Okay, so this one was seven ingredients. I obeyed the rule this time. I usually begin thinking about my escapades, as the previous post hinted, by considering what I have on hand, and particularly, what is about to "go to glory," as a friend of mine like to say.
So here are the ingredients I used this time:
1. A fillet of salmon
2. A couple of bags of sun-dreid tomatoes
3. Fresh parsley
4. Garlic
5. Lemon juice
6. Honey
7. Fresh Jalapeño Pepper
I began by chopping up the sun-dreid tomatoes and tossing them in a bowl with the parsley, garlic, lemon juice, a small amount of honey and the seeded and chopped jalapeño pepper. I let that sit for about an hour or so at room temperature and stirred it every so now and then to marry the flavors.
When it was time to prepare the salmon I placed it skin-side down on a tray and drizzled with about scant tablespoon of honey over the exposed side and sprinkled with salt and pepper. I roasted the salmon in our toaster oven since it was such a small fillet. I started on broil setting, but our toaster oven is rather old and it fazes in and out at broil setting, so I finally just set it for the highest temperature which is 500º. I have no confidence in the accuracy of that measurement.
I roasted the salmon for five minutes and then turned it over, removed the skin and drizzled it with another scant tablespoon of honey and sprinkled it with salt and pepper. I returned it to the toaster oven for another five minutes.
I turned the salmon over and roasted it for five minutes on each side again.
I plated it simply by placing a serving of the salmon on a plate and dressing the side with the salsa.
Critique:
I was worried the salmon would be too sweet with the honey but it wasn't. I nailed that part. Interestingly, the honey was given to me as a Christmas gift by a friend who harvested it from her own hive. It was from a private hive that has no specificity to it. In other words, it is not processed and it is not specifically a clover honey or the like. Curiously it is quite sweet as honey should be, but it is surprisingly lighter tasting and not as thick and oppressively sweet as commercial honey. This may be why the salmon wasn't too sweet.
The salsa was not bad. I would add another jalapeño but I was concerned it would be a bit on the hot side. Fresh jalapeños can be unpredictable. In fact, I believe what are often sold as fresh jalapeños may actually be any number of varieties of peppers that significantly differ in their Scofield index numbers (http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/pepper/msg070813259265.html), (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scoville_scale). Seeding a pepper always has an impact on its spiciness, so that may also be a way of mitigating the success of this recipe.
One thing I did not mention above is that I actually had two types of sun-dried tomatoes. One was just simple sun-dried tomatoes. The other package was smoked. Now smoked sun-dried tomatoes might just be an important twist in certain situations, but not in this one. Had all the tomatoes not been smoked, I think the dish would have been more successful.
Verdict:
I would make it again but without using smoked sun-dried tomatoes and paying closer attention to the spiciness of the "jalapeños".
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