Chef suggests early barbecue of salmon and vegetables.

Byline: The $10 Gourmet by Jim Boyd The Register-Guard

RANDY "MOOKIE" Hollister, the chef-owner of Mookie's Place in Springfield, chose a meal of grilled salmon and vegetables for today's edition of The $10 Gourmet. The menu includes basmati rice boiled in chicken broth and a salad of romaine lettuce dressed with balsamic vinaigrette and topped with shredded Parmesan cheese.

Hollister chose barbecued salmon for the entree because Honey Barbecued Salmon is one of his signature dishes at the Sunday brunches he has begun serving in the dining area above the Ironworks Gym at the Emerald Valley Resort in Creswell.

"We're getting real good compliments on that," he said. "Also, I think we're getting close to spring and I think people are wanting to start grilling."

Hollister provided a recipe for the balsamic vinaigrette he uses in this menu as both a marinade for the grilled vegetables and as a dressing for the lettuce.

However, his family persuaded him not to give away his secret recipe for honey barbecue sauce. He suggests you substitute a barbecue sauce of your choice, either commercial or homemade.

During his cooking demonstration, Hollister showed an easy way to remove the skin from a salmon fillet without the use of a filleting knife.

He put the fish on the barbecue, skin side down, and allowed it to heat enough to melt the layer of fat between the skin and the flesh. The process took perhaps a minute or two, not long enough to cook the fish. He then removed the fillet from the grill and peeled off the skin in a single piece.

Also, instead of tearing the romaine lettuce for the salad into bite-size pieces, he quartered it and served each quarter on a salad plate, to be eaten with a knife and fork.

Using a chef's knife, Hollister first trimmed off the ragged leaf ends from the whole head of romaine. He split the head in half lengthwise. He split one half lengthwise again into quarters, and saved the other half for another day.

Next, he carefully cleaned the quarters under the kitchen faucet so that any grit would be dislodged and be washed away.

The quarter head of lettuce was ready to be served after a little shaking to dry the lettuce and some trimming to remove the browned stem end.

He used a special technique to cook the basmati rice, too. It involved parboiling the rice for 2 minutes, rinsing and draining it, and then cooking it in a measured amount of bouillon until done. Cooked this way, Hollister said, the rice grains don't stick together and the rice is fluffy when served.

The amount of water for the initial boiling doesn't need to be exact, so long as there's twice as much water as rice, he said. The rule of thumb for the final boiling is 1 1/2 parts by volume of water to 1 part uncooked rice.

When he was grilling, as another cooking tip, Hollister demonstrated how to use aerosol cooking spray to determine whether the grill is too hot. He sprayed some on his grill and said, "If the oil stays on your grill, that tells you you're OK for grilling. If it burns off, you're too hot. You need to leave oil on the grill or your salmon is going to stick."

Hollister did the shopping for the meal at WinCo in Springfield. The cash register receipt totaled $9.60 (see Settling the Bill). He noticed later, however, that the clerk had erroneously rung up the price of spinach instead of the price of lettuce, which has been expensive and would have used up the 40 cents he got in change.

The $10 Gourmet is a feature that allows professional chefs to give menu-planning ideas to home cooks. The chef is asked to prepare a meal for two for $10 or less. Small amounts of kitchen staples don't have to be included in the total.

Hollister's shopping list included bulk rice, romaine lettuce, a salmon fillet, bulk soup base, Parmesan cheese, a yellow onion, a green bell pepper, a zucchini squash and mushrooms.

He used barbecue sauce and butter from the kitchen, and he did not buy any of the ingredients for the vinaigrette he used to marinate the vegetables and dress the salad. The household items in the vinaigrette include olive oil, red wine vinegar, lemon juice, garlic, salt, chili flakes, black pepper, oregano, mint and sugar.

Hollister cooked this meal at his mother's house in the Seavey Loop area, where he was raised.

He's the third of five brothers. He got his nickname from his mother when he was a baby and he "mooched" food from his older brothers while crawling under the family's dining table. "Moochie" evolved into "Mookie," and the nickname stuck.

Hollister graduated from Springfield High School and took an entry-level restaurant job in Reno, Nev., and has been working at various restaurants since.

He worked for 10 years as executive chef at the Downtown Athletic Club before he and his wife, Pam, opened their restaurant in Springfield in January, 1996.

His recipes follow:

Grilled Salmon Fillet With Honey Barbecue Sauce

Hollister makes his own honey barbecue sauce and is keeping the recipe a secret; however, he says you can use any barbecue sauce you like if you add butter and honey to it when grilling salmon.

1 piece of salmon fillet, about 12 ounces

Barbecue Sauce (recipe follows)

Remove skin from salmon fillet by placing it, skin side down, over a hot barbecue for a minute or a little more. Remove the salmon to a plate, skin side up. Grip the skin with your fingers and pull from the fillet. If the fillet is thick, cut into 2 serving-size pieces by cutting it in half with a diagonal cut. A diagonal cut produces thinner pieces that will cook quicker than those produced by a vertical cut.

Heat grill to medium heat. Brush Barbecue Sauce on the salmon portions. When ready to cook, test the grill by spraying it with cooking oil. (Be careful not to burn yourself with flaring oil.) If the oil evaporates and burns off, the grill is too hot. If some oil remains, place fish on the grill and cook perhaps 2 to 3 minutes on each side. Be watchful that the barbecue sauce does not burn. (The cooking time will depend upon how well done you like your fish. As a rule of thumb, the Canadian fisheries department recommends barbecuing 10 to 12 minutes per inch of thickness for thawed fish.)

Serves 2.

Honey Barbecue Sauce for Grilled Salmon Fillets

1 cup barbecue sauce

1 1/2 teaspoons honey

1/3 cup butter

Warm the barbecue sauce in a saucepan. Whip or stir honey and butter in until the butter melts and is incorporated into the sauce.

Balsamic Vinaigrette

Hollister uses this vinaigrette as the dressing for the romaine salad and as a marinade for the grilled vegetables in his $10 Gourmet menu.

1 cup extra virgin olive oil

6 tablespoon balsamic vinegar 

1 tablespoon chopped garlic

1 1/2 teaspoons salt (or less)

1/4 teaspoon crushed chili flakes

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

1 teaspoon dried or fresh oregano

1/2 teaspoon dried or fresh mint leaves (optional)

1 1/2 teaspoons granulated sugar 

1 ice cube

Blend all ingredients together until creamy. (The ice cube cools the mixture and makes a creamier emulsification, Hollister explained.)

Grilled Marinated Vegetables

1 medium zucchini

1 green bell pepper

1/4 pound mushroom caps

1 yellow onion

Balsamic vinaigrette

Slice zucchini into 1/2 -inch-thick slices using diagonal cuts that create oval pieces instead of round ones. This exposes more surface so the slices are less likely to fall through the grill.

Slice off the top and base of the bell pepper, reserving the pieces for another use. Clean seeds and pith from the bell pepper. Then, with a series of vertical cuts, slice the cylinder of pepper into 1-inch-by-3-inch pieces.

Slice the stem off each mushroom.

(If the mushrooms are dirty, they can be wiped with a towel or even rinsed briefly under the tap.)

Peel the onion and cut it into 1/2 -inch-thick slices.

Place all of the vegetables into a bowl and pour on the marinade, reserving some for use as salad dressing. Marinate the vegetables for 15 minutes.

Place the vegetables on a medium-heat grill. (Place vegetables on one side and salmon on the other to avoid intermingling of flavors.) Cook - turning so they don't burn - until the vegetables are tender, about 5 to 6 minutes.

Romaine Lettuce Quarter With Balsamic Vinaigrette

1 head romaine lettuce

Balsamic Vinaigrette

Parmesan cheese, grated or shaved

Trim the uneven leaf ends from a head of romaine lettuce. Cut the head in half, lengthwise. Reserve one half for another use. Cut the other half, lengthwise, into two quarters. Rinse to remove any grit between the leaves. Shake dry.

Place the lettuce quarter on a salad plate. Drizzle on balsamic vinaigrette. Top with grated or shaved Parmesan cheese.

Basmati Rice

To get fluffy rice that isn't sticky, Hollister parboils the basmati, changes the water, and then continues cooking.

1 cup rice

Water for preliminary boiling

1 1/2 cups water

1 teaspoon chicken bouillon

2 tablespoons butter

Ground white pepper to taste

Heat pot of water to boiling. Add rice, stir and cook for 2 minutes after the water has returned to a boil.

Meanwhile, put a second pot on to boil with 1 1/2 cups water, the chicken bouillon and butter. After 2 minutes, place the rice from the first pot in a colander, rinse under hot water from the tap, and drain the rice, shaking the colander a time or two, to remove excess moisture. Add the drained and rinsed rice to the boiling bouillon in the second pot. Season to taste with white pepper. Stir the rice, cover and continue cooking on low heat for approximately 20 minutes.

SETTLING THE BILL

Basmati rice: 28 cents

Romaine lettuce (rung up as spinach): $1.48

Salmon fillet: $3.63

Chicken soup base: 10 cents

Parmesan cheese: $2.02

Yellow onion: 12 cents

Green bell pepper: 68 cents

Zucchini squash: 60 cents

Mushrooms: 69 cents

Total: $9.60

CAPTION(S):

Special techniques help create this dinner of salmon, vegetables and a salad. NICOLE DeVITO / The Register-Guard Randy "Mookie" Hollister grills the salmon and vegetables.