A sad tale of the wages of carelessness

No Polenta and Ricotta Cake for me this week. On Saturday I was getting ready for a dinner party when I managed to rush taking a pot off the stove and spilled boiling water over my right hand. Despite standing for the best part of 3 hours with it either under the cold tap or in a bowl of cold water I have some nasty second degree burns on the back of my hand and my thumb and just could not muster the enthusiasm for baking. Thanks heavens it is a field trip week at school. I have had to cancel the after school clubs which is a blow as we were all making gingerbread men this week which I had been looking forward to, but we can do that next week. We have been recipe testing today - griddled chicken thighs with herb butter and braised rice and pan fried salmon fillet with mustard sauce and rosti potatoes. These are recipes for the Year 8 students (12/13 years old) for next year. The recipes all went very well - the sauce for the fish was lovely - a Simon Hopkinson recipe

Here it is

2 pieces of salmon fillet, skinned and boned - about 100g each
10g butter and 1 T oil or all oil if you prefer
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 Tbs dry vermouth
2 Tbs port
100ml single cream
1 level Tbs smooth dijon mustard
squeeze of lemon juice
salt and pepper
1 Tbs finely chopped parsley

So, heat the butter and oil or just the oil in a frying pan, put in the onion and then the fish and fry the salmon presentation side down for about 5 minutes until brown. Turn over and add the vermouth and port. Bubble away until the liquid is nearly gone. Take out the fish onto a warm plate. Add the mustard and the cream, swirl, add seasoning and lemon juice and parsley. Pour over the fish and serve. We had rosti potatoes, but anything would be nice - noodles, crushed new potatoes etc. I thought that a few green peppercorns in brine would be good in this.