Susan Herrmann Loomis+No Take Out=Great Recipes and Good Tips

• When You Walk in the Door
• Prep
• Start Cooking

My favorite step is the one that appears at the end of most main-course recipes:  Don’t forget the wine.

Today’s recipe, the picture’s from today’s newsletter (you can subscribe here),  comes from Susan herself — she’s No Take Out’s guest-of-the-week.  It’s for skillet-roasted salmon, topped with herbs and capers (there’s a nice sidebar on capers) and accompanied by oven-roasted potates and a small salad dressed with a garlic vinaigrette.

Tucked into the instructions is a technique I’ve never seen before, but one I’m going to be using this evening.  Susan suggests that after you slice the potatoes, you scrape the tines of a fork across the cut surface to create little indentations.  That done, she tops each slice with a nugget of butter. salt, pepper and a sprinkle of herbes de Provence.  I’m liking the idea that the potatoes will look prettier with the indents and, even better, that the little creases will capture and hold the melted butter and seasonings.

It’s a why-didn’t-I-think-of-this idea. 

Oh, and don’t forget the wine!