The Best Potato Crusted Salmon

Potato Crusted Salmon

Potato Crusted Salmon
Lemon Butter Sauce with Dill and Parsley
Coins of Carrot, Zucchini, Yellow Squash

It had been way too many years since we’ve enjoyed this fabulous potato crusted salmon dish. Our dear friends, Scott & Gina Lee, closed their super-popular Redondo Beach, California restaurant, Gina Lee’s Bistro, in 2014 after almost 19 years in business. Oh gosh, how the South Bay misses their brilliant original Cal-Asian fare!

Their Potato Crusted Salmon had been a favorite of my grandmother-in-law, Evelyn Dawn. She was always professing the benefits of salmon’s omega-3 fatty acids and ordered it every single time we dined there (which was very often).

After she passed away at 93 years of age in 2000, Scott & Gina graciously named this dish as a tribute to her: Evelyn Dawn’s Potato Crusted Salmon. It is such a wonderful recipe, it’s hard to believe it took me so long to recreate it and share on Taste With The Eyes again…it is every bit as delicious as we remember!

Potato Crusted Salmon Recipe

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Enigmatic Korean Pancakes

korean pancake, bindaetteok
Korean Pancakes
Bindaetteok

korean embroidered tablecloth
Mrs. Lee’s Embroidered Tablecloth

Gina Lee tells her Korean Pancakes story:

“She was a fabulous cook. When Scott and I were first married she would often bring Korean dishes over to our house, including these wonderful savory pancakes. I would ask her: What is this? It’s so delicious.  I’m good at figuring out the ingredients in a dish.  What’s in the batter? Is it egg, or corn meal? I’m Italian, I thought about polenta…What makes it yellow?

But my mother-in-law would just smile.

Korean.

Pancakes.

I gave up trying to figure it out and just enjoyed them over the years. Fast forward, my husband made Korean pancakes at home as a test for our restaurant menu. And it was then I finally learned the secret. Mung beans? Mung beans and water. Really?”

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Curried Mung Bean Soup, Kimchi, Chili Oil

mung bean soup, kimchi

Curried Mung Bean Soup, Kimchi, Chili Oil
and
A Trip to The Dish Factory

Neither this soup nor a trip to The Dish Factory are for the faint of heart. Asian-fusion-style mung bean soup is flavored with hot muchi curry powder, garnished with pungent kimchi, and dotted with chili oil. Located in the center of Downtown LA, The Dish Factory is housed in an old four-story building with rickety flooring, steep stairwells, and dark hallways.

Carrying the largest china inventory in the Western US and all sorts of restaurant equipment with 60,000 sq. ft. of merchandise at heavily discounted prices, I was absolutely ecstatic when my dear friends and fabulous restaurateurs Scott & Gina Lee invited me to join them on a dish excursion. I had been lusting after top restaurants’ super-wide rimmed plates and bowls for a while, as the portion-size is petite but the presentation is dramatic. Perfect, in fact, for this vibrant soup.

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Asian Pizzette


Congratulations, you’re one step closer to becoming the next Food Blog Star!
Your entry has advanced to the next round of Project Food Blog 2010.
Your next challenge? “Recipe Remix.”


Challenge Prompt: One recipe, 72 variations! We’re challenging each of you to put your own spin on the same recipe. How you do it is up to you. Will you try out some molecular gastronomy techniques? Share a super-secret trick? Or re-envision the dish from a different perspective? You’ll be asked to put your own spin on Pizza. For the purpose of this contest and challenge, we are defining pizza as having a solid base, a sauce and at least one topping. Get super creative or just share your secrets for the very best results. (from foodbuzz here)

Thank you to the folks at foodbuzz for hosting such a unique and well-executed competition. It has been a blast! The serendipity of participating in this contest has been the introduction to so many creative bloggers! To my readers, thank you for your warm comments and enthusiasm, as well as taking the time  to vote and support Taste With The Eyes. Voting for this round is now open through Thursday, October 21. Please come to the Pizza Party, and vote for your favorites!

Finally, another note of thanks to my dear friend Gina and and my favorite local restaurant, Gina Lee’s Bistro in Redondo Beach, for the inspiration to remake their terrific dish, Chicken Katsu with Soba Noodles, into a pizzette! I have been meaning to share my noodle cakes made with udon noodles and chow mein noodles – usually topping them with sautéed mushrooms or spinach. The buckwheat soba noodle cake makes an earthy base for the juicy chicken katsu cutlet, and the flavors from three vibrant sauces and colorful slaw work very well together in this Asian Pizzette. I think Gina would approve.


buckwheat soba noodle cake
macadamia nut chicken katsu, yuzu tahini sauce, sweet ginger soy
tri-color slaw, rice wine chile syrup, daikon sprouts

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A Very Special Potato Crusted Salmon

Evelyn Dawn’s Potato Crusted Salmon
Sautéed Vegetables, Lemon Dill Sauce
@ Gina Lee’s Bistro, Redondo Beach, California

UPDATE: December 2021, a new version of this recipe now posted here.

Evelyn Dawn was my grandmother-in-law. She passed away at 93 years of age in the year 2000.

As a tribute when Evelyn passed, my dear friends Scott & Gina Lee, proprietors of Gina Lee’s Bistro, named this dish after her. They keep her memory alive in their fabulous restaurant. New patrons ask, who is Evelyn Dawn and why is the salmon named for her? They are quick to tell about Evelyn; an independent woman ahead of her time, with impeccable taste, a successful businesswoman, friend, mother, grandmother, great grandmother, and educator of hundreds. A framed photograph of Evelyn sits atop the sideboard in the restaurant.

Gina said of the salmon dish, “This is a crowd favorite. Lots of people remember Miss Dawn the founder of Rolling Hills Country Day School. She came in the restaurant nearly daily and always had the salmon professing that the omega 3 fatty acids kept her going at top speed. We’ve had former students and teachers come in, they marvel that she lives on, on our menu.”

Miss Evelyn Dawn
July 8, 1907 – July 16, 2000
 
Evelyn in her 90’s with a glass of red wine and a cigar!
Rolling Hills Country Day School was founded by Evelyn Dawn who began educating children in the early 50’s. She bought and operated her first school in Manhattan Beach, California – a preschool. In 1961, Miss Dawn, with very little assistance, broke ground on a beautiful piece of land on the Palos Verdes Peninsula and realized her dream of a Kindergarten through Grade 8 School. She named it Rolling Hills Country Day School, now about to celebrate 50 successful years of educating children in the South Bay.
 
I previously wrote about Evelyn Dawn’s Potato Crusted Salmon in 2008. We are dining on the salmon and remembering Evelyn again this July, the month of her birth and 10th anniversary of her passing. Rest in peace Nana.
 
Evelyn Dawn’s Potato Crusted Salmon
Sautéed Vegetables, Lemon Dill Sauce
Recipe from Scott & Gina Lee
Ingredients:
  • Salmon
  • Flour
  • Eggs
  • Hash Brown Potatoes
  • Flat Leaf Italian Parsley
  • Salt and Pepper
Cut salmon on a bit of an angle into 3.5 ounce portions. Dust in flour. Dip in egg. Roll in hash browns to which you have added salt and pepper and coarsely chopped Italian parsley. Put aside.

Lemon Dill Sauce:

  • 3 cups White Wine
  • Juice of two Lemons and their Zest
  • 1/2 cup of chopped Shallots
  • One bunch of chopped Fresh Dill
  • 1 cup unsalted Butter
Heat first four ingredients in a sauce pan. Reduce by 1/3. When reduced, strain and slowly add 1 cup of all melted butter. This is your sauce. Keep warm. The salmon is pan sauteed in olive oil on one side, flipped and then put into a 450 degree oven for 7-10 minutes depending on how you like it cooked. The salmon is served pan roasted side up…on top of zucchini, yellow squash and carrots that have been sautéed in olive oil and mirin. For plating…vegetables on the bottom, salmon on top, coat with lemon dill sauce and a dash of fresh lemon juice.


Gina Lee’s Bistro
211 Palos Verdes Blvd.
Redondo Beach, CA
310-375-4462
Gina Lee’s Menu here.