Winter in the Pacific NW is a grind. The days are dark and it seems to always be 40 degrees and raining. How do we sustain our sanity you may ask...by good food and drink from the bounty of the Northwest! Here is a dinner sure to put a smile on your face during the dark, wet winter of the Pacific NW.
Bounty is plentiful in the PNW over the winter months, and two awesome outdoor entrees are Razor clams and steelhead. Pursuing these tasty critters provides a great break from the dreary winter days, and provides amazing dinner table fare. I put together a dinner combining both of these delicacies and it added a bright light to combat the winter dark.
My dinner plan was Calm Strips, Steelhead and a wedge salad. here is how I put it together.
The Wedge
First you need to prepare for the wedge salad by cooking some bacon.
Cook the bacon first, thats takes care of the prep work for the wedge salad.
Next, gather all of your ingredients for the wedge salad. Ann will be preparing the salad while I am cooking the Razor Clams and the Steelhead.
Ann made the salad while I was cooking, and it was amazing. I will do a future blog post on her amazing wedge salad
Incredible Wedge Salad!!!!
The Razor Clam Strips
Cut clams into small strips and prepare all of you ingredients. For this dinner I did 1/2 of the clams gluten and dairy free, and the other half standard. I will go into detail on how I prepared the gluten free clams in a later blog post.
First, Cut the calms into small strips and get your ingredients ready.
Fill a 1 gallon bag with Pride of the west and add seasoning. I used "Slap your Momma" for a little zest on this batch.
Soak clams in a egg/milk bowl , remove and drop into the zip lock bag
Shake until fully coated and place on a pan.
The Steelhead Filet
I went old school on the steelhead and simply poached it in aluminum foil on the grill
Add truffle salt, pepper, butter, sweet onion, dill and lemon.
Add truffle salt, pepper, butter, dill, sweet Walla Walla Onion and lemon.
Wrap in foil and cut several slits in the top so some of the steam can escape.
Grilling
Start the grill, and the oil for the clams at the same time
Heat the grill to 400 degrees
Heat up the oil at a low temperature the same time you heat up the grill
Once the steelhead is on, turn up the heat on the oil and cook the clams.
Once the last batch of calms is done...about 20 minutes, check your steelhead it should be done too.
Steelhead should flake with a fork when it is done.
Serve with your favorite PNW beverage and enjoy!
Thanks for reading!
Bill