Morels and More

Wine:
Domaine Raymond Dupont-Fahn - 2005
La Deveze 66 Cotes du Roussillon Villages

In the morning I went to the Santa Monica Farmer’s Market with our friend and neighbor Billy. I purchased some morel mushrooms from David, our favorite mushroom provider. I also purchased asparagus and cipollini onions. We love both of these spring vegetables and look for them when they come into season. From there we went to Santa Monica Seafood. Billy had never been there. It is a great fresh seafood store that also sells to many Los Angeles Restaurants. I purchased Salmon, Indian Candy, Smoked Mushrooms and large Shrimps. Billy purchased skate wings and crab meat.

We went to a meeting at our Los Angeles City Councilman’s house: Tom LaBonge. Our neighbor Bea was there and we invited her to come over for dinner.

We served the Smoked Mussels and Indian Candy as appetizers as we drank wine and jointly cooked. Indian Candy is a sweetly smoked salmon chunks. It is very addictive.

For a first course we served Asparagus with Morel Mushrooms. We cleaned and cooked the Asparagus and topped it with the morels cooked in butter with cipollini onions. It was delicious!

The Los Angeles times had a very unusual recipe for Slow Cooked Salmon. We made it and liked it. It is very easy.

To accompany the Salmon we made a Risotto. We ground up Prosciutto and Parmesan Cheese we had purchased from The Cheese Store of Silverlake we then added the Vignole we had previously made.

The risotto was wonderful and lead to some great leftovers!

Slow-Cooked Salmon
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Total time: 10 to 30 minutes, plus 30 minutes resting

Servings: 4

4 wild salmon fillets (5 to 6 ounces each)

Coarse sea salt

Olive oil

1 large onion, peeled and thinly sliced

1 tablespoon chopped fines herbs (equal parts tarragon, chives, parsley and chervil)

1. Sprinkle the salmon evenly with sea salt to taste, about one-fourth teaspoon on each fillet. Set aside for about 30 minutes to bring to room temperature.

2. Heat the oven to 225 degrees. (If your oven does not allow that, set it at 200 or 250 degrees.)

3. Brush about 2 tablespoons olive oil over a shallow baking dish just large enough to hold the salmon in one layer. Strew the onion slices over the oil. Brush the fillets lightly with olive oil (about 1 teaspoon per fillet) and place them on the onions, skin side down.

4. Bake until the salmon is done to your taste. If you like it almost raw, it will be done in about 10 minutes; cooked through, it will take up to 30 minutes (a thin-bladed knife inserted into the thickest part will penetrate easily).

6. Remove the salmon from the oven (you can discard the onions). Sprinkle the salmon with the chopped fines herbs and serve hot or cold.