SALMON and TOMATO VINAIGRETTE

I invited Baptiste and Agathe over for dinner and wanted to make a dish that they wouldn't usually eat in Paris.  My meal at the cook's table at Chez Panisse was my inspiration.  Alice Water's meal was so special because it presented food I had eaten before in a completely new way, but a way that was still simple enough so that I could see all the parts and how to put it together myself.  I think this is my favorite type of food.  This dish is not French in the sense that it uses olive oil instead of butter, there is no sauce just some vinegar and shallots, and fresh basil is the garnish.  The acid in the vinaigrette balances the fatty salmon, the sweet tomatoes  contrast nicely with the spicy basil, and the shallots give a little bite.  And the colors of the coral, red, green, and purple look beautiful on the plate.

A Summer Meal for Five

Find the best salmon you can.  It should be fat, bright coral in color, and look good enough to slice and eat raw as sashimi.  Mine was Breton Salmon from the Grand Epicere.  Lightly salt and pepper.

Mix together about three large handfuls of sweet cherry tomatoes, two small shallots sliced into small pieces, 2 tablespoons of capers, and 2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar.  Taste, and if needed, salt (I did not need to salt because the tomatoes had so much flavor and the capers already added enough salt).

Heat olive oil in a pan until almost smoking.  Cook salmon skin side down until the skin is brown and crispy and the salmon is about halfway cooked through.  Flip and cook until the other side is golden and the middle of the salmon still looks raw from a side view.  About 6-7 minutes total.  Do not overcook.  Remove and plate.

In the salmon pan, cook the tomato mixture until tomatoes are just starting to give and are still bright red.  Spoon over the salmon and garnish generously with fresh basil leaves cut into thin strips.

Serve with a good baguette traditional or l'ancienne (ours was from Eric Kayser) and a light red wine like a 2010 red Domaine Auchere Sancerre (check that that the label says that the region is an official Apellation Sancerre Controlee and that the bottling is a local Le bois l'Abbaye, BUE-en-SANCERRE (Cher).  Discuss the way that a Parisian woman ignores a man in order to signal that she likes him, the curves of the French language, contradictory signals, and indefinite ways of communicating over goat cheese crotin and fresh cherries.  Perhaps light the table with pink and lilac colored candles from Trudon near the Odean.

* The candle image is 100% inspired by the Richter candle I saw at his retrospective at the Pompidou.