SALMON WITH SORREL SAUCE FOR MY FAMILY

Tonight is our last at the Fish station (Poissonier) and we'll be cooking the Sautéed Salmon With Sorrel Sauce (Lyon), Filet De Saumon À L'Oseille. I've been trying to arrange reservations at the school restaurant, L'Ecole, for my family for the past few weeks and I finally got them in at 8:30 p.m. tonight. I'm not sure how it works out with being able to see them but it's certainly exciting. An update after class...

DISH: Sautéed Salmon With Sorrel Sauce (Lyon), Filet De Saumon À L'Oseille

RECIPE: The recipe that follows is for 8 servings and is multiplied for restaurant service. Breakdown salmon and slice eight fillets, 100g each. Use trimmings to make a stock. Place in hotel pan, cover and refrigerate.

Stem 160g sorrel leaves and cut ¼-inch chiffonade. Cover with wet paper towel and refrigerate. Place 2 small finely ciselées shallots, 2 liters fish stock (fumet), 80 ml dry vermouth, and 160 ml dry white wine in a large sautoir and reduce until syrupy (à glace). Add cream and reduce until slightly thickened and 400ml remains. Set aside.

For service, season two filles with salt and pepper on less presentable side. Film a hot nonstick pan with corn oil and sear salmon briefly on both sides, presentation side first, keeping them slightly underdone. Remove from pan to paper towels.

Degrease pan and deglaze with 50 ml of sauce. Add 15g sorrel and soften over moderate heat stirring with wooden spatula. Stir in 10g butter and adjust seasoning along with a squeeze of lemon juice. Spoon sauce on plate, place fillets on top, presentation side up. Sprinkle each fillet with sea salt and serve immediately.

BREAKDOWN: In the image to the right are three of the four other members of my current group. From left to right: Chad, Megan, and Jane. We had some down-time before service tonight as the dish wasn't very difficult to prepare and in addition to being committed to making good food, we're also pretty quick and efficient. Despite the fact that we weren't rushing, the chef even came over and told us that we didn't have to always hurry.

At left, checking the fennel is Tim, the other member of our five-person group.

The recipe (above) which we followed from our Level Three menu books didn't call for fennel, but Chef N., suggested we use it as the base on which to place the sorrel and fish. We thinly sliced and sautéed several fennel bulbs in butter and seasoned it with salt and pepper.

The star of this dish is the sorrel (image at left, c/o wikipedia). I don't remember having had sorrel in the past. It looks a little like dandelion but isn't as bitter and tastes sweet and sour, almost citrusy, especially the stem. It's a very delicate leaf and bruises easily. We cut it in thick strips, put it in a square-boy, covered it with a wet paper-towel and put it in the fridge. I'd like to play with it.

The expediter put four salmon dishes up on the board at the front of the kitchen for table #1 and having told my family (a group of four) I'd be cooking the salmon I suspected this was their order. I went out into the dining room with the permission of one of the chefs who told me, "Of course you can go out there. Go out there like you own the place!" So that's what I did.

It was strange leaving the kitchern's chaos for the restaurant's dimness and quiet. My family was sat in a banquet booth around the corner eating the steamed mussels with white wine, shallots, and parsley (Bretagne), moules a la mariniere. I said hello and returned to the kitchen where Russel, their waiter, suggested the vegetarian plates. I asked Entremetier to prep their dishes, tempura and guacamole, and a vegetable risotto and told my group the next order was for my folks. They helped plate. I cooked the salmon.

The recipe says to cook the sorrel in the sauce but Chef instructed us differently. We put it atop the fennel centered on the plate then ladled hot cream sauce over it which wilts the sorrel. Then we drizzled lemon juice on the sauce, placed the salmon fillet on top and sprinkled a few grains of fleur de sel on the fish.

We brought the plates up to the front of the kitchen and ten minutes later I stepped out to ask my folks about the food. It was the second dish of their wine-pairing and everybody was really enjoying it including my mother (image left, me and mom after dinner).

My grandfather (left) also really enjoyed the meal and I was told later that no one else came out of the kitchen to visit a table that night so they really got a kick out of having a chef come out to ask how the food was! After dinner, when most of the clean-up inside the kitchen was complete I took them on a tour. They really seemed to enjoy the dinner and it was pretty exciting to be cooking for them in a professional environment for the first time.