SPONTANEOUS MEALS : Chef ‘s Surprise : Meal Strategies: What happens when a professional chef is let loose in a home kitchen--with no prior knowledge of what’s in the pantry or refrigerator? Good cooking.

Summer with all its edible implications swims into the Pacific Northwest on the backs of salmon. Wild mushrooms arrive, garden peas, various Asian greens, strawberries, fava beans, asparagus, sweet onions, fresh herbs--the list goes on and on, the cornucopia spills over. It’s a time for the spirited shopper to blast through the local supermarket, to hit the various weekend farmers markets, to grab a string bag and hoof it through the Pike Place Market.

It’s a time, in other words, to shop for what looks terrific and carry that spontaneous enthusiasm for food back into the kitchen. The obverse of this is to shop for what’s called for, as in the list of ingredients carefully transcribed from recipes, and to ignore all the other possibilities. What a bore.

So it came to pass, just the other day, that I found myself perusing the vegetables at Frank’s Produce in the Pike Place Market. I bought basil and the first red-skin new potatoes of the season. My garden basil is weeks away, but Frank’s apparently has some kind of greenhouse south of the city. The wild mushrooms at Sosio’s caught my eye, both the morels and the big, meaty Oregon boletes.

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There was nothing left to do but make a quick visit to the mightiest of the Seattle fish mongers, Harry Yoshimura at Mutual Fish.

Copper River king salmon, magnificent sea beasts as big and fleshy as Chinese temple dogs, had been running for a short time in Alaska. Harry assured me they were still in their prime (the season is only a few weeks long). He asked Junior, his assistant, to cut fillets through the shoulder of a salmon as big as a hulking ham. The two resulting fillets delivered up by Junior and his knife were easily four inches wide, twice as long, and two inches thick. A weighty load.

I reached home by 9:30 that morning with the makings of a meal and enough time to clean my kitchen. It’s sort of a guy kitchen and tends to lean into the messy more often than not. Chef Scott Carsberg arrived at 10. He likes a clean kitchen and has somehow mastered the art of cooking and cleaning at one and the same time. He leaves no indication, other than a meal, that he has even been in the kitchen. Lunch for six would be served at noon.

The whole purpose of the exercise was to stand shoulder to shoulder with one of Seattle’s premier chefs and watch cooking happen. Too often I stop taking inspiration from cookbooks and completely rely on them instead--at best a dull and slavish mindset. Here was the potential to travel to the heart of cooking. And even though a recipe or two might come out of the process, only Carsberg’s creative juices would carry him through. He had fresh ingredients of the finest quality to mess with in any way he might like, as well as complete access to my pantry, freezer and refrigerator. And garden, I should add. When I told Carsberg what was growing down in the P-Patch he sent me off for sweet snow peas.

There are a lot of good cooks in Seattle restaurants. Carsberg stands out among them all as the one chef with the courage, the skill and the conviction to construct his plates with a simple palette, permitting the food to speak for itself and reveal its own inner elegance. He eschews hair-brained flavor and ingredient combinations that flop in and out of fashion with each passing menu. He doesn’t handle his food a lot. Instead, he finds detail in a spare landscape and creates beautiful-looking dishes with a depth of flavor that completely envelops the lucky diner.

He is not the product of cooking schools but an instinctual cook who as a kid worked in frayed blue-collar Seattle restaurants, moved into high-end hotel kitchens by the time he was 16, then pushed on to work under Yannick Cam in Washington, D.C. before turning 20. Cam gave Carsberg’s creative passion both discipline and direction.

But it was the opportunity to work for Andrea Helrigl at the Villa Mozart in Merano, Italy, that put Carsberg over the top. Not only did he have the challenge of a Michelin rating to maintain with his fellow chefs, he also had the finest ingredients imaginable to work with. The experience wasn’t lost on him.

It is Seattle’s great good fortune that most Pacific Northwest boys eventually come home. By the time Carsberg hit 30 he had opened Lampreia in downtown Seattle with his wife and partner Hyun-Joo Paek. The restaurant is charming, the food sublime, and the national food press is catching up. But more to the point: While I had the chance, I had the chef in my own kitchen and lunch guests soon to arrive.

He could have baked the salmon. And I was more than happy to fire up the charcoal outside to grill those luscious fillets. But Carsberg felt like poaching the fish. At most it would be warm by the time it was served. It seemed like that kind of day to him.

So into a pot went the salmon fillet skins and the trimmings along with water, white wine, chopped basil, a shallot cut in half, skin on, a couple of crushed cloves of garlic (skins included), a dozen or so peppercorns, a little salt. He brought that to a boil, then reduced the fumet to a rapid simmer to intensify the flavor. He rubbed the salmon fillets with olive oil, sprinkled them on both sides with sea salt and freshly ground pepper, and placed them side by side in olive oil in a steep-sided pan just deep enough so that the fumet would cover the fish.

The new potatoes had caught his eye. As had the jar of sun-dried tomatoes packed in olive oil. He got to thinking about potato salad, and by the time the ingredients came together he had whisked up an aioli to dress the potatoes. Carsberg halved each new potato, then carefully but quickly cut each one into small dice, about three cups worth, which he covered with water and brought to a boil.

For the aioli he separated two yolks into a stainless-steel bowl, added about a tablespoon or so of hot fumet and, with the bowl over the simmering pot of fumet, whisked the eggs yolks and hot liquid to slightly cook the yolks. Off heat the mixture went and he added a minced clove of garlic, a minced sun-dried tomato, about a tablespoon of the tomato-flavored oil, then olive oil, red wine vinegar, a squirt of tomato paste, salt and julienned fresh basil, whisking all into a splendid mayonnaise, or aioli if you prefer. This went into the refrigerator while the potatoes cooked. But once drained, the hot potatoes were stirred into the aioli, then returned to the refrigerator.

One thing I have to say that impresses me about Carsberg’s cooking is that he is not afraid to use salt. I thought the aioli seemed salty. He added even more. But somewhere between the chilling and that time when the potato salad met up with the big flavor of the king salmon, balance and bliss had arrived, as had invigorating, muscular flavor.

Once the fumet had cooked down to his satisfaction, he heated up the oil under the salmon. Satisfied with the heat, Carsberg poured the hot fumet over the fillets, brought it to a quick simmer, covered the pan and removed it from the heat. He let it sit this way for 15 or 20 minutes while he worked on another part of the dinner, then removed them to the platter to cool. The fillets were perfectly cooked, the centers just beginning to fade off their deep pink.

I will confess that all along through this exercise I had been wondering about those mushrooms. What a rich, brooding sauce they could make, thought I. Carsberg looked over the boletes, however, and saw salad. He cut each one in half lengthwise, then cut the mushrooms into thin slices. He took the onion, halved it, then separated each layer before cutting slices, ending up with individual slices of onion that each had their own shape and integrity--a small point, granted, but, as it turned out, rather telling in the final assemblage. It’s just the kind of attention Carsberg brings to each of the foods, no matter how humble, that make up a whole meal. It’s as though the onion had its own inherent perfection, so why not liberate it? Why not honor it with a little extra bit of attention?

Carsberg cut the fresh peas on a lengthwise bias, then sauteed them in a little olive oil with salt and pepper over modest heat. He is one to stir, Carsberg is, almost as though he has to work off nervous energy. But as he stirred the peas over the heat he pointed out how they weren’t so much sauteing as they were steaming in their own juices. And that they were turning a deep green as a result, a green that would not diminish and fade in the salad.

In a large glass bowl he whisked together a simple vinaigrette of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, fresh thyme, minced Italian parsley, minced shallots and salt and pepper. Then he added the sliced boletes, the onion, the peas and a little chopped basil. End of story. As for the morels, he poached those in a little fumet.

While the morels cooked, Carsberg arranged the salmon fillets to face each other, like slices of bread, with a layer of potato salad in between. He surrounded the salmon with the remaining potato salad, then sprinkled the whole creation with finely julienned fresh basil.

To serve, he simply cut down through both fillets, adding a bit of potato salad to one side on the plate. This was complemented by the salad of fresh boletes and garden peas on the other side, and a healthy serving of hot morels right off the stove. Hot, warm, cool, the colors all earth-toned, the flavors speaking with distinct, magically enhanced voices. And all of it, off the cuff.

Carsberg had no idea what he was walking into when he appeared at my door, and truth be told, he was done cooking and fiddling around an hour later. He killed another hour throwing the ol’ baseball with my son. The kitchen, after all, was clean. The guests arrived, sat right down, and upon their departure only the merest speck of salmon and potato salad was left over. Lunch was concluded within an hour. I kind of had to blink twice.

Something extraordinary had taken place, right under my nose, as it were. Yet it was all so uncomplicated, the simplest of poems to the beauty and integrity of fine ingredients, that had I not experienced the flavors suggesting a summer to come, I would have overlooked the art at hand. For it is an art. And a delicious one at that.

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The following recipes might be considered the building blocks of Carsberg’s spontaneous meal. The idea is not to duplicate his Pacific Northwest lunch in your Southern California home kitchen--though you could approximate it by following the basic directions in Ingle’s story--but to re-create the spirit of the meal. Look for seasonal ingredients from local purveyors, keep your pantry stocked and your imagination open. Then come home and make a wonderful meal.

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Fish fumet is a good thing to have on hand when you’re putting together a spontaneous meal. In Carsberg’s menu, the fumet is used not only to poach the fish, but to flavor the aioli in the potato salad. This version uses salmon skin and trimmings--not a traditional choice because a fatty fish such as salmon tends to cloud up the liquid. You could make a fumet instead with the heads, bones and trimmings of any lean fish. A fumet can be started at the beginning of preparations for a meal or made ahead and frozen so it’s ready to use whenever you need it.

SALMON FUMET

1 quart water

2 cups dry white wine

Salmon trimmings and skin

1 handful fresh basil leaves

1 shallot, halved, skin on

2 to 3 cloves garlic, crushed

12 peppercorns

Salt

Place water, wine, salmon trimmings and skin, basil, shallot, garlic, peppercorns and salt to taste in large pot. Bring to boil.

Reduce heat and cook at rolling simmer, uncovered, about 30 minutes to reduce liquid and intensify flavor. Ladle off bones and pour through strainer into clean dish to store. Makes about 4 cups.

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A good aioli--France’s great garlicky version of mayonnaise--is useful for several kinds of dishes. Traditionally, a dab is served alongside cold poached fish or cold meat . . . or best of all, is mounted in a big bowl as a dip for crudites. Flavored with hot red pepper, it becomes rouille and goes into hot fish soup. Aioli is also served with hard-boiled eggs and salads. Keep it in mind as an idea to make even leftovers more interesting. Carsberg’s version calls for sun-dried tomatoes, vinegar and herbs, but the most traditional version has just egg yolk, garlic, salt and pepper worked into a paste with a mortar and pestle; oil is then slowly drizzled into the paste to form an emulsion. Note, however, the egg warning at the end of the recipe.

SUN-DRIED TOMATO AIOLI

2 egg yolks

1 tablespoon hot Salmon Fumet

1 clove garlic, minced

1 tablespoon minced fresh basil

1 sun-dried tomato, minced

1 tablespoon sun-dried tomato oil or olive oil

1 teaspoon tomato paste

1 tablespoon red wine vinegar or to taste

About 1 to 1 1/4 cups olive oil or to taste

Salt

Freshly ground pepper

Whisk yolks with hot Salmon Fumet over pot of simmering fumet (or water) until frothy. Turn off heat, add garlic, basil, sun-dried tomato, tomato oil, tomato paste and vinegar. Whisk ingredients together. Continue whisking while drizzling in olive oil to create emulsion. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Makes 1 1/3 cups.

Each 1-tablespoon serving contains about:

104 calories; 22 mg sodium; 26 mg cholesterol; 11 grams fat; 0 grams carbohydrates; 0 grams protein; 0 grams fiber.

Note : Although many recipes call for uncooked eggs, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has found them to be a potential carrier of food-borne illness and recommends that diners avoid eating raw eggs. Commercial egg substitutes that have been pasteurized may be used in place of raw eggs in certain circumstances. Check egg substitute package for applications.

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Like aioli, a vinaigrette transforms simple steamed vegetables into more than just a side dish. Carsberg uses this vinaigrette to dress a salad of mushrooms, snow peas and onions. You could use it on steamed asparagus or fresh garden tomatoes, whatever looks good in the market or in your back yard. Just remember to dress your salads lightly--the idea is to bring out the natural flavor of the vegetables, not to overwhelm them.

SALAD VINAIGRETTE

1 teaspoon fresh thyme

2 teaspoons Italian parsley

1 shallot, finely minced

1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar

3 tablespoons olive oil

Salt

Freshly ground pepper

Place thyme, parsley, shallot, vinegar, olive oil and salt and pepper to taste in small bowl and whisk until smooth. Makes about 1/4 cup vinaigrette.

Each 1-tablespoon serving contains about:

92 calories; 74 mg sodium; 0 mg cholesterol; 10 grams fat; 1 grams carbohydrates; 0 grams protein; 0.04 grams fiber.

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The next three recipes demonstrate how Carsberg used the vinaigrette, aioli and salmon fumet.

POACHED SALMON

2 (1 1/2-pound) salmon fillets, skin-on

Olive oil

Salt

Freshly ground pepper

Salmon Fumet (heated if made ahead)

Rub each salmon fillet with 1 tablespoon olive oil. Season to taste both sides of fillets with salt and pepper. Place 1 tablespoon olive oil in deep-sided pan (deep enough to hold fillets in one layer and fumet to cover). Place fillets in pan skin-side down.

Add enough fish fumet to completely cover fillets and bring to simmer. Cover and remove from heat, letting salmon cook through with reserved heat. Can stand 15 to 20 minutes. Salmon should flake slightly. Place fillets on platter to cool and remove skin. Makes 6 servings.

Each serving contains about:

325 calories; 133 mg sodium; 71 mg cholesterol; 18 grams fat; 0 grams carbohydrates; 40 grams protein; 0 grams fiber.

AIOLI POTATO SALAD

3 pounds red-skinned new potatoes, rinsed and halved

1 1/3 cups Sun-Dried Tomato Aioli

Cut halved new potatoes into small dice to make about 6 cups. Place in large pot, add water to cover and bring to boil. Cook until tender, about 5 minutes. Drain potatoes and place in large bowl.

Add aioli and stir to combine. Place in refrigerator 1/2 hour. Makes 10 servings.

Each serving contains about:

317 calories; 53 mg sodium; 54 mg cholesterol; 24 grams fat; 23 grams carbohydrates; 3 grams protein; 0.54 grams fiber.

MUSHROOM-SNOW PEA SALAD

1 pound mushrooms, brushed free of dirt

1 white onion

1/2 pound snow peas

2 teaspoons olive oil

Salt

Freshly ground pepper

Salad Vinaigrette

1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil

Cut each mushroom in half lengthwise, then thinly slice. Set aside.

Halve onion, separate each layer, then slice to preserve individual shape of each slice. Set aside.

Cut peas on lengthwise bias. Heat olive oil in skillet. Add peas and salt and pepper to taste. Saute briefly over moderate heat.

Place Salad Vinaigrette in bowl and add sliced mushrooms, onion, sauteed peas and chopped basil. Stir until thoroughly coated and mixed together. Taste and add salt and pepper if needed. Makes 6 servings.

Each serving contains about:

115 calories; 104 mg sodium; 0 mg cholesterol; 9 grams fat; 8 grams carbohydrates; 3 grams protein; 1.61 grams fiber.