Warm smoked salmon with a lemon and fennel cream sauce served with pickled carrots and toasted nuts

Ingredients

(serves four as a starter)

8 thin slices of smoked salmon
Half an iceberg lettuce finely shredded(Galvin will also use a selection of salad leaves and "I sprout my own alfalfa seeds")
1tbs vinaigrette dressing
½ pint fish cream sauce with the addition of the juice of half a lemon
1tbs chopped fennel

Fish cream sauce

Reduce equal quantities of fish stock and cream with half the quantity of dry white wine to a pouring consistency.

This basic cream sauce can be used as the base of many other sauces. Add pesto to make a pesto cream; curry spices to make a curry cream; mushrooms for a mushroom cream etc.

Vinaigrette dressing

Whisk or blend together:
1tbs white winevinegar
3tbs sunflower or vegetable oil
1tbs olive oil
Season and store in a screw-top bottle or jar shaking well before use.
pickled carrots with toasted nuts
4 medium carrots grated
1 pint white wine vinegar
4oz caster sugar
2tbs dry whitewine
Juice of 2 oranges
½tsp groundginger
1oz chopped nuts for toasting

Method

Prepare pickling liquid by heating together vinegar sugar wine juice and ginger.

Bring to the boil and stir until sugar dissolves. Pour over grated carrot.

Keep warm for service with the smoked salmon or pack into heated sterilised jars and seal for later use.

Toast nuts just before service and spread/sprinkle over carrot.

Putting the dish together

Toss the shredded lettuce in vinaigrette.

Build a little mound of dressed lettuce on each of four starter plates. Drape two smoked salmon slices over each mound of lettuce.

Heat sauce and keep warm. In a hot oven warm the plates of lettuce and salmon for a minute.

Take out of oven and pour sauce around each mound. Sprinkle with the fennel and serve.