A Fishy Story...

Through a curious series of (in this case) fortunate events, I came across an intriguing recipe for salmon which included Miracle Whip and Mayonnaise, which I think I passed along in an earlier post. It was included in a great little blog I found (through those events) created by “Kansas A.”, who lives in British Columbia on a cattle ranch. She has great photos and includes a running commentary on life in the mountains. Currently she's keeping a wary eye on a forest fire. You might enjoy looking at in once in a while.

Anyway, in one entry she included this recipe which sounded a bit different. Although she has the luxury of starting with her own fresh caught salmon, I obtained my fillet by battling the local traffic, waiting in line at the seafood counter, and suffering the usual checkout drill. Then, into the test kitchen, camera in hand (so to speak) and away we go. Ingredients:



Since the salmon is baked, removing the skin is necessary and is done by: a) asking the butcher to do it; or b) much more fun – do it yourself. It’s not hard to do, just get a suitable sharp knife a cutting board, and you’re set. Start by making a little slice on the tail end, and grab the skin in your left hand (or right, depending) and keeping the knife toward the skin, slice the skin away from the meat keeping a pretty good tension on the skin. It should come off fairly cleanly.










If you don’t want to prepare the dish right then, you can wrap the fillet in plastic and set it on a bed of ice in the fridge.



Next, assemble the coating (I whisked together equal amounts),






Arrange the salmon on a foil lined baking sheet (I used a little Pam as the recipe calls for), and coat it with the “sauce”, which I did fairly thickly with a spatula, put “lots” of soy sauce and then “lots” of the dried dill weed. Voila! Ready for the oven.



It was at this point that the intrepid chef got a lesson of his own. In his rush to get the dish in the oven, he completely forgot to take a picture of the assembled product – more to learn.

At any rate, after about 25 minutes in a 350 deg (convection bake) oven, it looks like this:




With the famous "serving suggestion":



We selected the Pine Ridge ’07 Chenin Blanc/Viognier which stood up well with the salmon. Since this was my first prep of the dish, I am not sure about the amount of Mayo/Salad Dressing to use. It certainly results in a moist, well cooked fillet, but we thought maybe it was a little much. I certainly would try it again and it’s very easy to do. Prep time was probably shorter than it took to create this! After putting away the camera gear and kitchen mess, I relaxed and

DFD'd and enjoyed:

Baked Salmon

Fillet it.
Line a cookie sheet with tinfoil and spray a touch of cooking spray (Pam) on it.
Combine salad dressing (Miracle Whip) with mayonnaise (Hellman's). Or one of them if you don't have both.
Spread mixture with a spatula over fillets.
Sprinkle lots of soy sauce over.
Shake dried dill weed over both fillets.
Cook for about 25 minutes at 350 degrees.
Makes for a very moist fish with a touch of sauce. Very good :)

From Kansas A Blog, Monday July 6, 2009
http://kansasa.blogspot.com/