*Maple/ginger/soy-glazed, Cedar-planked Salmon In a small heavy saucepan simmer maple syrup, gingerroot, 3 tablespoons lemon juice, soy sauce, garlic, and salt and pepper to taste until reduced to about 1 cup, about 30 minutes, and let cool.

(Maple glaze may be made 2 days ahead and chilled, covered. Bring maple glaze to room temperature before proceeding.) Preheat oven to 175GradC. If using cedar plank, lightly oil and heat in middle of oven 15 minutes; or lightly oil a shallow baking pan large enough to hold salmon. Arrange scallion greens [see notes below] in one layer on plank or in baking pan to form a bed for fish.

In another small saucepan heat half of glaze over low heat until heated through to use as a sauce. Stir in remaining tablespoon lemon juice. Remove pan from heat and keep sauce warm, covered.

Put salmon, skin side down, on scallion greens and brush with remaining glaze. Season salmon with salt and pepper and roast in middle of oven until just cooked through, about 20 minutes if using baking pan or about 35 if using plank.

Remove from oven and serve with additional glaze sauce on the side.

We love to do this on a cedar "plank" - it makes such an impressive presentation, and smells wonderful (and does, I think, contribute to the flavour). However, we just go to the local lumber yard, and buy untreated cedar shingles for less than $1 each and toss them after use. Much easier, and less expensive, than buying one of those gourmet cedar cooking planks which are currently in vogue. If you go to the lumber yard, be sure to get regular cedar, *Not* aromatic cedar! The scallions were the one thing we forgot to get when we did our shopping for Nye dinner. Having already made the recipe several times, this time I believed we could do it without the scallions (you use the greens to lay the fish on for cooking). So we didn't use the scallions, and the fish came out just fine (just the same, in fact) actually it was even better, because the scallions don't really add to it any, and make the presentation less pretty. However, this was with the fish being cooked on the cedar - I suspect that if you are going to use a baking pan, you'll still want to lay down the scallion greens as a bed for the fish before cooking.

The original recipe calls for the fish to be carved into 6 pieces, and presented on a bed of mashed potatoes. To that I say "pish!" - bring the salmon, whole, and still on the plank, to the table - that's a great presentation! This is a really great recipe, which always elicits a lot of gasps of amazement and compliments - enjoy! This recipe was originally posted by Christine Healey, and came from Gourment Magazine.

It is surprisingly easy to make, and has a very high "wow" factor. :- ) It can also be made without the plank.