Salmon Pie

This is a pretty simple dish derived from a popular seafood treat in a lot of New England restaurants (most notably Jimmy's, a small chain of "affordably classy" meat-and-potatoes places in and around Boston). The original was either lobster or crab meat (I don't really know which) and makes a nice counterpart to a plate of sirloin tips in a surf'n'turf. The salmon is as good a filling for this as the shellfish.

A nice match for this would be rice pilaf with spinach; it's how Jimmy's serves it. Also, if your salmon skinning skills are not up to par, the part left behind when you slice the skin away can be scraped off to make sashimi.

This recipe makes one large pie, enough to serve about three people. You may feel free to subdivide it and make it in small individual baking dishes the way most restaurants I've seen do it.

• 1 lb salmon fillet, skinned
• bay leaves
• dill
• unsalted butter
• plain bread crumbs (as fresh as you can get them)
• olive oil
• juice of 1 lemon

1. Preheat oven to 375F.
2. In a broilerproof skillet, add a thin layer of olive oil. Place salmon on top of herbs and broil until just cooked on top.
3. Soften 1/2 tbsp butter and use it to grease the bottom of a 9" pie plate or similar size baking pan.
4. After removing salmon from broiler, discard herbs and break salmon into flakes. Toss with lemon juice and add to baking pan. Add bread crumbs to cover; dot with butter.
5. Bake at 375F until crumbs turn golden brown and salmon seems done.

I recommend a chilled white wine (a Riesling would work nicely) or a Pilsener/Kölsch-type beer with this.