salmon and vegetables

Salmon, which is a gloriously fatty fish, takes well to the same treatment as those chicken thighs in "chicken and vegetables".

• Rub salmon fillets with olive oil, lay in a sheet pan (roasting pan, big cast iron frypan or what have you) and sprinkle generously with salt and pepper. I allow about 200 g of fish per person, but of course we really like our fish around here. Skin on or off, doesn't matter; this treatment does nothing for the skin (you need pan frying for that).
• Nestled in the pan are "the vegetables", ie. anything that will be cooked to your satisfaction in the same time as the fish. See below.
• Fire this into a blazing hot oven (say, 450) for about 15 minutes.
• Very good with a simple yoghurt sauce: good, thick plain yoghurt, salt, pepper and optionally some ground roasted cumin (this is extremely good) and lemon zest.

I pull the fish out when it's two-thirds done; residual heat does the rest in the five minutes it takes to get things on plates and get kids to the table. "Done" for me would probably be sent back by 1 in 3 customers in a restaurant, although these same people readily eat salmon raw in sushi. Human folly!

As for the vegetables, tonight we had oven-candied tomatoes I still had in the freezer from last summer, thinly sliced red onions and kalamata olives. The onions had time to get soft and a bit brown here and there. I learned to do salmon this way from The Naked Chef, where he used blanched green beans, cherry tomatoes, dry cured olives, torn tender herbs (like basil) and anchovy fillets.

Ideas to try...soon:

• sliced potato (1/8") and onion with some thyme
• zuccini and red pepper strips
• baby beets?