The entire meal was much more successful than I had expected while I was still putting it together in my head little than an hour earlier.
It all started with the salmon fillet, which I had bought that afternoon, and at a very good price. The mustard greens, picked up at the Greenmarket 3 days earlier, seemed a natural to go with the salmon.
I had several choices for a second vegetable, but I went with the celery root I’d been saving for a week or so, turning it into frites de céleri-rave (oven-roasted), whose sticks are shown below as they looked on the pan just before they went into the oven.
- *one 13-ounce previously-frozen wild Coho salmon fillet from Whole foods Market, cut into two pieces, placed skin side up inside an oval, tin-lined copper au gratin pan in which a little more than 2 tablespoons of Organic Valley ‘Cultured Pasture Butter’ (with 12 grams total fat, more than the 11 in almost all other butter available in the U.S.) had been allowed to heat until the foam began to recede, placed in a 425º oven for about 8 minutes, or until barely cooked, flipped a little more than half way through, removed, arranged on the plates, sprinkled with Maldon salt, freshly-ground black pepper, and chopped lovage, garnished with micro scallions, the herb and the micro green both from Two Guys from Woodbridge
- *one 15-ounce celery root (celeriac) from Norwich Meadows Farm, scrubbed, peeled, and cut into the size and shape of potato frites, this time only about 1/4″ in cross section, thinner than I have cut them in the past, tossed inside a bowl with olive oil, a half teaspoon of Safinter Pimenton de la Vera smoked picante paprika, sea salt, and a little freshly-ground black pepper, spread onto a large Pampered Chef unglazed ceramic pan, and roasted at 425º until brown and cooked through, or about 30-35 minutes, removed to the plates, and sprinkled with chopped parsley from Eataly [Note: they were pretty spicy]
- *a little more than 5 ounces of some very sweet (!) red mustard greens from Norwich Meadows Farm, wilted inside a large, high-sided tin-lined antique copper pot in a little olive oil in which 2 cloves of Keiths’ Farm Rocambole garlic had been allowed to sweat, then seasoned with sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, and a drizzle of olive oil
- the wine was a California (Lodi) red, Jacqueline Bahue Cabernet Franc Lodi 2016, from Naked Wines
- the music was Mozart’s 1791 Singspiel (a proto-musical), ‘Die Zauberflöte, a 1996 recording by John Eliot Gardner leading the Monteverdi Choir, and the English Baroque Soloists, with Harry Peeters, Cyndia Sieden, Christiane Oelze, Michael Schade, Gerald Finley, Constanze Backes, Detlef Roth, Ewe Peper, Susan Roberts, Carola Guba, Maria Jonas, Andreas Dieterich, Jan Andreas