag, one of the judges, calls this stuff “fond.”

Add 4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced, to skillet with onions and cook, stirring constantly, until softened and fragrant, about 1 minute. Add 1 Tbsp. white miso and cook, stirring constantly, until browned and beginning to stick to bottom of pan, 1–2 minutes. Pour in 1 cup low-sodium beef or chicken broth or water, scraping up any browned bits stuck to bottom of pan, and cook, stirring, until miso is dissolved, about 2 minutes. Season generously with freshly ground pepper. Reduce heat to low and keep onion mixture warm until pasta is ready.

Meanwhile, cook 12 oz. spaghetti in a large pot of boiling salted water, stirring occasionally, until very al dente, about 1 minute less than package directions. Using tongs, transfer the pasta to the skillet (a little water coming along is okay). Increase heat to medium and add 2½ oz. Parmesan, finely grated,* remaining 1 Tbsp. unsalted butter,* and ½ cup pasta cooking liquid. Cook, tossing often and adding more pasta cooking liquid by ¼-cupful as needed, until cheese is melted and sauce clings to pasta, about 2 minutes. Top with ¼ cup 1½”-long chives. 

**I did not add cheese or butter, it’s not necessary, though will definitely change the flavor.

Nice steamed broccoli made a balanced meal. Two very nice dishes that sometime in the unforeseen future will be resurrected again from the archives.