Tuscan Butter Salmon

 

We love to eat salmon, it's a very tasty fish and it's good for you (all those Omega-3 fatty acids). There are many ways to prepare it, however, we are picky in one regard - it has to be Pacific salmon, and we especially love wild caught sockeye salmon with its rich color and even richer flavor. Compared to that, Atlantic salmon which is often farm raised appears pretty bland. 

Usually I cook salmon without following any recipe - you can fry it, bake it, broil it, grill it. You can make wonderful salmon dips with hot smoked salmon (here is a recipe). Cold smoked salmon is tasty on bagels or mixed into a pasta dish and had been our traditional Christmas Eve meal. When I found the recipe for Tuscan Butter salmon, I had to try it - it has become a favorite dish and a nice glass of a dry white wine completes the meal.

Fresh sockeye salmon is expensive, so I usually buy the frozen one at Trader Joe's which is much more affordable (I don't know whether only the Trader Joe's on the West Coast carries it or you can get it all over the country). Thaw overnight in the fridge and it's good to go for your dinner.

Since it already has the veggies and the cream, I often serve "blitz"-focaccia with it that I had baked in the afternoon (recipe here).

Sometimes I put lemons on it, sometimes I don't - it depends on my mood (and whether I just ran out off lemons...),

If you're interested in the recipe, you can find it here. This is one of the recipes that was perfect from the start, so I never had to change anything.

We have salmon fairly often and if there is a special occasion I even get fresh sockeye from the farmers market. For a regular weeknight meal I sometimes grill it in my grill pan and serve sautéed veggies on the side.

Another favorite way is covering it with a mixture of breadcrumbs, olive oil or melted butter, garlic, herbs and parmesan, then bake it in the oven.

When I was making it this way the last time, I had too much of the breadcrums-mix, so I just threw it in with the zucchini for the last couple minutes of sautéeing. It was delicious.

I'm linking up to Kathy's Food Wednesdays.