Pea Purée with Roasted Salmon and Chives


My most common use of peas tends to be as an addition to Indian leftovers. I wanted to do something a little more sophisticated with my staple of frozen peas. Lately pea puree with a good quality protein has been popping up in my favorite restaurants. Roasted salmon happens to be my favorite protein to make at home and I figured it would look great on a base of pea puree - a beautiful color contrast. This dish is simple to make to elegant enough to impress anyone.

Ingredients:
1 pound of salmon fillet, cut into 4 portions
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
1 large shallot, finely chopped
2-3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 cups frozen peas
1/2 cup chicken broth (or veggie)
salt and pepper to taste
2 tablespoons cream (optional)
bunch of chives, finely chopped

Directions:
In a medium sauce pan, melt the butter with the olive oil over low-medium heat. Add in the chopped shallot and garlic, sweat until translucent with frequent stirring. Add in the peas and broth. Bring to a simmer. Season to taste. Add in the cream. Remove from heat and allow to cool enough where you feel it is safe to blend with an immersion blender (my favorite) or a standard blender.

Preheat oven to 400F. Place cut salmon on a sheet with a rack (optional) and sprinkle with salt. Note: do not add any oil to the salmon. It's fatty enough on its own. Cook for about 10-15 minutes depending on your preference of doneness. In a shallow bowl, pour a thin layer of the pea puree and even out. Place a piece of salmon on top. Garnish with the chopped chives. Serve immediately. Makes 4 portions. Visualize whirled peas (I couldn't resist).

-Erin Swing
The Sensitive Epicure

This is part of Food Network's Summer Fest. Check out The FN Dish. The summer product we're focusing on here are peas. On twitter, we're tagging #SummerFest. Here are other peas, please recipes to try out:


Comments

Frank Peter said…
I created this recipe after tasting the bourbon oven baked salmon from my neighbourhood supermarket fish counter. That was really superb. We adored it. This had been quite simple and a dish I would make for company. The only real reason I could imagine that this burning off is cooking it on too high of heat. Judge your cooker persons. In case it cooks hot, don't cook it on medium high. Mine cooks quite inexpensively, so I only turned it down. I'd plenty of really yummy marinade which reduced down along with caramelized attractively. The oven baked salmon was moist, flaky and also the flavour was amazing. I served it over rice, with stir-fried snow peas, carrots and sprouts cooked using a little-minced garlic, only just a tiny soy sauce, peanut oil, a very small bit of peppermint oil and a spoonful of toasted sesame oil. What an excellent meal! If you prefer to know much additional oven baked salmon snacks, Steak or bourbon salmon together with caramelized then you definitely may click on this site also, I have lots of excellent hints in making salmon recipes.