Re-creation

You can never really duplicate a meal you eat in a restaurant and that was not our goal when we nonetheless set out this weekend to approximate a couple of the meals we had in France.

If the market had had girolles or any suitable mushroom, we would have tried the tagliatelle with girolles, but it didn't so we went to Plan B, which was to have the salmon rillettes on toasted baguette for a first course and a version of Christophe's pork and polenta for a main course.

The salmon recipe came from Susan Loomis's Cooking at Home on Rue Tatin. It had a great flavor though it did not come out as fluffy and light as the one at Bastide de l'Odeon. Andrea thought it needed more olive oil in proportion to the butter. Other ingredients were steamed fresh salmon, smoked salmon, shallots and chives.

We obviously were not going to get Basque country heritage pork and I'm not sure you can even get an "echine" cut here (which, according to Julia Child, is the shoulder or blade end of the loin). So we opted for pork tenderloin and used piment d'Espelette to acknowledge the Basque country. I got the tenderloins out of the fridge an hour ahead of time, salted (with our coarse salt from the Camargue) and peppered and pimented them. To cook, I seared them in a combination of lard and peanut oil then put them on a sheet pan in a 350-degree oven. I wanted to pull them out at 140 degrees, but by the time I realized the one instant-read thermometer wasn't functioning correctly, they had reached 160. So no pink, but still very moist and not overdone. I had deglazed the skillet and reduced that in a saucepan, enriching with butter (and a little jam since it was a bit bitter) to drizzle over the carved tenderloin.

The polenta I baked at 350 in my cazuela for an hour and a half, stirring after an hour and checking seasoning. I turned it out onto the pizza paddle and let it cool, cut it into small rectangles, then sauteed the rectangles in olive oil and let them crisp up in that same oven. It actually made for a very nice meal.

We had a white Cote du Rhone with hors d'oeuvres (cheese and crackers) and the salmon, and a slightly chilled Fleurie with the pork. Andrea had her first go at re-creating Ladurrees macarones, but may have made a mistake putting them in the fridge after they cooled because they came out a little tough.

Salmon with pink peppercorn citrus sauce

My current approach to a new cookbook is to look at the pictures and pick the first recipes on that basis. Right there on p. 16 of Entrée to Judaism: A Culinary Exploration of the Jewish Diaspora by Tina Wasserman was a tantalizing photo of this dish and I bit.

Simple and delicious, exotic with ginger and the pink peppercorns, this is a winner. It's an easy week night dinner because it's simply a vinaigrette over grilled salmon fillet. The only work is to section the four citrus fruits -- grapefruit, orange, lemon and lime.

Wasserman, a Dallas-based cookbook author, explains that oranges and other citrus fruits were traditionally cultivated by both Jews and Arabs around the Mediterranean, so that citrus is often found in Jewish cooking.

For me, the novelty of this dish was the pink peppercorns, which I used in cooking for the first time. By now, of course, you can get a variety of peppercorns in the supermarket, and you see some dishes with "mixed peppercorns." They are not interchangeable. The pink peppercorns are peppery, but also have a tart flavor in the direction of pomegranate seeds or juniper berries.

The basic vinaigrette consists of 2 tsp each of sherry vinegar (which oddly I could not find in two supermarkets), soy sauce, 2 pink peppercorns and julienned ginger, along with 1/4 tsp each of ground ginger and salt, 1/8 tsp each of celery seed and hot red pepper sauce (I used Cholula), and 1/4 c EVOO.

Just before serving you add the sectioned, diced fruit and 2 Tbl chiffonade of cilantro to the vinaigrette. To section the fruit, Wasserman explains in one her helpful little "Tina's Tidbits" boxes, you cut off the top and bottom peel so you can see the fruit, then cut off the sides to expose the fruit all around. Then you slice along the membrane on each side of a section so it falls out. The idea, of course, is to have the pure fruit, with no peel, pith or membrane. A serrated knife works best for this, I think.

The combined sauce has a great balance, is refreshing and perfectly complements the grilled salmon. I just used regular old farmed Scottish salmon.

As a side, I got some nice green asparagus from New Jersey -- not California or Chile -- and used another Tina Tidbit from a recipe that happened to be on the facing page of the salmon recipe. She suggests holding the stalk by the middle and the end and bending. The stalk will break naturally just where it becomes tender. This worked great and the asparagus was perfect.

On the recommendation of Sara Jenkins in her Olives and Oranges: Recipes and Flavor Secrets from Italy, Spain, Cyprus and Beyond, I've started using sea salt instead of kosher salt in cooking. I got a chunky Maldon sea salt at Whole Foods and used it both in the vinaigrette and to toss the asparagus with olive oil. Have to say, it really seemed to make a difference, especially in the grilled asparagus.

The salmon recipe was the second one we used from Wasserman's book. The first was the chocolate chip cappuccino brownies we served after the burgoo for the Kentucky Derby (see previous post). It, too, is pictured but we actually tasted a sample at the book signing Wasserman had in DC, which sold us on the book.