I'd been craving salmon for over a week, but kept telling myself that any kind of salmon (salmón en español) was probably not the most Mexican type of fish I could be craving. This is the Northwest, and sometimes we take salmon for granted. One time I ordered grilled salmon for lunch when I was in Argentina, and as I waited to be served I talked myself into believing that it was going to be mediocre and the only reason I'd ordered it was to stay on my diet. When it was served with a salad and grilled vegetables, it turned out to be the best salmon I'd ever had. So, maybe there are great salmon dishes in Mexico, too, and I just haven't had the pleasure yet.
Before I get back to the salmon, one thing I'd been wanting to do, and that I'd eaten in Mexico on a trip to Zihuatanejo on the Pacific coast was grilled pineapple. We had a beautiful pineapple sitting in our fruit bowl here at home, and I decided that no matter what I decided to do with the salmon to make it Mexican, we would grill pineapple slices, too.
In the meantime, I found a recipe for a raspberry / chipotle sauce that can be served on any grilled meat, including fish. Raspberries - called moras or frambuesas in Spanish - are not all that popular in some parts of Mexico, but they're not totally unknown. Where my husband is from they call any berry that's not a strawberry a mora. So, having some fresh raspberry jam on hand (made by my good friend Renata), I heated it through and then added some pureed chiles chipotles to the simmering sauce. It was wicked!
Javier grilled the salmon along with some sliced zucchini and the pineapple slices, and then we served the fish with the sauce on top. It's never a good idea to smother the delicate flavor of the salmon with an overpowering sauce, so we started with a little and added as we ate.
It was an unusual dinner, but unusual in the very best sense of the word. Different, delicious and spicy!
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