Salmon and Tomatoes en Papillote - French Fridays with Dorie

I'm late posting this week because I wasn't sure whether the staff at FFWD was on strike. No P&Q posts for a while; no recipe votes; no LYL last week. Of course, I could have made it just for fun. And because it was easy and good, which it was.

I started with wild Alaskan salmon. Just as a grumpy, I-miss-the-old-days aside, I remember when you didn't have to worry about the provenance of every ingredient you brought home. Fish? Probably frozen, but you didn't have to check the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch before you bought it. Eggs? We bought eggs from an Amish farmer who lived a few miles out of town--because they were good and cheap. We didn't know if they were free-range. Of course, choices were limited in the good old days: no fresh herbs, no goat cheese, no coffee beans, no homemade pasta (although my great-grandmother rolled out noodles, but she didn't call them pasta).
But the salmon looks pretty, doesn't it?

It took more time to drive to the grocery store for the salmon than it did to put this together. A pentagon of fresh basil leaves on the foil, topped with salmon.

A side of quickly sauteed grape tomatoes.

Toss on some chopped green onion and plenty of grated lemon peel. (Less, I suppose, if you don't like lemon).

And a few droplets of lemon juice. (Jim loves capturing moving objects in his photos).

Top with a few thin lemon slices, a sprig of rosemary, and a bit more olive oil. And that's it. I can't think of an excuse not to make this. If you don't want to turn on the oven, I would think the grill would do fine. If you don't like lemon, basil, and tomatoes, you could substitute almost anything else (although another vegetable might have to have a big more pre-cooking). If you don't like salmon, or don't want to pay the price, use something else. It's a recipe meant for playing around, which some of the other FFWD'ers did.

I stuck faithfully to the recipe, and was rewarded with a quick, easy, delicious, (and healthy) dinner. And now that the site is back in business, I hope to be on time with next week's cold melon-berry soup. I'm not a fan of cold fruit soups, but I can try anything once.