Ten-minute salmon with lime butter and potatoes; easy vinigarette; vegetable drawer soup with home-made pesto; Michelle Darmody's two-egg omelette with chorizo sausage and spinach
TEN-MINUTE SALMON WITH LIME BUTTER AND POTATOESServes four
4 salmon darnes
1 large clove garlic
juice and zest of two limes
Salt and pepper
100g butter
12 new potatoes
Put the potatoes on to cook in a pot of boiling salted water. Heat the grill or a griddle pan to a very hot temperature. Put the salmon, skin side down, on a pan or skinless side up on the grill, and cook for four minutes. While the salmon is cooking, prepare the sauce. Melt the butter in a pan then, using a blender or a mortar and pestle, crush the garlic and add the lime juice and melted butter. Whisk well. Save the zest of the lime and put it to one side. Turn the salmon over and after four minutes turn off the heat and let the fish rest for two minutes. Serve with piping hot potatoes. Sprinkle the lime zest over the fish and pour the hot citrus butter over the plate.
EASY VINAIGRETTEMakes a jar which will keep on the counter for weeks.
2 large cloves garlic
1 tsp mustard (dry mustard powder or grainy mustard)
half tsp sea salt
80ml white wine vinegar
100ml olive oil
50ml sunflower oil
In a pestle and mortar crush the garlic with the salt and pepper. Add a dribble of oil to blend and pour it into a bottle. Then add the oils and vinegar to taste. I've given approximate amounts, but it is very much to your own taste. Some like a more tangy dressing than others.
VEGETABLE DRAWER SOUP WITH HOME-MADE PESTO
1 large onion
2 cloves garlic
1 courgette
4 celery sticks
1 red pepper
2 tins of tomatoes
1 can of cooked chickpeas, drained and rinsed
For the pesto
3 large cloves of garlic
bunch fresh basil
half tsp salt
80ml olive oil
thumb-sized piece of Parmesan, grated
Fry the chopped onion and garlic in a hot casserole dish for around five minutes then add the rest of the vegetables, chopped into rough chunks. Add the tins of tomatoes and bring to the boil. Then add the drained chickpeas. Simmer for about half an hour.
You can blend this to a smooth soup and use it to get vegetables into any resident vegetable-resisters.
To make the pesto dressing, crush the garlic with the salt with a mortar and pestle and add the olive oil. Transfer to a blender and blitz with the basil. Pour a tablespoonful into the centre of each soup bowl before serving.
Let them eat eggs
A two-egg omelette with chorizo sausage and spinach is Michelle Darmody's quick supper favourite. She reaches for this after a day's baking and cooking at her Cake Café in Dublin's Pleasants Place.
"I use a special omelette pan a friend gave me. It's a ceramic pan from Greece that is shallow enough to cook the omelette through, and just the right size. If you're feeling adventurous, you can make it with different kinds of eggs. They had beautiful duck eggs recently in the Temple Bar Market."
For the omelette, take two eggs (preferably fresh organic and free-range, for the best possible flavour) and whisk them up in a cup or small jug with some salt and pepper. Heat some oil in a pan and while it's heating chop some chorizo sausage and a handful of fresh spinach leaves and leave them on the side. Pour the egg mixture into the pan and when it starts to cook, but is still liquid on top, throw on the sausage and spinach so that it sinks into the omelette.
Finish under the grill if you want, or continue to cook on the hob until it is cooked through.
"If you have more time," Darmody says, "you can fry up some onion and garlic on the pan before you add the egg."
• The Cake Café, 62 Pleasants Place, Dublin 2, 01-4789394