It's Not An Emergency

Yesterday afternoon a friend of mine texted and said this, "It's not an emergency but could you come and help me tonight. I have a buffet dinner for seventeen on the upper east side."

How do I know Casey? It's a little like, Simone in Ferris Beuller, "My best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with the girl ..."

Well, I have a husband called James, who has a piano teacher named Joe who with his wife have a daughter named Casey and we were introduced due to our shared loved of food.




Casey was formerly a wedding planner and now chef. She is my favorite kind of chef, self taught and just oozing passion for food and flavor. Her enthusiasm is infectious and I wish I could eat what she cooked last night, right now. You will want it too. This is what she served:

Soft herb salad with edible flowers and a mustard vinaigrette
Leek, fennel, thyme, shallot baked fillet of salmon in parchment
Green beans with lemon beurre noisette (lemon nut butter)
Cous cous of toasted almonds, olives and golden raisins.

Dessert was a gorgeous bowl full of roasted summer berries with a red wine, vanilla and cinnamon reduction accompanied by honey fromage blanc and apricot and cardamon cookies. It was a home run.

I've included the recipe for the salmon, quantities are for four.

4 x 6 oz salmon pieces skin on
1 leek sliced (white part only)
1/2 fennel shaved
2 golden shallots finely diced
a good handful of cherry tomatoes
fresh thyme
olive oil
sea salt and freshly ground pepper

Set the oven to 350 F/180 C.
Cut all ingredients apart from salmon and combine with olive oil, salt and pepper.
Season your fish. Place each piece on alumunium foil, put a good handful of vegetable mix over the salmon, give a good grind of black pepper and wrap loosely.

Bake for about 8 minutes.

I like my fish cooked all the way through, reduce to six minutes, if you like it rare. Be aware that this will continue to cook in the foil after you take if from the oven.