Week Two - Alaska

Greetings from the Land of the Midnight Sun!  My second state-inspired dinner took place on Saturday the 12th, just squeaking in to make it for Week Two of the National Grub Year (I have a feeling that the lag in posting about my culinary adventures will be happening a lot this year...who knew life with two children was going to be so busy!).

Alaska is a state that I have always wanted to visit, and I really wanted to do it's meal justice.  I think I did pretty well...especially with the dessert.  We'll get to that, but first, dinner, which was kept simple in terms of the recipes I tried.

Broiled Alaskan Sockeye Salmon

1 1/2 lbs Alaskan Sockeye Salmon Fillets

1 tablespoon dried dill weed

1 lemon

This is actually a recipe that a friend gave to me years back and it's always been my go to when cooking salmon.  Very simple and very tasty.  Just sprinkle the dill all over the fillets, making sure they are well covered.  Slice the lemon and put the slices on to the salmon.  Broil on low for around 10 minutes (make sure it doesn't go light pink or white!)

Baked Snow Crab Legs

3 Alaskan Snow Crab Leg Clusters

1/4 cup melted butter

1/2 tablespoon garlic powder

2 tablespoons "Soul Food" seasoning (Food Lion brand)

Another easy recipe here (didn't want to over-power the crab legs!).  While Alaskan King Crab is the more famous of the crab species (thanks, of course, to Deadliest Catch), the Snow Crab was half the price.  And traveling around the country, even if it's a trip that never leaves my kitchen, can get expensive.  I went with the more affordable (and still delicious) option.

First, I melted the butter and mixed in the garlic powder and Soul Food seasoning.  Next, I put the crab legs on a tin foil-lined baking pan.

I poured the melted butter mixture over the crab legs and put another layer of foil over the crab legs. I folded the edges, making a packet, and put the crab legs in the oven, preheated to 450.  I baked them for 10 minutes.

I served both of these seafood options with two vegetables that are major crops in Alaska, broccoli and beets.

The result...

...was delicious.  Elliot and Eleanor weren't a big fan of the beets (their loss), but they devoured everything else.  The salmon came out great, as did the crab legs. They were buttery and not too spicy, with the Soul Food seasoning giving them just enough of a kick.  Our dining room table was eventually covered in small, buttered hand prints and crab leg shells, but who cares, it was fun watching them get so excited to eat them.

With all of that said, dessert was the real winner here.  I did a lot of my prepping for this project over the holiday break, and as such a constant stream of Christmas movies were on at my house.  There's a scene in the Bill Murray film Scrooged where Bill's character sees a man on fire in a restaurant and starts pointing at him frantically.  The waiter, who doesn't see the man, mistakes what he's pointing at and says "That's a Baked Alaska, sir. A dessert."

I wonder what state I should use that dessert for...

Baked Alaska

1 1/2 Cartons Neapolitan Ice Cream

1 Pound Cake, Sliced

6 egg whites (at room temperature)

3/4 cup of sugar

1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

According to legend, the name "Baked Alaska" came into being in New Orleans, where a chef there created this dessert to honor the recent acquisition by the United States of the territory of Alaska.

No matter where the name came from, this all day process was well worth the effort.  First, I lined a 3 quart metal mixing bowl with plastic wrap, and then fill it with the ice cream. I made sure as I was scooping it in to equally mix the strawberry, chocolate, and vanilla sections.  I didn't want it to have one side that was solely one flavor. I pressed this into the bowl so it was roughly flat on top.

When that was done scooping in the ice cream (I should have let it soften first, pro tip for next time!) I layered the pound cake on top, creating the base for the dessert.

I put this in the freezer and left if for four hours.  The recipe I found actually said you could leave it in there for much, much longer (two weeks was the upper limit...couldn't wait that long this go around).

Right before I was ready to take it out of the freezer, I made my first meringue. And because it was my first, I enlisted the help of a sous chef...

To make the meringue, I mixed the egg whites on high with a hand mixer until they were frothy. I added in the cream of tartar and the sugar slowly, mixing on high the whole time, until it began to harden up. Elliot was amazed by this, and frankly so was I (science, amirite?!). 

When stiff peaks began to form in the bowl, the meringue was done.  I pulled out the frozen ice cream/pound cake and inverted it on to a baking dish.  Elliot then got to work spreading the meringue out over it.

The now meringued ice cream/cake concoction was put back in the freezer for another hour.

I preheated an oven to 500, and when the time was right, I put the baking dish in for five minutes.  The result...

Was incredible. Super tasty and a great mix of textures and temperatures. The middle of the dessert remained frozen and hardened, while the crust of the meringue was crispy and warm.  It really was something else, and it's definitely something that I want to try again the next time we host a larger gathering.  There was wayyyy too much for just the four of us!

Week Two is in the books and so far it's been a great way to break up the monotony that can sometimes occur with home-cooking.  Hopefully we'll actually get to visit The Last Frontier at some point in our lives.  I just hope they serve Baked Alaska there too...