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1 bottle pinot noir

4 cups vegetable or chicken

stock

For the vegetables:

1 large turnip or rutabaga, cut

into medium dice

1 tablespoon extra-virgin

olive oil, plus additional for

drizzling

1 teaspoon salt

Freshly ground pepper

1 small leek, cut into medium

dice

3 ounces morel mushrooms,

cleaned well and halved

lengthwise (about 1 cup)

For the roasted salmon:

1 pound wild king salmon

fillet, skinned, pin bones

removed,27 and cut into 4

equal portions

2 tablespoons extra-virgin

olive oil

Salt

For finishing:

1 cup (2 sticks) cold unsalted

butter, cut into large dice

I once thought butter sauces were a cop-out. Of course it tastes great, it’s a butter sauce! On principle, I wouldn’t make one. Then I got older and realized that the French didn’t build their civilization upon the semifirm back of butter and barrels of wine on a whim. Sure, first there was that cook who drunkenly tipped his Burgundy into the butter pot, but then they codified that drunken miracle into the very fabric of their cuisine. We are all the beneficiaries of this legacy, and it was naïve bluster that kept me from embracing dishes such as this one, where copious amounts of pinot noir meet butter, coating and enhancing the fatty goodness of a perfectly cooked piece of salmon. The earthy morel mushrooms and sweet leeks heighten this recipe and throw it completely over the top.

SERVES 4

To prepare the sauce, in a wide saucepan over high heat, combine all of the sauce ingredients. Bring the liquid to a boil, then reduce the heat to a gentle simmer. Reduce the sauce until you have 1½ cups, about 40 minutes. While the sauce reduces, prepare the vegetables.

Preheat the oven to 400ºF.

To prepare the vegetables, spread the turnips on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Drizzle with 1 tablespoon olive oil, add the salt, and season to taste with pepper. Cover the turnips with foil and roast in the oven for 20 minutes. Uncover the turnips, add the leeks and morels, and stir well. Drizzle with a little more olive oil, season to taste with salt and pepper, and roast the vegetables, uncovered, for 20 more minutes. Remove the baking sheet from the oven, cover with foil, and set aside. Turn the oven temperature down to 250ºF.

To prepare the salmon, lay the salmon pieces on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Rub them with the olive oil and season with salt. When the oven has cooled to 250ºF, roast the salmon for 10 to 12 minutes, or until a gentle push on the top just reveals flaking (see page 102). It is best served on the rare side. Keep it warm, tented with foil, while you finish the sauce.

To finish the sauce, first strain it through a fine-mesh sieve. Return the sauce to the saucepan over medium-low heat. Whisk the cold butter into the sauce a little at a time.

To serve, spoon a small amount of sauce onto each plate and top with the vegetables and salmon.

PAIRING: A Burgundy, such as Albert Bichot Vieilles Vignes Pinot Noir Bourgogne 2007, or a Chinon.

pacific halibut

My first dealings with a whole halibut came soon after a career change, having bailed early on a track toward medical school. I chose sautéing over surgery, though I was pleased when I realized that white jackets, knife work, and a certain amount of blood were still in my future. I was a third-quarter culinary student when my chef-instructor heaved a large halibut up onto a stainless steel worktable. I learned that day that a “fletch” is a halibut fillet (there are four, unlike round fish, such as a salmon, which have two). I sharpened my knives and joined my fellow students in filleting the big beast, two fletches on the top, flip, two fletches on the bottom.

That halibut went through an early career change of sorts as well. A halibut starts its life as a round fish with an eye on either side of its head, as you might expect. However, by the time a halibut is six months old, it has settled down to the bottom of the ocean and made a transition to life as a flatfish. From then on both eyes—having shifted to the top side of