martha's salmon in parchment

September 27th, 2010

This salmon dish takes 10 minutes to prep and 15 minutes to cook, making it ideal for a weeknight. I’ve experimented with extra spinach (too watery) but feel free to mix it up. It never fails to impress and clean up is 1 cutting board and 1 small bowl. Awesome all around

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened
• 1 tablespoon salt-packed capers, rinsed well and coarsely chopped
• 1 tablespoon coarsely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
• 1 clove garlic, finely chopped
• 1 large russet potato (about 1 pound), cut into 1/8-inch-thick slices
• Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper
• 2 shallots, thinly sliced
• 3 ounces (about 1 cup) baby spinach
• 2 salmon fillets (6 ounces and 1 1/2 inches thick each), skinned
• 1 lemon, thinly sliced

Preparation Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place a rimmed baking sheet in oven to heat. Cut parchment to size.
2. Stir together butter, capers, parsley, and garlic in a small bowl; set aside.
3. Divide potato slices between parchment rectangles, layering them in stacks to form a bed (slightly larger than the salmon fillet) to one side of crease. Season with salt and pepper.
4. Top each bed of potatoes with one quarter of the shallots followed by half the spinach. Place salmon fillets on top of spinach. Divide remaining shallots evenly between packets. Top each salmon fillet with lemon slices Dot with caper butter; season with salt and pepper: We now do the butter mixture under the lemon
5. Fold parchment paper over ingredients, at the crease. Starting with one end of the paper and keeping edges together, make small overlapping pleats the length of the paper, creasing tightly as you go and shaping the edge into an arc. The packet should resemble a half-moon.
6. Carefully transfer packets to preheated baking sheet. Bake until packets have puffed, 15 to 18 minutes. Transfer packets to plates. Serve immediately, opening packets at the table. Garnish with remaining lemon slices.

In case you need help with the parchment folding (I did)

recipe

Entry Filed under: At the stove