Your Christmas main dish for this year has just landed!! Have you ever seen a Baked Salmon look so festive?? And it’s so EASY!
Every year I try to come up with one great centrepiece Christmas main dish that is you can make-ahead and is super simple, but still has that extra wow factor that will make YOU the star at Christmas Dinner
Have you ever seen a Baked Salmon that looks so festive? What’s more, it’s dead easy ! Featuring a honey butter-glazed side of salmon baked in foil, slathered with creamy dill sauce and finally topped with a glittering Holiday “Tapenade”, this Salmon Tarator inspired dish pays extremely high dividends for very little work.
Ingredients
SALMON:
- 1.2 – 1.5 kg / 2.4 – 3lb salmon side
- 2 1/4 tsp salt , cooking/kosher
- 1 tsp black pepper
HONEY BUTTER GLAZE:
- 150g / 5oz butter , unsalted
- 1/2 cup honey
- 3 garlic cloves , finely minced (garlic press or knife)
CREAMY DILL SAUCE:
- 1 1/2 cups sour cream , full fat (low fat is too watery)
- 1/2 cup fresh dill , finely chopped (lightly packed cup)
- 1/2 eschallot (French onion) , finely grated
- 1 1/2 tbsp lemon zest
- 1/2 tsp salt , cooking/kosher
HOLIDAY “TAPENADE”:
- 1 cup dried cranberries
- 1 cup orange juice
- 1/3 cup parsley , roughly chopped
- 1/4 tsp each salt and pepper
- 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
FINISHING:
- 1 pomegranate , only the seeds
- 1/4 cup parsley , roughly chopped
- 3 tbsp lemon juice
- 2 lemons, extra , cut in 6 pieces each
Instructions
CREAMY DILL SAUCE
- Mix ingredients in a bowl until smooth. Keep refrigerated until required.
HOLIDAY TAPENADE
- Plump cranberries: Heat orange juice in a saucepan over high heat until hot. Turn stove off, add cranberries, cover. Stand 15 minutes, then drain in a colander (discard liquid). Cool.
- Mix: Mix cranberries, toasted almonds (see Note 3), parsley, salt and olive oil in bowl. Use at room temp.
COOKING SALMON
- Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F (all oven types).
- Prepare salmon: Place a large sheet of foil on a tray (double layer for safety is recommended), then top with baking/parchment paper. Place salmon on paper, then fold up the foil sides a bit to cup them so glaze won’t run onto tray.
- Glaze: Place ingredients in a saucepan over medium high heat. Once it started foaming, turn down to medium, let it foam for 2 minutes then remove and pour straight over the salmon.
- Season: Sprinkle salmon with salt and pepper, putting most of the salt on the thicker part of the salmon.
- Wrap: Cover salmon with a smaller piece of paper, then foil. Fold and seal up sides to enclose salmon in a parcel – it doesn’t need to be 100% tightly sealed.
- Bake 15 minutes. Remove salmon from oven, then uncover.
- Grill/broil to brown: Switch oven to gill/boiler on high. Broil 7 to 10 minutes until you get caramelisation mostly on the edges, a bit on top. Check to ensure salmon is cooked – either pry open in middle to check or use a probe to check internal temperatures
- Transfer to plate: Use foil overhang to transfer salmon onto serving platter straight away (otherwise it keeps cooking). Slide the foil then paper out from under the salmon or step photos in post), allowing juices to pool on platter (it’s gold stuff!).
- Cool: Loosely cover with foil, then leave to cool for at least 15 minutes, up to 1 hour or longer (for room temp serving
ASSEMBLY AND SERVING
- Dollop then thickly spread with Creamy Dill Sauce (~0.8cm / 1/3″ thick layer).
- Pile over Holiday Tapenade, scatter generously with pomegranate seeds, and then remaining parsley. Squeeze over lemon juice.
- Serving: Serve with extra lemon wedges so people can add more to taste. Cut into pieces – I use a cake cutter for serving. Encourage people to slop up some of the honey-butter sauce that will be mixed with semi melted Creamy Dill Sauce – it’s so good! This dish is best served slightly warm, not piping hot, also excellent at room temp.
