Smoked salmon supper with four pickles.

As much as I enjoy the endless supply of delicious food provided by "the grown ups" over the holidays, I feel a bit guilty regressing entirely to childhood and simply cheeping for more. I therefore offered to organise dinner on Christmas Eve. We were going to my dad and step-mother's in the afternoon so I wanted to do something that could be prepared in advance, but would be worthy of Christmas Eve. As they are pescetarians, smoked salmon was an obvious choice, and a vaguely Scandinavian route of pickles, salad and bread followed naturally enough.

I thought orange would be more festive than the traditional lemon, and a quick google revealed it to be a fairly well-established flavour combination with salmon. I'm still in love with orange and fennel, and double checking the combination of salmon and anise in The Flavour Thesaurus ("countless ways to combine") I arrived at star anise. This got me thinking about my trip last summer to Vietnam and the flavours of lemongrass, ginger, mint and chilli.

Pickles

Having settled on "Scandinamese" as a general direction, I made four quick pickles using this basic recipe. I happened to have a lot of organic cider vinegar in stock after spotting it on offer a few weeks earlier, so mostly used that. On reflection, it would be interesting to experiment with rice wine vinegar.

The first pickle was made from finely sliced fennel bulb, with whole star anise and the zest and juice of two oranges. For the second I sliced carrots into paper-thin rounds using a food processor, and added minced fresh ginger and finely sliced lemongrass. For the third pickle I used a higher ratio of sugar, and added fresh and dried chilli to the vinegar as the sugar and salt dissolved. I quartered baby cucumbers lengthways and cut them into 3mm slices, then poured the boiling liquid over the cucumbers. For the final pickle I used a mixture of sherry and cider vinegars with sliced shallots and garlic.

Mint salad with quail eggs and peanut dressing.

I already had the idea for a salad made of Little Gem lettuces and mint from Ed Smith's On the Side. I wanted to up the Vietnamese influence, so made a dressing using lime juice and zest, smooth peanut butter and extra virgin rapeseed oil. Quail eggs, threaded on skewers and roasted on braziers, were a common sight at the food markets, and an easy translation to a meal featuring smoked salmon. I had planned on peeling the eggs, but impatience got the better of me. Instead I left them pretty in their shells, nestled inside the lettuce leaves. I scattered the whole platter with torn mint and sesame seeds.

Orange mayonnaise

I used orange and mandarin infused olive oil to make a mayonnaise with four egg yolks, salt and lemon juice. I ended up using quite a lot of lemon juice to get to the desired acidity, which made the mayonnaise quite loose, with a consistency closer to hollandaise. I think using a few drops of vinegar would have allowed me to add less liquid, although it worked perfectly well with the slices of salmon. I mixed it with finely chopped dill.

Smoked salmon

I am lucky enough to have a brilliant fishmonger nearby, so I was able to buy a whole side of smoked salmon along with all the herbs and citrus I needed. To serve it I layered the orange mayonnaise between the salmon, then alternated orange and lemon slices around the outside.

I also bought freshly made soft salted pretzels from the local German bakery. A little off-concept from the rest of the food, but I really like pretzels.