Salmon

Typically prepared at passover by French Moroccan Jews, this is one of the most colorful and delicious fish dishes I have ever tasted. Today most French Jews buy their fava beans, a sign of spring, twice peeled and frozen, from Picard Surgelés. Frozen is easier, but in this dish, fresh tastes even better.

The slight tartness of sorrel and the richness of salmon are two flavors that Jews have always loved in their cooking. Eastern European Jews eat cold sorrel soup, which they call tchav; Greek Jews eat a tart rhubarb-and-spinach sauce over fish, and French Jews are drawn to Pierre Troisgros’s now classic salmon with sorrel sauce. Pierre told me that this seminal, simple, and delicious recipe came about because he had grown an abundance of sorrel and had to do something with it. With its subtle interplay of tartness and creaminess, this dish is sometimes made with kosher white wine and vermouth for Jewish weddings held at the restaurant.

As a sign of spring, this salmon dish, made with the first peas of the season, has been handed down from generation to generation since the first Jews left Spain during the Inquisition. I tasted it in Biarritz, at the lovely villa of Nicole Rousso, who comes from a Portuguese merchant family from Bayonne.

While attending a Catholic-Jewish wedding in Aussois, a quaint French alpine village near the Italian border, I wondered aloud to the bride’s uncle if this wasn’t the first time most of the villagers had ever met a Jew. In response, he told me this chilling story. During the Second World War, under the Italian occupation of France, 125 Jews were hidden in a house at the base of the town’s fortress, which was a confinement center. Villagers brought them a little bread and some potatoes to supplement their meager provisions. When the Italians left, the Jews were sure they were liberated and took a train home, only to run into German soldiers, who sent them all directly to Auschwitz. Even today, stories like this one are often hushed up because they are so painful to hear. Before the wedding ceremony, my husband and I sat down in a tiny café overlooking the mountains and tasted this salad with fresh lettuce, smoked salmon, tomatoes, and local walnut vinegar, a prized ingredient that I had never tasted but have since found on the Internet. Dill is such an important flavor in Jewish cooking that the French eleventh-century biblical commentator and Talmudic scholar Rashi wrote that if dill is used for flavor, a special blessing over the earth must be recited before tasting it. If, however, it is simply added to decorate the dish, it is not intended for food value, so just a general prayer over food must be recited.

It was in Paris in the 1960s that I first tasted buckwheat blini. My friend Nanou took me to a tiny, chic Russian restaurant near the Champs- Élysées. Russians, many of them Jews, came to France at the end of the nineteenth century, not long before the Russian Revolution, and congregated in restaurants like this one. We ordered the elegantly presented blini, and ate them daintily with smoked salmon and crème fraîche. Twenty years after Nanou died, her son Édouard got married. The wedding party took place at Maxim’s, where we drank lots of champagne and danced until the wee hours of the morning. I was touched to taste blini with smoked salmon and crème fraîche, the same appetizer that Édouard’s mother and I had enjoyed so many years ago. For me, it was as though she were present at the wedding. This recipe was adapted from Lynn Visson’s The Russian Heritage Cookbook.

I first had this sauce, or one similar to it, in the late 1940s. India had just been partitioned, and a refugee family fleeing from what was to become Pakistan had just opened a small, simple restaurant in the center of Delhi called Moti Mahal. It basically served foods baked in the clay oven called a tandoor. There was one sauced dish, however, Chicken Makhani. A tandoor-roasted chicken was cut up with a cleaver and then heated up in this tomatoey, buttery, creamy sauce. I have always loved the sauce. Over the years, I have played around with it, using it with shrimp, and now with salmon. Serve with Swiss Chard with Ginger and Garlic and Rice Pilaf with Almonds and Raisins.

You can use almost any fish steaks here—salmon, kingfish, cod, haddock, swordfish, salmon, trout, pomfret, pompano, or tilefish—depending on the part of the world you live in. Instead of having to look for ajowan seeds (use 1/4 teaspoon, if you can get them), you can use dried thyme, which has the same flavor. When using the blender here, make sure you put the chopped red pepper in first, as that will provide the liquid needed to make a paste. If your blender remains stubborn, add a tablespoon or two of water. You could serve this with Zucchini and Yellow Summer Squash with Cumin, and Bulgar Pilaf with Peas and Tomato.

If you are looking for a superbly elegant, gentle dish, look no further. In a long line of meats and seafood grilled after they have been marinated very simply in a paste of fresh ginger, garlic, and chilies, this dish is a great family favorite. Have the fishmonger remove the halibut skin. I like to serve this with Karhai Broccoli and a potato or rice dish.

In India we frequently use a paste of ground mustard seeds. I have simplified matters here and used already-prepared Dijon mustard instead. You could serve this with Basmati Rice with Lentils and South Indian–Style Green Beans.

This takes a little planning but the effort is well worth it. The salmon gravlax takes 5 minutes to put together and about 24 hours to cure in the salt. The flavor is fresh and buttery. Super-fresh fish is a must.

The black olive and watermelon are a perfect salty-sweet yin-yang that goes great with the grilled salmon. This is a very crisp, refreshing dish for a summer cookout—like a cool drink of water. This vinaigrette is good on almost anything, so save any that is left over and use it within the week.

This is what I like to call a fancy schmancy dish, but it’s so easy to do and you can make it a day ahead. You will need a springform pan.

Soft scrambled eggs put a smile on my face in the morning. They are super easy to make and they require very little forethought. I first tasted “real” scrambled eggs while traveling through Paris as a starving college student. Café et des oeufs was just about all I could afford for breakfast. It was simple, but it was magic.

The flavors of the salmon, cucumber, and green tea salt are really fresh. The green tea salt will keep for months and is also terrific sprinkled on popcorn.

I am a big fan of flavor on a plate that’s light and effortless. I don’t need a “balanced” dinner with starch and the whole bit; just give me stuff that tastes good. The delicate flavors of the herbs go great with the salmon and asparagus. It’s hard to believe a dish that takes only an hour has such big flavor. Cooking the salmon by the “low and slow” method keeps this fatty fish really moist.

Tandoori Chicken is a classic northern Indian dish. The word “tandoori” comes from the Hindi word “tandoor,” a tall, cylindrical clay oven originally used in northern India to cook meat dishes and bread. Here, we use a tandoori spice mixture as a marinade for salmon. Traditionalists might balk, but when I’m in a hurry, I use a store-bought tandoori spice mixture. In the convection oven, the salmon cooks quickly and is moist and mildly fragrant. A minty cucumber-yogurt sauce adds an authentic flavor.

There’s nothing quite so delicious as salmon roasted with soy-flavored butter as a final baste. In the convection oven it cooks amazingly fast. Remove from the oven just when the fish is done.

When I roast salmon steaks, I often like to start a pan of root vegetables in the oven 5 to 10 minutes before the salmon. I toss quartered potatoes and 1-inch chunks of parsnips and carrots with a small amount of olive oil. A complete meal is cooked in less than 20 minutes!

Perfect for lunch or brunch, this is a classic soufflé that begins with a thick cream sauce. It bakes in the convection oven in about one-third the time of a conventional oven, although at the same temperature.

Simple to make, the unfilled cream puffs freeze easily, then can be reheated and stuffed with this tasty smoked salmon filling just before serving. You can also serve the cream puffs for dessert filled with vanilla ice cream and covered with chocolate sauce—the French bistro classic, profiteroles.