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Serves 6

6 thick salmon steaks

salt, pepper

butter

300 ml (10 fl oz) single cream or crème fraîche

1 bay leaf

6 lemon quarters

Season the salmon steaks well with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Choose an oven dish into which the steaks will fit closely in one layer, without being jammed tightly together. Butter the dish lavishly, then put in the steaks and enough cream to cover them well. Tuck in a small bay leaf, and bake in a fairly hot oven (gas 5, 190°C/ 375°F) for 20–25 minutes, until the steaks are cooked. Baste them once or twice with the cream, adding more if it reduces enough to leave the surface of the salmon much exposed. Serve with lemon quarters, in case people like to sharpen the sauce a little.

SALMON TARTARE

It seems to have been the Minchelli brothers, or rather Paul Minchelli who is the chef, who introduced the French to the pleasures of gravadlax and sashimi and seviche. Since they are natives of the Ile de Ré, where they opened their first restaurant in 1963, they grew up taking the freshness of fish for granted. And to serve fish raw, or cooked purely by salt or lemon juice, it must be of top quality. ‘Our rules, our three unities, are draconian,’ says Jean Minchelli, ‘The fish must just be caught, its preparation must be simple and it must be eaten the same day. In our restaurants there are no left-overs and no deep-freeze… What is not sold at the end of the day is eaten by us, or given or thrown away.’ Nowadays they have restaurants in Paris, in the Boulevard Raspail, and in the Seychelles.

I suppose that Paul Minchelli turned to the idea of steak tartare for this particular dish, an idea that is well within the French tradition, and a title that would not frighten his clients. This treatment can be used for sea bass, scallops, very fine pale tuna and swordfish – almost any fish that is truly fresh is delicious served in this way. Keep the quantities small. Sometimes salmon tartare comes in teaspoonsful in tiny pastry cases with an apéritif. More usually it will be nested in salad greenery: steamed samphire tips (p. 83) are a natural companion.

Allow 125 g (4 oz) fresh salmon per person. Dice it as evenly as you can, after cutting away the skin and bone, then chop it coarsely. The pieces should end up about the size of tiny petits pois, a chopped rather than a mashed effect. Add just enough of the sauce tartare on p. 41 to bind the mixture lightly – you should really not be aware of the sauce as you are, for instance, with a cooked salmon mayonnaise or a Russian salad of vegetables. The point of it is to get the seasonings mixed evenly through the fish and bind the mixture so that it can be piled up a little.

SALMON WITH WATERCRESS AND CHIVE BUTTER SAUCE (Le saumon à la tombée de cresson et au beurre de ciboulette)

This is an example of the light cooking of Bernard Loiseau at the Côte d’Or at Saulieu in Burgundy. No elaborate stocks are used in his kitchen, or simple ones either, but water. This makes some colleagues raise their eyebrows. It also makes the sauces tricky to handle. You need to practise. If they overheat, they separate and turn oily.

Lesser cooks than Monsieur Loiseau may perhaps be forgiven if they beat a failed sauce into a couple of egg yolks, as if they were making a version of an hollandaise*. The method of cooking the salmon, though, is easily mastered and it can be used for other fish.

Serves 4

500 g (1 lb) piece of long salmon fillet

salt, pepper

1 large bunch of chives, chopped

125 g (4 oz) unsalted butter

leaves from 2 large bunches of watercress

olive oil

lemon juice

Lay the salmon skin side down on a board and slice it diagonally into 4 escalopes of roughly equal size. Season them with salt and pepper. Discard the skin.

Process the chives with three-quarters of the butter: it should be very thick with the green, much more than for normal chive butter. Chill well.

Cook the cress leaves in a little water with the remaining butter, salt and pepper. Drain when tender, dry on kitchen