We love salmon around here with wild sockeye a top contender oh and horseradish is right up there too. Last night we combined the two along with some butter and fresh bread crumbs and it resulted in an incredibly fast, easy on the cook and company worthy dinner entree.
A recipe from Cathy Lowe at Foodnetwork.com, this preparation has exactly 7 ingredients and 2 of them are salt and pepper. Hit the link above and it'll take you right to the recipe but before you go, here's what I did. I checked the 12 ounces of salmon fillet for bones and managed to find a couple to remove, then I washed and dried my sockeye well and dusted it in salt and pepper. I combined room temperature butter, horseradish and soft breadcrumbs together and piled it lightly on top of the salmon pieces, then sauteed them skin side down until golden on the bottom, before they finished cooking under the broiler (4 minutes). The result is delightful combination of salmon flavor and spicy assertive horseradish - amazing really, because one flavor doesn't cancel out the other and together they're blissful, especially with a little squeeze of lemon on top.
By the way I learned something I didn't know before as we watched Top Chef last night, and that is about albumin or the white stuff that comes out of salmon as it cooks. Albumin is a protein in the muscle of the flesh, and as it's warmed the fibers contract and push the moisture rich albumin to the surface of the fish causing a white film to form. It doesn't taste bad, it just doesn't look pretty. Apparently the key is to cook the salmon at a lower temperature so in this instance, it means I should have sauteed the fish at a lower temperature for a longer period, then kept it farther from the broiler flame instead of right directly under the darn thing. It still tasted fine, just didn't look as pretty as it would have otherwise.
As you can see we had our salmon along with some steamed asparagus with a lemon butter sauce and oven roasted butternut squash kissed with salt, pepper and a touch of honey. Yum! If by any chance you're stuck with what to cook for Christmas Eve this would be a great contender. It really is special and doesn't take much more than 30 minutes to put together, from start to finish.
Oh one more thing - that horseradish, butter and breadcrumb combination would be fabulous on a hunk of beef tenderloin or a rack of lamb. Just sayin'.
A year ago - Honey Baked Drumsticks
I never knew about the albumin thing until just now (reading it here), either! I bet that would be fabulous with gluten-free bread crumbs hehehehehe. Glad you are feeling better, my friend!
Posted by: Lea | 12/23/2011 at 08:55 AM