Salmon with Sorrel and No Cream Sauce; Quickle Pickles.

Friday 3 August

"Have we got cream?"
"Of course, we have cream."
"So is there anything else you can think of?"
"Nope."

The sorrel, which had bolted, is now back in force. So I (Holt) planned to make a sorrel sauce with the cream I had confidently assured Barbara was in the fridge. Two nice thick salmon steaks, fried in butter. Splash of wine and cover. 120º. Remove to heated plates. Chiffonade of sorrel in the lovely juice. Cook till wilted. Squeeze of lime. Open fridge. No cream. A quick rethink was in order. Maybe a hollandaise? But I'd used up all the egg-whites and didn't really have time (or the desire) to start a new frozen egg-white container. Béchamel? Too . . . white. So just monté-ed au beurre. And the result was splendid. Just lime and fish juice with the flavor of the sorrel coming through tart and clean. See, I planned it that way all along. But now I got me a terrible jones for hollandaise.

While all that was going on, Barbara made up a batch of quix pix, using this recipe.
It uses both horseradish and dry mustard, nice and spicy, but there is way too much dressing for just two cucumbers. I halved the amount, used three regular cukes from the garden (seeds and all - and didn't rinse the salt off, just drained and patted them dry a bit), and it came out very tasty.