Salmon is a red fish from the salmon family. This is a complete source of essential amino acids, easily digestible protein, vitamins and trace elements. Nutritionists recommend including salmon fish in your daily diet. The best option is to bake salmon in the oven. How to do this without loss of product quality, keeping the fish juicy and not overdrying?
Selection and Cooking Tips
How to choose fresh salmon? Much depends on the quality of the carcass: taste, aroma, texture of the finished dish. In a quality freshly caught salmon, the eyes should be transparent, without bloody veins. The aroma should be fresh, without a hint of rotten meat. Fish meat should be dense, from pale pink to deep red in color, not to fall apart into fibers. It is always better to buy salmon in the market, gutting it at home on your own.
If the fish is not the first freshness, it will fall apart into fibers, spoiling the whole appearance and taste of the final dish. In addition, the aroma will give out freshness.
The main problem when baking and stewing salmon fish is the dryness of the finished dish. To make the steaks soft and juicy, you must use the sauce. If you have time - leave raw portioned salmon steaks marinated in sauce for a couple of hours. You cannot leave the salmon in the marinade for more than five hours: it will begin to deteriorate and decompose into fibers.
The best sauce and marinade
Sauces for salmon steaks - creamy, citrus, wine. Before baking, marinate the fish for two hours. Juicy salmon baked in the oven will delight even the most seasoned gourmet!
Cream sauce is versatile in its simplicity and sophisticated taste. To prepare it you will need:
- cream - about 200 ml;
- butter - 50 gr;
- wheat flour - 1 tablespoon;
- black pepper and salt to taste.
In a dry calcined pan, fry the flour until golden brown, add cream and butter, mix thoroughly with a spatula. Do not overdo the sauce on the stove, it can burn - five to seven minutes is enough. Spices and herbs are added at the end.
Citrus Sauce Ingredients:
- orange juice - 200 ml;
- maple syrup - 50 ml;
- rice vinegar - a tablespoon;
- nutmeg, coriander, salt, black pepper - add to taste.
It does not require heat treatment, just mix all the ingredients and pickle the steak.
Wine sauce, as the name implies, requires quality dry white wine. Amount for marinade per 1 kg of fish - 200 ml. Salmon generally wonderfully combined with dry white wine.
- lemon juice;
- spices - oregano, nutmeg, salt, black pepper - to taste;
- a glass of white dry wine.
This sauce does not require heat treatment. Soak in it salmon steaks for a couple of hours - in the end we get a tender, soft, very aromatic meat.
Greens and seasonings
Perfectly complement the taste of salmon oregano, nutmeg, coriander. Be careful with black pepper - literally a pinch will be enough. Fish quickly absorbs salt, it is easy to overdo it. This can ruin the taste of the finished dish. For 1 kg of fish, a teaspoon of salt without a slide is enough.
Greens are used to taste. Provencal herbs, ordinary dill, green onions refresh the dish and give it a mouth-watering look. Everyone can quickly and tasty bake salmon steak in the oven. There are many recipes, choose to your taste!
How to bake salmon with potatoes and onions
Fish with potatoes and onions is hearty and tasty, you can feed one such dish even to a large family.
- Pre-cut salmon into steaks of medium size (about 5 cm along the ridge). Marinate in a creamy or citrus sauce for a couple of hours.
- While the fish is insisting, peel the potatoes and onions, cut into medium sized slices, and chop the onions in large rings.
- In a container with thick walls, mix potatoes, onions, marinade, fish. If you are not afraid of the final calorie content of the dish, add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil. If you follow the figure - then you can do without it.
- At what temperature do you bake salmon in the oven? Optimum 180-200 degrees. By time - no more than 45-50 minutes. If you overdo the dish in the oven - you get boiled porridge.
Salmon in Citrus Foil
This is an unusual recipe with which you can surprise your loved ones:
- We cut the rings orange, grapefruit, pomelo. Peeling is not necessary, just rinse the citrus fruits thoroughly with a sponge.
- Add a tablespoon of maple syrup, as much apple cider vinegar. Spices and herbs to taste. Use coriander, nutmeg, olive herbs, oregano.
- In the resulting sauce, marinate the salmon steaks for a couple of hours.
- Put everything in a container with thick walls (we do not remove the citrus fruit circles - we bake it right with them!).
- After 35-40 minutes we enjoy juicy, soft and incredibly fragrant red fish! This recipe retains all the beneficial properties of salmon, it is low in calories and is ideal for people who monitor their weight.
Salmon steak marinated in mustard sauce
Mustard is in every home. If there is no wine, citrus and cream, you can prepare an excellent sauce from it.
- Dilute a tablespoon of mustard powder in a glass of water. Add a couple of raw yolks, a little olive oil (a couple of teaspoons), herbs, a pinch of sugar and salt.
- Marinate pre-chopped salmon steaks in this sauce. Leave to brew for two hours.
- We shift the fish into foil and seal the edges of the resulting envelope so that the juice and fat do not leak.
- How much to bake salmon in foil? Not more than 35-40 minutes, otherwise the fish will fall apart and turn into a mushy substance. After 30 minutes, you can safely turn off the oven.
How to bake salmon in the oven in wine sauce
This is the only recipe in which the marinade must be separated from the fish before immersion in the oven. If the other sauces during the heat treatment only transform the dish, making it aromatic and mouth-watering, then the dry white wine when heated starts to give a sharp, slightly medical smell.
There are lovers of such a "boiled" wine aroma and taste. But if you cook for guests, it is better to drain the wine marinade before the heat treatment, as the wine will give a specific aroma and flavor that not everyone will like.
It is better to offer guests a glass of white dry already at the table - it will perfectly complement the taste of the prepared salmon dish.
Salmon in a slow cooker: how not to dry the fish?
Modern housewives often prefer a multicooker to an oven. Well, you can try to create a culinary masterpiece in it too.
In a slow cooker, the temperature of incandescent and reaching a maximum degree is fast (and in the oven - much slower). This can cause the fish to turn out to be dry and completely tasteless, no matter how hard you pickle it.
So try to choose such cooking modes in which the temperature accelerates gradually. In Panasonic cookers, such modes are called "Stewing", "Buckwheat porridge."
It is preferable to bake salmon in the oven. How to do it right, without loss of taste, having pleased your guests and households - you already know.