Summer Roasted Salmon, A Quick, Healthy Dinner & Some Jasmine Tea

Listening to the cry of my body to put something clean and healthy in it, I defrosted some Wild Alaskan Salmon I had in the freezer for dinner tonight (yes, I know that's a lot of food miles for that fish to reach me but sometimes I just crave salmon and you have to love the health benefits, especially when you get it from a good source) I had purchased The Eat Clean Diet Cookbook by Tosca Reno, several months ago. It has some really great, healthy recipes and ideas in it and I had marked this recipe for Summer Roasted Salmon. that I wanted to try. I decided to make a quick (under 30 minute), healthy meal with the salmon, some brown Furikake rice and stir-fried local green beans from my CSA box.

Summer Roasted Salmon
The Eat Clean Diet Cookbook, Tosca Reno
Serves 4

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4 (5-6 oz) salmon fillets (fresh from a reliable source if possible)
2 tsp / 30 ml best-quality olive oil
Sea salt and fresh black pepper
Juice of one lemon
1 bunch fresh green onions, trimmed
1/4 cup / 60 ml combined fresh chopped parsley, rosemary, thyme, chives
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Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. / 232 degrees C. Prepare a baking dish with a light coating of cooking spray or olive oil. Place salmon fillets in the baking dish, skin side down. Brush a coating of olive oil onto the salmon. Sprinkle each fillet with some sea salt and black pepper. Squeeze the juice of the lemon over the salmon. Lay the green onions over the salmon.


Roast the fillets in the oven for about 10 minutes. Remove from the heat. Remove the wilted green onions. Dust each fillet with a generous helping of the chopped herbs. Serve hot.
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I made 2 fillets (about 6 oz or so each) and so I just halved the recipe. Since my fillets were a bit larger, 11 minutes cooked them beautifully. The herbs I happened to have were basil, flat leaf parsley, mint and cilantro which made a good, clean tasting combo--although the rosemary and thyme called for in the recipe would have been lovely as well.


The rest of dinner: While the salmon was cooking, I put the green beans in a microwave steamer for about 5 minutes (they were pretty thick beans!), then I tossed them into a wok with a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, some chopped garlic and grated ginger, about 1/4 cup of tamari sauce and about 1 Tbsp of Oyster sauce, popped the lid on the pan and let them cook another 5-6 minutes, stirring occasionally. (They ended up on the crisp side still--but I like my beans on the crisper side rather than mushy). As the beans and salmon cooked away, I popped a steam-in bag of brown rice I get at my local health food store into the microwave for three minutes. Once the rice finished cooking, I poured it in a bowl and topped it with a couple of Tbsps of Nori Komi Furikake Rice Seasoning (a sesame sesame seed, salt. sugar and seaweed mixture--if you aren't familiar with this condiment it is excellent to liven up rice and vegetable dishes--I think it may be a rule that you have to have it in your pantry if you live in Hawaii!) Finally, I took the cover off the green beans, added a sprinkle of salt and a sprinkle of sesame seeds and gave them a quick stir.



That was it! 25 minutes later (with pre-heating oven time included), dinner was ready; (Rachel Ray has nothing on me!) Quick, easy, delicious, satisfying and pretty healthy with leftovers to take to work for lunch tomorrow.

I ended dinner with one of my "take home" teas from the tea workshop (post is here), the Jasmine Dragon Phoenix Pearls. I have had this tea before but I am trying it again with more knowledge and appreciation. Jasmine as a fragrance tends to give me a bit of a headache so it is not a tea I would drink often but this tasted pretty good. And who can resist the elegance of the little "pearls" of the tea leaves?

You definitely get the Jasmine aroma from the dry leaves and it intensifies in the wet leaves and the tea itself. The liquor and flavor have fairly intense floral notes and the tea was light, with a little astringency to it. A small cup was a pleasant way to end dinner and start the evening.