I hadn't really mastered pasta aglio e olio just yet, but I had made it twice. Apparently, this was enough experience for me to convince myself to try cooking a salmon in the pan. Whoops. Today I attempted not only to cook two dishes simultaneously, but to also do so with a brand new dish that I had never gathered any experience with. Cooking has allowed me to be quite introspective, so here it goes: it's only a failure if you don't learn.

The idea behind pan-seared salmon was simple. I didn't want to buy any new utensils, I wanted to learn how to cook a protein, and I didn't think that salmon could be too hard. It probably wasn't even that hard, but trying to cook two dishes at once prevented me from thinking properly. So, let's begin by listing off mistakes.

1. Olive oil. I clearly didn't learn my lesson from the first time I tried to make the aglio e olio, when I overheated the olive oil and cooked the garlic in about 8 seconds flat. This time, I ended up overheating the oil to the point where it started smoking, which is why the oil splattered everywhere around the kitchen when I placed the salmon in the pan. Also, I used too much olive oil for the pasta. Aglio e olio is supposed to be light, not greasy.
2. Poor sequencing and understanding. The main reason that the oil started smoking is because I was too busy chopping parsley to pay attention to the oil. The main reason I chopped parsley when I did was because I hadn't truly understood the mechanics of the dishes I was making as well as I thought I did. The prep work - peeling and slicing garlic, chopping parsley, slicing lemons - could have been done before the time-critical, attention-necessary tasks.

My end goal is to be able to make a complete meal with the pan-seared salmon as an entree, served alongside a helping of pasta aglio e olio and a side of arugula. To get there, I'm going to work on mastering one thing at a time before combining all three.

For what it's worth, the salmon was neither overcooked nor undercooked. You can find the recipe here.