Another good seasonal salad

I don't plan to work my way through all 101 salads from The Times (see previous posts). But I went out Sunday and bought fresh arugula to try salad No. 7:

"Cook whole grape tomatoes in olive oil over high heat until they brown slightly, sprinkling with curry powder. Cool a bit, then toss with chopped arugula, loads of chopped mint and lime juice."

I washed the tomatoes in their container, drained them and added them to the skillet, but there was a good deal of splattering from water droplets. I also was impatient and added them to the arugula and mint when they were still fairly warm, drizzling all with some oil-lemon blend and fresh lemon juice. So what I got was a wilted salad in a pool of curry.

I ate the salad with my dinner of four leftover free-range, lollipop-like Australian lamb chops, straight from the fridge, and soaked up the curry pool with thick, Turkish pide bread I had warmed in the oven. Yummy.

A colorful, delicious summer dinner

After my salad and seafood lunch today at Artisanal (see previous post), I felt like a light dinner, so I baked a fillet of fresh wild salmon that I bought at Costco on Saturday, seasoning it with salt, cumin, Aleppo red pepper and fresh chopped parsley from the garden. In a 350-degree oven, 11-12 minutes gave me five medium-rare pieces from a fillet of average thickness.

For a salad, I prepared No. 7 on the list of "101 Simple Salads for the Season" that was in The New York Times on July 22: "Grate carrots, toast some sunflower seeds, and toss with blueberries, olive oil, lemon juice and plenty of black pepper. Sweet, sour, crunchy, soft." I didn't have sunflower seeds so substituted pistachios and almonds, both salted. I grated four small carrots and added about a third a of a pint of Jersey blueberries.

I sliced and toasted a Balthazar dinner roll, poured what was left of some Portuguese vinho verde and Spanish sparking grape juice and really enjoyed my Sunday night meal.

Shopping notes: I picked up the blueberries at Fairway Market in Harlem, where I stopped for goat meat (the Paramus Fairway doesn't carry it). In Manhattan, the Jersey fruit was priced at two for $4, compared with two for $5 last week at ShopRite in Hackensack. The fresh wild sockeye salmon is $8.99 a pound at Costco and has been consistently delicious. And Fairway's price for goat meat on the bone, $2.99 a pound, is a great price in view of the quality (more meat than bone).