Salmon with Crisp Potatoes and Olives

Ah, the lowly salmon fillet. It's the boneless skinless chicken breast of our day: a cliché, really. One that gets a tad tired. Or tiring. Whatever. It can be decidedly dull. But stocked with omega-3s, it's real food, a high-nutrition feast. How then to make it exciting?

I've been puzzling on this and I think I've come up with one delicious solution. Delicious enough that Bruce and I have had it for dinner now on two Tuesdays running. I had to share it with you: a skillet sauté for salmon fillets with potatoes and olives that get crisp.

Yes, even the olives. You really let them go. The potatoes, too. Until you have this crisp, salty bed for the salmon. Pure bliss. I sucked mine down last night with a glass of Coffaro Fresco. (If you don't know about the fantastic wines from the Coffaros in California, then check them out here. They'll drop ship right to your house. Plus, Pat's a pleasure to get to know!)

OK, so here's how to get the job done.

First, prep the ingredients. Mind you, this is the hardest part of the whole thing. I'm going to give this to you for two servings, but you can double at will, provided you have a big skillet.

First, put five or six small red-skinned potatoes to cook in a steamer set over simmering water. You want the little potatoes to be tender when poked with a knife but the jackets should still be intact, not splitting. In other words, you don't want them too soft, just on the verge of being tender. Ten to twelve minutes should do it, depending on their size.

Run cold water over the potatoes to stop their cooking, then slice them into 1/4-inch thick rings. Now for the other ingredients: 1/2 cup sliced pitted green olives, 1 or 2 tablespoons minced rosemary leaves, 1 or 2 tablespoons minced parsley or the inner leaves of celery (your choice), 1 1/2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar, and a couple lemon wedges.

You can make this earlier in the day and set it aside until you're ready. Or you can get this going when you first walk in from work, then pop open the wine, go change into something way more comfortable, and come back when you've taken a breather.

Because now you're ready to start cooking. Pour about 2 tablespoons olive oil in a big nonstick skillet, then set it over medium-high heat for a couple minutes, until the oil pools and gathers together over the heat. Add two 4- to 5-ounce salmon fillets skin side down and cook for 4 minutes, shaking the skillet occasionally to make sure they're not stuck.

Flip them and continue cooking a couple minutes, until they're to your liking. I tend to like mine quite pink, almost red in the middle; Bruce is more the "cooked through" type. You pick your poison. The real point was to make sure that skin got crisp on the first go-round. This is just the finish on the fillets.

Take the fillets out of the skillet and set them skin side up on a plate. (That way, the skin will stay crisp, won't steam underneath.) Pour another tablespoon of olive oil into the skillet.

Add the potato rounds. And leave them be for four minutes. You want them to brown and crisp on one side. Decadently so. No cheating. This is the best part.

Drop the heat to medium-low and stir in the rosemary and parsley or celery leaves. Cook for a minute, stirring everything up. Then add the olives. If possible, make sure the potato rounds are on their unbrowned sides. Turn the heat back to medium-high and let it go another three minutes or so, to get the olives brown on one side and the potatoes even crunchier.

Pour in the balsamic vinegar and stir it around as it boils like mad, making sure that the potatoes get a good dose of it as it boils away. Once the skillet is about dry again, you're done.

Spoon the potato mixture onto two serving plates, then set the salmon fillets on top, skin side down this time. Squeeze a lemon wedge over each and have at it. Like I said, pure bliss.

Comments

[Rocky Mountain Woman]

I love crispy anything. I usually pan fry my salmon, but this takes it to a new level!

Thanks....

[Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial]

This dish sounds delicious Mark! Salmon and potatoes, for me it's one of those magic food combinations, and I love it in all forms! A local cafe we go to always serves two dishes of salmon and potatoes - one with a bed of sliced steam potatoes, smoked salmon, rocket and aioli, and another of panfried salmon and either mash or potato salad.

Since we've been discussing real foods - do you have an opinion about wild vs farmed salmon? Stuff in the press is always conflicted - over the years I've read that farmed salmon isn't great because of the way they're pellet fed and farmed in congested conditions, and that the red colour is largely a product of what they're fed. Then recently there were concerns with wild salmon - to be honest, I can't remember what they were now. It's a moot point here, as we don't have access to wild, and I adore my salmon so I'm not giving it up any time soon.. :)

[Mark Scarbrough]

Celia: The questions of salmon sustainability are so knotty, they're almost impossible to decode. There are pros and cons both ways, farming to wild-caught fishing. Some salmon farms do not practice the dye-coloring of the fish; some do not feed the salmon salmon-based fishmeal. (Wasn't that the first line of a Melville novel? Call me fishmeal.) As you probably know, salmon stocks have collapsed in some parts of North America. In the end, it's best to buy salmon from a reputable fishmonger who can tell you the ends and outs of the catch and their stance on it. If the guy behind the counter seems surly or uninformed, take your business elsewhere.