There is an amazing restaurant in Ann Arbor, Michigan, called eve. It’s in Kerrytown, and if you ever find yourself in A2, you should go. The food is exceptional, as is the ethos behind it. The focus is on the ingredients, good ones. Eve Aranoff, the chef-owner, allows her dishes to be both simple and intricately nuanced. She does not shy from ornate flavor profiles, but also serves the best steak you’ll ever have, seasoned only with a little salt and pepper.
One night last week, I came home hungry for salmon. Curious what Eve had to say about it, I turned to her lovely cookbook and browsed until I found a variation on the following. With individual salmon filets in the freezer and cooked rice in the fridge (a weekend ritual to provide the 3 tablespoons of cooked rice I need for our weekly multigrain sandwich bread), this was a simple but elegant menu to throw together in less than an hour. As the pictures show, I served it with a very basic tomato and avocado salad, but anything fresh and green will accompany this well. The original salmon recipe called for macadamia nuts, but I have a pile of slightly over-toasted almonds I’m trying to work through. Either nut has a strong enough flavor to hold its own against the chili spices.
