Salmon Again? Yep...

Several of the recipes in the new Miraval cookbook revolve around the Ratatouille sauce - and I can see why.

Chocked full of veggies, the ratatouille sauce is healthy and easy to prepare. I was worried about getting the squash and asparagus bundles just right.

For the Pan Seared Salmon with Ratatouille Sauce and Brown Rice on page 188, there are these bundles of vegetables. And there's no picture to help you figure out exactly how to accomplish the bundle...or even what it should look like.

I relied on my imagination (awesome) and my fussy vegetable preparation skills (uh-oh.)

I cut big slices of yellow squash and then used a melon baller to scoop out most of the inside leaving a big hole through the middle of the slice of squash. I also steamed asparagus and julienned red pepper. So far so good.

 Fussy Vegetables

The ratatouille sauce, as I said, was easy to prepare, though there was a lot of chopping. The sauce includes yellow squash, portabello mushrooms, zucchini, tomatoes, red onion, fresh basil, and more. Still, after chopping, the sauce took perhaps a half hour to cook and be ready to eat.

I put the veggie bundles together as best I could and steamed for a short time.

Hot Steamin' Veggie BundlesIn no time the salmon was pan seared and on the plate on top of some brown rice. The ratatouille went on top, and the vegetable bundles along side.

Salmon, Ratatouille, Veggie Bundles, Brown RiceThis was a delicious, healthy meal and very visually pleasing. The vegetable bundles were easier than you think to put together, though I wouldn't bother with them in the future - too fussy for me; for leftovers I chopped the asparagus and squash. The brown rice didn't taste good, but that's because I used old rice. Oops.

Coming next from Miraval: The Return of Ratatouille

Bouchon: Sauteed Salmon with Leeks

After that disaster with the chicken and cauliflower, you'd think I'd be intimidated when looking at the two page recipe for Sauteed Salmon with Leeks in Bouchon by Thomas Keller.

Keller is a world-class, highly respected and honored chef-owner. He's a culinary rock star. An aging culinary rock star who is known to be a perfectionist. And his recipes are not easy to follow because they each step is intricately detailed.

I broke the two pages worth of sauteed salmon down into steps. 

1. Prepare the leeks
2. Prepare the sauce
3. Start the fish
4. Finish the leeks
5. Place food on the plate and cross fingers.

Leeks are beautiful mild onions. I wasn't sure if I'd like them as the stand alone vegetable in the recipe, and had planned to also make the Califlower Gratin. Then I read the recipe for cauliflower and dropped the notion of trying to prepare the salmon and the cauliflower. I would have been cooking all night.

First, I cleaned the leeks. This is crucial because leeks are almost always very dirty. Heck, when I dropped them on the counter at the grocery store, and commented on how dirty they were, the check-out person commented, "Heck, these are dirty. They must come from the ground or something."

Very Dirty Leeks
I chopped until I had some rounds, then swished through water to clean the last of the residue and gave the little round green things a quick go around in a warm, salted water and drained.

Steaming LeeksThe recipe calls for the leeks to then go into an ice water bath. I didn't bother as I knew I'd be using the leeks very soon.

Here's the thing about cooking from a Keller cookbook. His culinary touchstone is French cuisine, so there's always butter. The sauce for this dish is no exception. Beurre blanc is a white sauce made of reduced vinegar, herbs, heavy cream, and unsalted butter.

I didn't have all of the ingredients - no champagne vinegar in my local store, and no bay leaves in my cupboard. Still, all ingredients I had went into a small pan. A little later those things had reduced and I added heavy cream. That reduced, and I added butter. After more whisking, the butter was incorporated and the sauce was drained. I added a little chicken stock and set aside.

Talking with Chef Bill Waltz a few months ago, he asked me what my favorite food to cook was. I thought about answering cookies or brownies, but, to tell the truth, it's salmon. Over the last couple of years I think I've mastered the stovetop cooking technique.

(I also have a great way to prepare salmon in the microwave, but that's another post.)

The salmon was sauteed in canola oil for five minutes on one side. Keller says to get a salmon filet with skin on one side, but there wasn't any at my local superstore. He also admonishes home cooks to leave the top of the salmon rare. I figured my store didn't provide sushi grade salmon, so I flipped it and cooked it just a bit - maybe 1 minute.

At the same time, the leeks were in a pan with chicken stock, and I heated up the beurre blanc in the microwave. Sacriledge!

I followed Keller's directions for plating the dish as well and placed a couple of spoonsful of sauce onto the plate and formed a circle. A slotted spoon added leeks. And a salmon fillet topped it off.

Salmon and Leeks Final Plating
This went from fridge to plate in just about an hour. And it was delicious.

Don't be daunted by Keller or Bouchon. This is French bistro cooking and you can do it. Don't try to do a complicated recipe in one evening like I did with the chicken and cauliflower. For the salmon and leeks, I even retyped the recipe to be sure I understood all of the steps.