Dinner with Rukmini
Browse all of the recipes in Rukmini Iyer’s cookbooks by ingredient.
Pine Nut Crusted Salmon with Shallots and Puy Lentils
An easy but impressive date night dinner featuring salmon roasted with a pine nut and mustard crust and served with a lentil and watercress salad.
From the book
The Quick Roasting Tin
75 fast and simple one dish recipes to revolutionise the way you cook
Leave the hard work to the oven with minimal prep and less washing up
From fast dinners to simple desserts
Introduction
I’m not sure you could do better than this for a date night dinner. It’s almost zero effort, but tastes and looks restaurant quality. Because it’s quite a simple dish, with just the mustard and pine nuts to flavour the salmon, this is a dish where it’s worth buying the best salmon you can.
Ingredients
| 4 | banana/long pointy shallots, peeled and halved lengthways if small, quartered if big |
| 1 tbsp | olive oil |
| 1 tsp | sea salt |
| 2 | really nice salmon fillets |
| 2 tsp | Dijon mustard |
| 25g | pine nuts, fairly finely chopped |
| A handful of | flat-leaf parsley leaves, finely chopped |
| 1 x 250g | vac-pac of cooked Puy lentils |
| 1 bag of (around 80g) | watercress, roughly chopped |
| 1 tbsp | extra virgin olive oil |
| 1 | lemon, juice only |
| 2 tbsp | single cream (optional) |
| Freshly ground black pepper |
Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C fan/200°C/gas 6. Mix the shallots with the olive oil and sea salt in a roasting tin, making sure the shallots are arranged cut sides facing upwards, then put the salmon steaks alongside.
Spread the top of the salmon fillets with the mustard. Mix the chopped pine nuts and parsley together (I sometimes just do this on the chopping board), then press the mixture over the mustard.
Transfer the tin to the oven and cook for 20–25 minutes, until the salmon is just cooked through (thicker pieces will take 25 minutes, thinner 20).
Remove the salmon fillets from the tin, then mix the Puy lentils, watercress, extra virgin olive oil and half the lemon juice through the shallots. Stir in the single cream, if using, then taste and adjust the lemon juice, salt and pepper as needed. Serve alongside the salmon.
Note: This is a dish where it’s worth thinking about warming your plates through.
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