Tomato Fennel Salmon Recipe. Pasta Variation
My Fennel Salmon was a huge hit!
It was born of my perennial attempts to make my fans fall in love with fennel.Why is Fennel so hard to love this side of the Pond? We are making some inroads, I’m glad to report! I figured, I will camouflage the fennel by:
– Grinding it
– Pairing it with surefire crowdpleasers like tomatoes, salmon and olives
– Making it on a stovetop, tajine-style. So I spread the preserved lemons thick. What could possibly beat a Moroccan dish?
Sorry but not sorry about tricking you: my Fennel Salmon was devoured.
So I made a sort of coulis with the tomatoes and fennel, and used it as a bed for the salmon. It was easy and quick, and it smelled heavenly. Oh, and no searing, no frying no sauteing. All aboard, that’s all!
Oh wait, no, that’s NOT all: Take a look!
I made this fabulous pasta with the leftover Fennel Salmon:
All I did here was toss some boiled rice noodles with the salmon (which i flaked) and the sauce, and it was the best. So: two great dishes for the price of one? Sounds good to me!
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1 large head fennel, quartered, cores discarded
- 1 small red onion
- 4 large cloves garlic
- 1 bunch flat parsley
- 1 large bunch dill
- 1/2 preserved lemon, skin only, rinsed (settle for the zest of 2 lemons
- 2 large tomatoes, diced (settle for 2 cups canned crushed tomatoes)
- 2 good pinches saffron
- 2 teaspoons turmeric
- 1/2 cup pitted good quality black or green olives, cut in half lengthwise
- 8 6-ounce slivers salmon, boneless skinless
Instructions
Heat the oil in a heavy wide bottom pot.
In a food processor, coarsely grind, in batches if necessary, the fennel, onion, garlic, parsley, dill and preserved lemon.
Transfer the ground mixture to the pot. Stir in the tomatoes, saffron, turmeric and olives.
Gently arrange the salmon on top of the mixture. Bring to a boil. Reduce the flame to medium, and cook, covered. 20 minutes.
Transfer the fish to a platter with a slotted spoon. cook the fennel mixture a few minutes longer, mixing 2-3 times with a spoon, until it looks like a thick coulis.
Arrange the coulis in the bottom of the platter, and the salmon on top. Serve hot or at room temperature.
Makes 8 servings.
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