Wild salmon with fresh pistou, creamy polenta, and arugula

This dish came about, like so much of what transpires here in the PK, simply because it was the obvious thing to do: I was driving home with my eldest daughter last night, and we have a small but exceptional farmer's market on Tuesdays; we had very little time, not enough to really walk the stalls, so we had to choose quickly; we were already behind schedule for dinner, so prep time had to be short; and, of course, in keeping with our MO, we wanted to be fresh, seasonal, and local.

The salmon are apparently running late this year, which is not a bad thing from my perspective, as it gives me a better shot at working this wonderful fish into my posts. Dave, our local market fisherman, either catches it locally, or - because of tragic overfishing - sources it from Alaska; in this case, somewhat disappointingly, we couldn't get the local stuff. But better to buy wild, from Alaska, than from an industrial farm or at the risk of wiping out the local population entirely. And if you've been following the Proximal Kitchen at all, you've already figured out that we're hardly zealots - we love local, but above all, we love good.

Two stalls down from Dave was Bernier Farms, who consistently produce, amongst other things, fabulous produce. Today, they had basket upon basket of different varietals of beautiful garlic, blazing green Genovese basil, and - a personal favorite here at PK - bags of crisp, leafy, young arugula. Having just picked up some organic polenta, the menu clicked: salmon goes well with corn; basil and garlic make pistou, and pistou is delicious on salty, oily fish; and simply dressed arugula always provides a great contrast in bitterness and acidity. (And yes, if you're wondering about the mythical Mediterranean salmon, you're right - you will not likely fine salmon in much Provencal cooking. But many of those same flavor profiles that work so well with bass and other Med-centric fish seem to do just fine with salmon... and my kids love salmon, which is generally enough for me.)

Wild Salmon with pistou, creamy polenta, and arugula

1. If you're making polenta from scratch, start it first, following the directions on the package. Heresy, but I will on occasion - as I did on this particular mid-week night - cheat, and start with a pre-cooked polenta. Yeah, yeah, I know. But it's better than you might think, and cuts the total cooking time of this dish by more than half. To make it 'creamy', simply whisk in some heavy cream or, better, mascarpone cheese right at the end.
2. Pin-bone and trim the salmon into neat shapes of roughly uniform thickness. Carefully score the skin side and pat dry.
3. Prepare the pistou - see my other post on the topic here.
4. Heat a pan over medium heat and add a little olive oil. Place the salmon cuts in the pan once the oil is hot but not smoking, skin-side down.
5. While the salmon is cooking (90% of its cooking time will be done on the skin), dress the salad. A simple vinaigrette would be unimpeachable, but I chose to keep it even simpler and save another bowl in the process by using one my favorite Italian methods: Simply toss the leaves with olive oil to lightly coat, season with salt and fresh ground pepper, and squeeze a lemon over them. 
6. Once the skin is crispy and the flesh is still rare to the middle, turn the salmon over, cook briefly just to set the other side, taking care to keep not to overcook the fish. There is really no worse crime to an already dead fish than to overcook it; better to be raw than dry. And, for those who abhor "fishy" taste, it's worth noting that, generally speaking, fish gets "fishier" the longer you cook it. 
7. Arrange some salad on a plate, make a little bed of polenta, place a salmon filet in the middle of the polenta, and spoon pistou over the top.

A final note on wine: Garlic and basil are not particularly food-friendly flavors, and a spicy pistou can be really tricky. The Italians will, correctly, suggest a Ligurian white of some sort, but I had none to hand, and very few of our local wines here in the Russian River Valley seemed obvious. In the end, I had an inexpensive white from the Cotes-du-Rhone, made primarily from Marsanne & Rousanne; the lack of oak, the barely-sweet fruit and young exhuberance, and the local-by-extension pairing of a Provencal wine with a nearly Provencal dish proved just about right.