Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Really Easy Baked Salmon

The truth is that I am a lazy cook who enjoys good food. I cook because I can't tolerate food that is not done to my taste and I get really frustrated when we pay good money (lose so much $$$$) for food that's not even tasty enough!

Anyway, because I'm a lazy cook, I tend to cook my food very "simply" (simple and err... I'm always looking for short cuts).. and because of my love to simply cook with whatever there is in the pantry, H has taken to calling my dishes "ONE STEP TOO SHORT". Huh! Which basically means that I always ter-forgot (or purposely forgot!) to do a certain required step in preparing that dish (recently I really did forget to strain / tapis my agar-agar before I added in the fruits and chilled it) or I'd miss out a certain required ingredient for the dish (like the fact that I didn't have sago beads for my pengat pisang last weekend and put in some corn flour instead to make it thicker).

But this dish is something of a favourite to me because it's so simple, you just can't go wrong. Plus it tastes so good too. If you're having a busy day and want something you can just shove into the oven, this is it.

REALLY EASY BAKED SALMON

Ingredients:
1 piece salmon
2 teaspoons olive oil (I use really good quality olive oil because good ingredients make a lot of difference)
2 teaspoons of lemon juice (we opt for bottled concentrated lemon juice from Berri)
Seasonings; salt, fine black pepper, a small amount of fresh dill (or a sprinkling of dried dill from McCormicks)

Method:
- Heat oven to 175 degrees Celcius.
- After cleaning your salmon, pat dry with kitchen towel and put it on a plate, season generously (according to personal preferences) with salt, fine black pepper and fresh/dry dill.
- Place salmon in a piece of aluminium foil (large enough to wrap the salmon in).
- Drizzle olive oil and lemon juice all over the top of the salmon.
- Wrap the salmon in the foil, careful not to let the oil and juice escape.
- Place salmon on a tray, put the tray in the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes.
- If you prefer your salmon dryer / "crispier", open the foil after 20 minutes and bake the salmon for a further 10 minutes.

NOTE: H likes his salmon not-totally-cooked (he likes them soft and juicy on the inside and crispy on the outside, whereas I like mine thoroughly cooked and somewhat dry!), so he bakes it for 15 minutes covered, 10 minutes opened. I cook mine as stated above.

Serve with lemon wedges, roasted potatoes and if you have it... an avacado salad would be perfect!

1 comment:

ummi sa'eed said...

teringat masa kat US. my easy bake salmon lagi senang.

wash salmon
put on tray
open oven door
put in tray
close oven door
set timer
wait

hehe...takpun boil/steam aje.