The Triumphant Salmon

Posted by Moose on April 23rd, 2006. Filed under: I Live to Eat.

I made salmon for the first time this evening. I only burned myself in three different places. Which qualifies this dinner as an official triumph. Luckily, the salmon was tender and tasty. If I have to burn myself (and I do), I don’t want to be burning myself for crappy fish. There is no photo of the Triumphant Salmon for two reasons: 1. I tripped and broke my camera 2. We had eaten it before I remembered that I should have taken a picture.

The salmon recipe is courtesy of Mark Bittman’s The Minimalist Cooks at Home. Half the book is bookmarked with sticky notes. As I express my love with post-its, this should give you a reasonable approximation of my devotion to minimalist cooking (in my case, read: lazy) in general, and Mark Bittman in particular.

Spice Rubbed Salmon

Four 6-ounce salmon fillets
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon ground coriander, 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves, 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin and 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 tablespoons olive oil

Season filletes on both sides with salt and pepper.
Combine spices and press the mixture into the nonskin side of the fillets.
Refrigerate and cover for up to 24 hours.
When ready to cook, preheat oven to 450 degrees. Preheat nonstick skillet over medium high heat for 3 or 4 minutes. Add olive oil, place fillets (coated side down) in pan. Cook until spice mixture forms nicely browned crust (about 1 minute).
Turn fillets and cook 1 minute more.
Transfer to oven. Cook about six minutes.

Then devour in under two.

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  3. Trying to Avoid a Bad Pun about Snickering
  4. Triumphant Return of the Dense Chocolate Loaf Cake
  5. Wilted Spinach Salad a la Moose

3 Responses to The Triumphant Salmon

  1. Dave

    It has been a while since I made salmon. This recipe uses my favorite technique, sear-roasting. I think I will give it a try this weekend!

  2. Cath

    Seriously, I love this blog. It cracks me up. Bravo on the salmon! I’m excited because I just picked up two Sockeye Salmon filets and I was wondering what to do with them. I think I’ll try this recipe!

  3. moose

    Thanks, Cath! The recipe turned out remarkably well, even with this fat burn on my thumb. I hope it works out for you too.

    Additional notes: Spice mixture may yield more than you’ll use on four fillets. I just put mine in a ziplock bag for my next salmon purchase. Also, you don’t have to refrigerate the salmon. You can just leave the spice mixture on for about 20 minutes before tossing in the pan.

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