Pete Kanaras was never quite sure which instrument would direct his fate: a hot guitar or a simmering sauce pot. He was good enough at both to make a career with either.
Pete the K’s Panko-Crusted Baked Salmon
(serves two)
2 thick salmon filets, center cut only
1/2 cup flour
1 egg
1/2 cup Panko breadcrumbs, a Japanese item found in the Asian section of the market
1/3 cup blend of grated Parmesan-Reggiano cheese
Healthy pinch of the following: fresh paprika, round black peppercorns, tarragon flakes
No salt needed
1 small lemon, sliced in wedges
» Linebottom of oven with aluminum foil. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Skin each filet. Combine all dry ingredients, spread on a plate. Dredge each filet in flour, shake off excess. Whisk egg and coat each filet in egg wash. Coat each filet well with dry ingredient mixture from plate. Put filets directly on oven rack (thus foil at bottom of oven to catch drippings.) At about six or seven minutes, set oven to broil, keeping filets in oven for another two or three minutes until top starts to brown. When thickest part of filet springs to the touch, it’s done. Serve with lemon wedges, rice and aioli sauce. A good recipe for aiola can be found in “Fish Forever,” by Paul Johnson (John Wiley & Sons Books).
Now living in the Greektown section of East Baltimore, Kanaras grew up working in his parents’ diner — the Piccadilly in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. — and in 1983 graduated from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y.
But in the back of his mind — always — guitars churned to rhythms dirty with the soil of Mississippi cotton fields and sticky dance floors of shot-and-beer dives in industrial Chicago and scented with evenings along the Appalachians.
They call it American music.
“When I was 14 I saw a PBS special called ‘The Best Unknown Guitarist in the World,’ about Roy Buchanan,” said Kanaras, as he prepared to bake a salmon filet in his kitchen this week. “That was it for me, I knew what I wanted to do.”
Buchanan is alleged to have taken his life in a Fairfax County (Va.) jail cell in 1988 while drunk. Kanaras dealt with his own problems, including the early death of his father in 1975, by immersing himself in things he believed might save him: the kitchen; a period of heavy self-medication; and the blues.
En route to a decade-long gig with the Nighthawks of Washington (with whom he toured Japan nine times and saw things in butcher shops that have no business being in butcher shops) and getting his name in the Rolodex of bandleaders around the country, Kanaras learned to cook and cook well.
He is just beginning to get back to cooking, in part because he has a sweetheart for whom he loves to prepare meals, in the last year or so.
And not just Western omelets, home fries and toast that are the bread and butter of the Sip & Bite on Boston Street and every Greek diner in America.
“I feel like I’m waking up to the fun of cooking for the first time in 20 years,” said Kanaras, whose current band, The Remnants, plays at the Cat’s Eye Pub in Fells Point. “My training comes back to me in weird bits and pieces, I can de-bone a leg of veal with my eyes closed, but the simplest butter sauce escapes me.”
Bringing the salmon to the table — served on a bed of rice with dill aioli sauce and a salad of baby greens and toasted Planters cashews — he said: “Music and cooking have a lot in common — when you’re completely engaged in either, all your senses are firing.”
Rafael Alvarez can be reached at [email protected].
