Salmon Picatta

Delicate salmon in a light cream sauce. Unless your skillet is too hot, in which case, we’ll just call it crispy fried salmon….

Ingredients

  • Salmon Filets
  • Olive Oil
  • Chopped Garlic
  • Vegetable Stock
  • Butter
  • Heavy Cream
  • Capers
  • Salt
  • Pepper

Method

Heat the skillet and add a splash of olive oil to prevent sticking. Pat the salmon dry and sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper.

Add the salmon, skin side down, to the hot skillet. Leave it until you feel nervous about it burning – which will depend entirely upon how hot your skillet is. Flip it over and continue to cook it on the other side. Once cooked, remove it from the heat and place it under tin foil to keep it warm.

Add the chopped garlic and stir it around a bit. when the garlic starts to brown, add a cup of vegetable broth to the skillet and let it reduce. When I did this, my skillet was far too hot and it reduced in about 5 seconds. Basically, it just boiled right off and I had to add more. When you think you have the vegetable broth under control, add half a cup of cream and a tablespoon of butter.

At this point, you should have a nice cream sauce developing, but as I said, my skillet was far too hot and the sauce just reduced into a bubbling lava of cream and butter. Not bad, but not really what I was aiming for either…

Return the salmon to the pan, and spoon whatever remains of your cream sauce over the top. Add some capers, because you know you have some left over from breakfast. And besides, capers can make even a failed cream sauce look good.

I was planning on serving this with wild rice and steamed broccoli, but we weren’t that hungry so I skipped the carbs and just went with the salmon and broccoli. It actually turned out rather well, despite the overheated sauce. The salmon was crispy on the outside, perfectly seasoned and tender inside. The flavor of the garlic and capers in the cream sauce was still very present and I’m going to imagine it was healthier since most of it evaporated anyway.

Leave a Reply