Baked Salmon with Garlic Oil

It’s a sunny spring day here in central Oregon; not quite warm, but it’s trying, and I’ll take it! Soon it will be grilling weather, but for now, I thought you might enjoy this delicious herbed baked salmon in garlic oil. I used dried shallots, lemon peel, and dill because I had them in my pantry. Of course, you can substitute with fresh if you wish. A ratio of 1:3 dried herbs to fresh is standard and is good for the shallots and lemon peel as well. I recommend you stick with the fresh garlic in the recipe.

This recipe works for skin-on or skinless, fresh or frozen, and thawed salmon. I baked the twenty-four-ounce filet whole, so if you cut it into smaller pieces, adjust the cooking time down to about fifteen minutes. Also, keep in mind that if you use wild salmon, it cooks faster because it has very little fat, so check it sooner than you would farmed salmon.

Scroll past the recipe for a little cookbook update!

Baked Salmon with Garlic Oil

(4 servings)

24 ounces salmon

1 teaspoon dried shallots

1/2 teaspoon dried dill

1/4 teaspoon dried minced lemon peel

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon black pepper

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 clove garlic, grated

fresh lemon slices or wedges

Preheat oven to 375º F.

Place the salmon on a sheet of aluminum foil large enough to wrap it in.

Combine the shallots, dill, lemon peel, salt, and black pepper with a mortar and pestle or in a small spice/coffee grinder. If you don’ t have either, simply crush them together with the back of a spoon on a flat surface to release the flavors. Grate the garlic and stir it with the spices into the olive oil.

Rub the oil mixture generously over the salmon. Wrap it in the foil, taking care to make sure it can’t leak.

Bake for 20 – 25 minutes, depending on the thickness of the salmon, until it’s cooked through and flakes easily. If desired, place it under the broiler for few minutes to brown the top.

Remove from the foil and serve with fresh lemon. Serve it with Roasted Baby Potatoes and Roasted Asparagus with Lemon Vinaigrette and Feta or Spinach, Strawberry & Goat Cheese Salad with Poppyseed Vinaigrette for a lovely spring meal.

Cookbook Update

If I had to ballpark a timeline, I’d say I should have my book, Living Legacy: Stories of a Restaurant Family ready for purchase by the end of May. I was really hoping to have it finished in time for Mother’s Day but everything is taking longer than I anticipated. I’m self-publishing and I uploaded the pdf’s for the interior and cover today. Now I’ll wait to see if there are any issues with the files (fingers crossed I fixed them already!) and to receive a printed copy I can look over before I release it to the public.

It’s been a huge learning curve, but I’ve enjoyed (almost) every frustrating minute because now I know how to write and design a cookbook. I’m not sure what my next one will feature but it will definitely have some lighter recipes after fixing and eating all of the rich restaurant food, delicious as it was. I’m excited to get back into more recipe development of my own!