Recipe for Salmon Timbale

I was reading an article the other day on food porn. Can you believe there are websites totally dedicated to food porn? Even better, can you believe that Wikipedia has a whole page for food porn? The definition of food porn is a sarcastic term variously applied to a spectacular visual presentation of cooking or eating in advertisements, infomercials, cooking shows or other visual media, foods boasting a high fat and calorie count. I do not necessarily agree with the whole high fat and calorie count part. Beautiful food can be low calorie and healthy too!

I guess this food picture business is serious stuff. I've never been one to surf porn, but when it comes to pictures of food, I'm there. The websites are cool because they have these wonderful, succulent pictures of food. The kind of pictures that make your mouth drool and all you can think of is eating the food or getting your hands on the recipe so you can recreate it yourself. There are people out there that actually make money doing a photo shoot of food! It's incredible, it's like a secret hidden world that only a true foodie can appreciate. It definitely is all consuming and could probably be compared to an addiction, but in a good way.

The picture I've included today is my favorite photo of food. Isn't she lovely? It's of a beautiful, creamy timbale of salmon with avocado cream sandwiched between and on top of the salmon. It's topped with roe that is a gorgeous color of orange. To me, it's the epitome of food porn. I dream about it all the time and on my worst day, I head over to my favorite restaurant to have an avocado roll with side of two pieces of salmon sushi. It's the closest thing I can get to that picture. Just a touch out of reach and always on my mind.

For those who are interested, the recipe follows.

Salmon Timbale

Ingredients:

8 ounces sushi-grade salmon
½ avocado, peeled and diced
¼ - ½ teaspoon wasabi powder (to taste)
½ teaspoon Yuzu juice (to taste)
Salmon Caviar

Directions:

Place the avocado into a bowl and mash using the back of a fork. Add the ¼ teaspoon wasabi powder and ¼ teaspoon yuzu juice and mix until well combined. Taste and adjust adding more wasabi powder and yuzu juice to suit your palette.
Don't go over board and make it too hot or you won't enjoy the salmon. You want to be able to taste the three distinct elements - it needs to be in balance.
Next, finely dice the salmon. Do this only when you are ready to serve the dish.
Place a ring mould onto the centre of each place and half fill each mould - pressing down to compress the salmon.Top with a spoonful of the avocado puree - then top with the remaining salmon.
Use the back of a spoon to press down again. Keep the spoon against the centre of each timbale as you ease the mould upwards - revealing an intact timbale.
Spoon a little more of the avocado over the top of each and then a generous mounding of salmon caviar.