They had whole, gutted and gilled salmon available at the grocery store here yesterday. They looked beautiful and fresh. And, notably, were about half the price per unit mass as the salmon fillets. So, given that, I figured I might as well just get a whole salmon and figure out how to cook it for dinner.

I did a mash-up of two different recipes for it. For cooking instructions, I followed a Jamie Oliver recipe that I found online. But I used the seasoning and side veggies from one of the Dish of the Day recipes. That one called for braising salmon fillets in a mixture of white wine and vegetable stock and then serving it with sautéed asparagus, leeks, and peas. For mine, I baked the salmon (and potatoes) as per Jamie Oliver, but stuffed it with leeks and lemon and then more-or-less braised the veggies to serve with it. It worked out quite well and we were all very happy with the results and looking forward to the leftovers tonight!

Roasted Whole Salmon with Potatoes and Spring Vegetables

Adapted from Jamie Oliver and Dish of the Day by Kate McMillan

Ingredients

• 1 whole gutted and gilled salmon (~2kg)
• 1-2kg potatoes, sliced ~5mm thick
• 1 onion, halved and sliced
• 2 leeks, divided
• 1 lemon
• 2 Tbsp. chopped fresh chives (or 1 Tbsp. dried), divided
• 1 Tbsp. chopped fresh tarragon (or 1/2 Tbsp. dried), divided
• 2-3 Tbsp. oil, divided
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 2 Tbsp. butter
• 500g asparagus, trimmed
• 1/4 c. white wine
• 1/4 c. vegetable stock
• 2 c. fresh or frozen green peas

Directions

1. If the salmon still has its scales, you will want to descale it. This is a messy process. Put down some towels or paper and be prepared for scales to go flying everywhere. Drag the back of a knife from tail to head at a 45° angle. Repeat all over the fish until you've removed as many scales as possible. Rinse the fish and your knife and do another pass or two until it feels like all of the scales have been removed.
2. Rinse the fish again, then dry thoroughly with a towel. Set aside.
3. Preheat oven to 250°C (475°F) and oil a large roasting pan.
4. Add the potatoes and onion to the pan, drizzle with 1 Tbsp. of the oil, and season to taste with salt and pepper.
5. Rub the fish all over with the remaining oil and place it on top of the potatoes.
6. Trim the leeks, halve lengthwise, wash very well, and slice.
7. Zest the lemon.
8. Combine the lemon zest with half of the leeks, 4-5 tsp. of the chives, 2 tsp. of the tarragon, and a bit of salt and pepper and toss to combine.
9. Stuff as much of the leek mixture as possible into the salmon. Allow any excess stuffing to spill out onto the potatoes.
10. Slice the lemon and stuff some of the slices into the fish.
11. Make a few gashes in the skin of the fish.
12. Sprinkle some salt and pepper over it, making sure to get some into the gashes.
13. Place any remaining slices of lemon on top of the salmon (preferably over the gashes if possible).
14. Bake at 250°C (475°F) for 15 minutes.
15. Reduce temperature to 180°C (350°F) and bake for another 30 minutes.
16. Meanwhile, melt the butter over medium heat.
17. Add the remaining leeks and sauté until softened (3-5 minutes).
18. Add the asparagus and cook for another minute or so.
19. Add the wine, stock, remaining tarragon, remaining chives, and salt and pepper to taste; cover; and cook for 2-3 minutes.
20. Add the peas and cook until vegetables are heated through and just tender (another 2-3 minutes).
21. Serve the salmon and potatoes with the vegetables on the side.

I'm into the savoury waffle chapter in the book now. I have been going along more-or-less in order, but I did have to skip over the first one as it called for mini salt & pepper waffles to be served with clam dip. Given that we haven't entirely sorted out the Kidlet's potential shellfish allergy yet, I figured that the bivalves might be better saved for another occasion.

These cheese-and-herb waffles were the next up after that and they were great! The combination works really well. I decided to serve up my waffle with some scrambled eggs. And the Kidlet had hers with some chicken and cheddar. But they're honestly really delicious just plain as well.

I think bacon would have been the ideal accompaniment. The recipe author actually suggests bacon and soft poached eggs, which sounds divine! Really though, there's a lot that you can do with these crisp, cheesey, delights. They seem like they could provide a good starchy-savoury base for a lot of things.

Unfortunately I couldn't find any chervil for my waffles. Nor could I get my hands on any fresh tarragon. So I had to make do with chives, parsley, and dried tarragon. And since I didn't have any chervil, I just doubled up on the tarragon. Not the same, I know, but I'm still happy with the results.

Emmental and Fines Herbes Waffles

Slightly adapted from Waffles: Sweet, Savory, Simple by Dawn Yanagihara

Ingredients

• 240g all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. sugar
• 1/2 tsp. black peppercorns, ground
• 3/4 tsp. coarse sea salt, ground
• 150g Emmental cheese, grated
• 2 c. milk
• 2 large eggs
• 6 Tbsp. unsalted butter, melted
• 3 Tbsp. chopped fresh chives
• 1/4 c. chopped flat-leaf parsley
• 1 1/2 Tbsp. chopped fresh tarragon (or 3/4 tsp. dried)
• 1 1/2 Tbsp. chopped fresh chervil (or tarragon)

Directions

1. Preheat waffle iron.
2. Sift the baking powder into the flour.
3. Mix in the sugar, pepper, and salt.
4. Add the cheese and mix well, breaking up any clumps.
5. In a large measuring cup, beat the eggs into the milk.
6. Slowly drizzle in the butter, whisking to combine.
7. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and whisk to combine.
8. Fold in the chives, parsley, tarragon, and chervil.
9. Pour one portion of batter into the waffle iron and cook according to manufacturer's directions. Repeat until all batter has been used.
10. Serve plain or with bacon, eggs, sautéed mushrooms, and/or additional accompaniments of your choice.

I had originally planned on trying out a celery salad recipe from "The Cookbook" this week, but I didn't quite get around to it and ended up giving this celery and herb salad a go instead. Sadly none of us really liked it. Now, to be fair, I did deviate from the recipe a bit. This was partly because I couldn't find all the ingredients and partially because I got mixed up about what we had on hand and a little bit because I was trying to make it a bit healthier and I know that I normally find most vinaigrettes too oily anyway. But perhaps if I'd been able to follow the recipe more closely it would have come out better.

I've chosen to relay the original reicpe below, not my franken-version. I've included notes detailing what changes I made so that you'll know what NOT to do. Good luck!

Celery and Herb Salad

From Vegetable of the Day by Kate McMillan

Ingredients

Vinaigrette

• 1 shallot¹, chopped
• 1 Tbsp. Dijon mustard²
• juice of 1 lemon
• 4 olive-oil packed anchovy fillets³
• 1/2 tsp. coarse sea salt⁴
• 1/4 tsp. black peppercorns, ground
• 1/2 c. olive oil⁵

Salad

• 1 head of celery⁶, trimmed and thinly sliced
• 1 bunch of radishes, trimmed and thinly sliced
• 1/2 c. coarsely chopped flat-leaf parsley
• 2 Tbsp. coarsely chopped fresh tarragon⁷
• 2 Tbsp. coarsely chopped fresh dill⁸
• 4 large eggs, hard-boiled
• salt and pepper, to taste

Directions

1. Combine the shallot, mustard, lemon juice, anchovies, salt, and pepper in a blender.
2. Blend until smooth and then, with the blender running, gradually add the olive oil in a slow, steady stream. Set aside.
3. Combine the celery, radishes, parsley, tarragon, and dill in a large bowl.
4. Add ~1/2 the dressing and toss to coat.
5. Peel and quarter the eggs and add them to the salad.
6. Drizzle with a little more dressing.
7. Serve, seasoning to taste with salt, pepper, and additional dressing.

---

¹ I used 1/2 of a small red onion instead. I usually find this to be an acceptable substitute for shallots, but it now occurrs to me that I probably should've tossed a clove of garlic in as well. ^1
2 I used home-made Roman mustard as I generally use to two interchangeably and don't bother keeping store-bought mustard on hand anymore. (Unless I want a bit of yellow mustard for hotdogs or something.) ^Back
3 I used 4 whole anchovies packed in olive oil and chile flakes. Again, I've never had any issues with making this substitution and I find that the whole anchovies generally break down much better than the anchovy fillets. (Plus they're much cheaper!) ^Back
4 I think I may have forgotten to add the salt. I don't think the salad tasted particularly under-seasoned, but perhaps a bit of extra saltiness would have helped the overall flavour, I don't know. ^Back
5 I only used 1/4 c. of oil to make my dressing. That said, TF and I both tasted it after mixing and thought that it tasted fine and didn't need the rest of the oil. I know that this will have resulted in a smaller overall amount of vinaigrette, but there still seemed to be plenty enough to dress the salad. So, if neither the flavour nor quantity of dressing was an issue, then I don't really think reducing the quantity of oil was a problem. ^Back
6 I think the celery is actually probably the most likely culprit for the less-than-optimal results. I used an heirloom "leafy" celery variety. It was lovely, but the flavour was definitely a lot stronger than your bog standard celery. I'm used to celery tasting more-or-less like crunchy water. It has a lot of texture, but not much flavour of its own. That was definitely not the case for this celery! It actually tasted distinctly celery-y (like celery seed, but in the actual vegetable). This is great for things like soups and stir-fries, but maybe the flavour was a bit too much to blend harmoniously with the other salad components in this recipe. If I try it again, I'll make sure to use a blander variety of celery. ^Back
7 Sadly, I wasn't able to get any tarragon this week, so I just had to leave it out. I'm sure that won't have helped the final results. ^Back
8 Our old dill plant isn't doing so hot right now and the new one is still too small to harvest much from, so I could only get ~1 Tbsp. of fresh dill. I tried adding a little bit of ground dill seed (a scant tsp.) to compensate, but this doesn't work as well in salads as it does in soups and stews. That and the missing tarragon probably didn't do any favours for the success of this salad. ^Back