I reviewed 3 recipes from the new cookbook, Freshman in the Kitchen. A Potato Leek Soup, Spicy Rainbow Trout, and the Salmon and Goat Cheese Napoleon with Wild Rice Pilaf. Using these 3 recipes as a representative sample of the cookbook in general, this is a decent cook book, especially for college students (maybe not freshmen because of the dorms). It was also great that the recipe gave quantities of ingredients to serve 2, as this is more likely the case during college than standard recipes that are designed to serve 4. I made these recipes over 2 meals, serving the soup as an appetizer before the Salmon and Goat Cheese Napoleon, and the Rainbow Trout for lunch the next day. Overall the cost of the ingredients may make these not the most ideal “college cooking” recipes, as eve frozen salmon fillets cost 7 dollars for 12 oz. I’ll review each recipe separately:

This is a soup that I have made for dinners many times before, albeit with a different recipe. After trying this recipe I would say that it is really not the best Potato Leek Soup recipe around. The first flaw is that the soup is not blended. In my opinion, Potato Leek Soup is the best when creamy and smooth, with occasional chunks of potato speckled throughout. Although you can add heavy cream to get the “creamy” texture, I’ve made many other Potato Leek Soups that did not contain cream, but because the potato was blended, the starch made the soup thick and creamy. The soup was nicely flavored, although I would have preferred a specified quantity of salt, as it requires quite a bit to season “to taste”. In addition...

although this would make a good vegetarian soup, Potato Leek Soup greatly benefits from the smoky rich taste of bacon. Also, if diced bacon had been used, then the butter/olive oil would not have been necessary and the leeks could have been sautéed in bacon drippings, further enriching the taste. Last but not least, the portions were a bit confusing. This recipe made enough soup to serve 5-6 appetizer portions, although I can see how it could be translated to 2-3 entrée portions.

My personal favorite potato leek soup is Emeril Lagassee’s on the Food Network, which is posted here

This dish seemed a bit questionable when putting together, but the flavors of the napoleon were spot on and it was absolutely delicious. Meijer ran out of red peppers when I was shopping, so I substituted with buying orange peppers to roast for the dish. This didn’t change any real flavors, but the color would have certainly “popped” a bit more had the pepper layer been red. One problem was that the time that the recipe recommended to cook the salmon was 10 minutes, and although that is standard for most fish this left most parts of the fillet overcooked and dry. Although it was moist at the thickest part of the fillet, the time to cook them could have been reduced by a couple minutes. 

My main with this dish was the optional Wild Rice Pilaf side. The recipe took twice the amount of time as stated to actually complete, as the rice grains would not fluff and absorb the water in time. In addition, even after 45 minutes of cooking there was still too much liquid, so I had to cook the pilaf for another 20 minutes with the lid off to boil off excess liquid. Furthermore, when tasting the pilaf side alone, its nutty taste was extremely overpowering, and could have used either some acid or some creaminess to tone down and balance the dish. When eaten together with the napoleon, however, the goat cheese was a great complement for the pilaf and it worked very well with the dish. However, since I timed the two components of the dish to finish together in accordance with the recipe, by the time the rice was done I only had a little bit of the salmon left. Some adjustment to this recipe is definitely necessary, at least in regards to the estimated time to complete the side dish.

This dish was the only one out of the 3 that I reviewed that had perfectly balanced and seasoned flavors. The spiciness of the dish was balanced and left a pleasant tingle. There were only 2 concerns with this dish. First was that it is nearly impossible to simply find rainbow trout “fillets”. At Meijer, Whole Foods, and Busch’s they only carried this trout in whole fish form, butterflied and deboned. This wasn’t too much of a hassle, as all it took was slicing the butterflied fish in half. However, I can see many people being put off by the head and occasional bones that are found on the 2 body fillets.

The second main problem with this recipe is the proportions of flour. After dredging the fish in the flour and spice mixture, there was a good 1/3 cup of seasoned flour left over. Personally not a fan of wasted ingredients, I added water to the flour until a dough was formed and I made some crispy spicy fried dough patties that was actually quite tasty with the dish.