The Accidental Chef: Coconut Cilantro Pesto

Sometimes the best recipes happen by accident—at least in my kitchen.

“You’re like a whirling dervish”, my husband Ryan said, gesturing around the kitchen. He was right. Cupboards and drawers remained flung open as if a burglar had gone rifling through them, vegetable carnage lay strewn across the cutting board with a variety of measuring cups, various utensils, and a zester clogged with orange peel scattered on the countertops. There were pots and pans on the stove, a lone oven mitt left behind amid abandoned spice containers, most of them with the lids off. (I know you’re supposed to keep a clean mise en place, and I try, but at some point I always sort of lose it).

Listen, I’m the farthest thing from a food blogger.

I’m not going to pose in my newly remodeled all white kitchen with perfect hair and natural looking makeup, smiling but not looking directly at the camera, wielding a wooden spoon and posting photogenic food in ceramic bowls on marble countertops with colorful napkins and greenery artfully scattered about on my Instagram account. Our kitchen still has the ugly fake green granite the previous owners chose and yes, I dream about renovating it all day, every day.

I do love cooking and I love eating even more. I don’t love the term “foodie” just because it feels a little too hipster for two glorified ski bums who live in deep enough in the mountains that we don’t get cell phone reception at our house and the only traffic jams are the ones caused by big horn sheep crossing Frying Pan Road. But we love cooking shows and often find ourselves saying things like, “I would so definitely get Chopped for that,” when the rice gets overcooked or someone finds a strand of the other’s hair in their salad. “Please pack your knives and go.”

I also like to be creative in the kitchen, but it’s not so I can be like Gwenyth but because I’m lousy at following directions. I see recipes as a launching-off point—rarely do I follow them to the letter.

That’s exactly what happened last night when I had a friend over for dinner and the cilantro pesto I’d made for the rice came out bitter. I don’t know if it was from the cilantro, the olive oil, or the pecans, but you can only add so much honey before it starts tasting more like breakfast cereal. That’s when I reached for the coconut milk. I also threw in a little freshly grated ginger, orange zest, orange juice. I ended up with was a sauce that was herbaceous, tangy, savory, and just the right amount of sweet. Even though I’d intended it to season my jasmine rice (which it did), I also drizzled it over the salmon along with the miso vinaigrette. The bright green color looked gorgeous on the pink fish. It paired beautifully with the orange and fennel salad I served on the side with an orange zest tarragon dressing.