Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Asparagus, radish, and Butter Lettuce Salad

Yesterday, I noticed that we had two cream puff shells in the freezer. We also had, thanks to a good friend, a bit of fresh king salmon and a little heavy cream in the refrigerator. Somehow asparagus and radishes felt like the right things to add to make a cream puff filled with salmon salad. Got one of those butter lettuces with roots still on at the store. 

  1. Put 2 eggs on to boil. (When they came to the boil, turned off the heat, covered them, and let them sit for 10 minutes. 
  2. The oven was on, because I was baking a pie for the fresh salmon friend. I lined an jelly roll pan with foil, washed and snapped the fresh asparagus and put it at one end of the pan, and put the salmon filet at the other end. Sprayed them with olive oil, squeezed lemon over them, sprinkle of kosher salt and fresh ground pepper, and put the pan in the oven. 
  3. Pulled the cream puffs from the freezer and popped them into the over to crisp up. 
  4. Washed the lettuce, and arranged it decoratively on plates. 
  5. Very thinly sliced the radishes, sliced some green onions, and put them in a bowl. Little olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper on this too. 
  6. Took the cream puffs out of the oven. 
  7. Sliced up some wonderfully smelling melon (Sadly not as flavorful as the aroma would suggest).
  8. Removed the asparagus from the oven and allowed it to cool. The salmon still needed time. Once the asparagus was cool enough to touch, sliced it into bite sized pieces and added to the radishes. 
  9. Peeled the eggs. Grated one into the vegetable mix. 
  10. Whipped up the cream to soft peak, and folded in some whole grain mustard, Heinz (Heinz was/is a great art supporter. Sorry Best Foods.) mayo, and a little rice wine vinegar. Adjusted the salt and pepper, and folded some into the vegetable mix. Put the rest in a bowl to add as needed. 
  11. About this time, the salmon was done, and John was home and ready for dinner. Removed the pin bones, and flaked about half of the salmon into the vegetable/mousseline mixture. 
  12. Set the cream puffs on the lettuce lined plates, opened them and spooned the vegetable mix over them. Carefully fanned the remaining salmon over the mix. 
  13. It was pretty good. 
So this evening, even though I had only the lettuce, the asparagus, radishes, and an egg, I did it again, with a lemon vinaigrette. Simple, refreshing, and fast.

Apple Pie for the salmon fisherman