I had dinner at Salt in Boulder on Saturday. The food was excellent — but again, truly the experience was made by the service. The bartenders in the downstairs cellar bar were hilariously sweet. The waitress at our patio dinner table was exceptional. The food was pretty good.
High: chilled yellow beet soup
Low: bone marrow. Two words: NEVER AGAIN. I would love to describe exactly what this mouthful of gelatinous goo tasted like, but I’ll let you imagine. I can’t believe for all the culinary hype this — THIS — is what marrow tastes like.
The soup was actually so good, we tried to recreate it at home the next night, along with a fancy salt encrusted roasted rainbow trout. (A gift from my lovely neighbor/fisherman Clyde.)
Chilled Beet Soup:
5-6 golden beets
2 tablespoons olive oil
dash of tumeric
dash of garlic salt
dash of pepper
Cup of chicken stock
Cup of cream or full fat plain yogurt
sprig of dill for garnish
Dice beets (and peel! We did not do this and the soup was bitter.), drizzle with oil. Roast at 350 for 60 minutes. Place in blender with stock. Pulse until smooth. Mix in desired amount of cream and top with dill. Chill until ready to be served.
Salt Encrusted Rainbow Trout:
One trout, cleaned
3 cups kosher salt, mixed with 3 egg whites
Stuff cavity of fish with desired spices (we used thyme and dill). Lather fish with salt/egg mixture. (More on that method here.) Roast at 400 for 30 minutes. Salt layer will crack off leaving a delightfully moist fish.
A delightfully earthy and cool dinner to sip and enjoy on the patio on a warm, summer night.* (Nelson loved the fish most.)
~K
*to be noted, 5-6 beets makes a LOT of soup and this isn’t so good the next day. If cooking for 2, use 3 beets and cut the time back to 30 minutes of roasting.
** also to be noted, gardens love macerated fish heads and guts if you can bring yourself to run them through the blender with some warm water. This might attract other animals, however.