This recipe is one I have used over and over and it’s always a success.

The cutting which is its inspiration is now faded and marked, but it’s headed “Clement Freud prepares a dish for Eve Pollard”

Clement Freud was one of the first celebrity chefs, working for the Dorchester Hotel, but he subsequently became both an MP and a broadcaster, appearing with is famous deadpan delivery most often on the Radio 4 comedy show, Just a Minute, as well as for his dog food advertisements.

Eve Pollard was editor of The Sunday Mirror and The Sunday Express, a feisty, intelligent lady. Her desert island luxury of choice was a pair of tweezers so the extent of her appreciation of Freud’s gastronomic endeavours is unknown.

You can serve this as a starter – in which case serve it with a horseradish and ginger sauce; or as a main course in which case it goes well with Chinese aubergines (in which case you don’t need the horseradish and ginger sauce) or on a bed of uncooked spinach with new potatoes.

NB: MARINADE ALERT – HALF A DAY OR OVERNIGHT

Clement Freud’s recipe (nearly) for spicy fillets of salmon with ginger

Serves 4

Ingredients

• 4 skinned fillets of salmon
• 1 tsp olive oil
• 1 tsp smoked salt
• 1 tbsp ginger (peeled and chopped small) plus, ½ tbsp. grated ginger
• 1 tbsp good quality soy sauce – NB NOT the watery sort
• 1 tbsp lemon juice (or juice and zest of half a lemon)
• 8 tbsp creamed horseradish

Method

1. Put the four pieces of salmon into a plastic bag (don’t try to use a bowl) and add the olive oil, the salt, the chopped ginger, the soy sauce and the lemon juice (and zest). Secure the bag and leave for half a day or overnight.
2. Preheat the main oven to 210°C and heat the plates in a lower oven.
3. Make the ginger and horseradish sauce by mixing in the grated ginger (use a microplane) into the creamed horseradish. Taste – you may decide you want a bit more ginger.
4. Grease a roasting tray and put the salmon fillets on it. Pour over the marinade.
5. Roast for four or five minutes.
6. Serve with the sauce.

I rather fancy the dish Clement Freud cooks for the dog in the ad below as a kind of super-rich stroganoff…..