Many household freezers have some – or even a lot – of salmon waiting their turn on the menu. Hopefully all our salmon is wild salmon and not the farmed Atlantic Salmon that is so common in stores these days.
Farmed salmon looks and sounds to be less expensive, but if all the factors are weighed into the equation, the wild pacific salmon is by far the best deal and the best fish. The wild salmon can be self-caught or purchased off the boat or at the store in Haines, Homer or Valdez Alaska.
There is also a store on 4th Avenue here in Whitehorse, called Haines Packing Co. Whitehorse, that sells seafood including sockeye salmon from the Telegraph Creek area. Seasonal fish and seafood are for sale by order, or right off the ice pack in at least one trailer sales outlet every year.
All these fish are fresh caught and your task is to cut the fish into meal sized portions and shrink wrap for the freezer. It won’t take you long to discover that fish that are frozen whole are not as convenient to use as fish that are filleted and cut to meal sized portions before freezing.
There are many delightful ways to prepare salmon including a cast iron pan, tin-foil, kitchen oven and the outdoor grill. A real advantage to the outdoor grill is that it can act as an oven or barbecue grill – and either way the cleanup is minimal.
A quick Google or Youtube search will get you more easy-to-follow recipes and tips than you could ever use.
Let’s start with an extremely tasty, fairly simple oven recipe and then in later articles we’ll try some other approaches.
Baked Salmon with Garlic and Dijon
Ingredients:
whole or part fillet, skin on, cut into serving sized portions
2-3 Tbsps chopped parsley
3 pressed garlic cloves or 1 rounded Tbsp crushed garlic
½ Tbsp your choice of Dijon mustard
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp pepper
2 Tbsp light olive oil
2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice and 2 thin lemon slices for each piece of fish
Method:
With tin-foil line an ovenproof dish and preheat oven to 450ºF.
In a bowl mix parsley, garlic, Dijon, salt, pepper, olive oil and lemon juice to make the sauce.
Lay salmon pieces skin side down on foil, brush all over with sauce and lay two lemon slices on each piece. Bake 12-15 minutes at 450ºF. Careful not to overcook.
If you serve with a spatula, the meat can easily be served, leaving the skin behind on the foil.
