The salmon to get your groove back

Bonus day, bonus recipe, bonus ingredient

Happy Leap Day! Is this something people say? Either way, let’s use this bonus day to feature a recipe with a bonus ingredient that isn’t on my list of 40. I make the rules so I can break them.

I got a guy, a citrus guy

The premise of this newsletter is that you can make so many dinners with just 40 ingredients. These are mine. (Show me yours for a monthly advice column.)

This constraint isn’t a gimmick: By making more with less, we also waste less food, spend less money, have less clutter in our fridges, and minimize decision fatigue. 

These 40 ingredients provide plenty of flexibility, but this isn’t to say I don’t buy other ingredients when I really, really want them. And these days, all I want is citrus.

This time of year I get especially homesick for California, where the farmers markets right now are downright show-offy. They have citrus of all shapes and colors and we’re over here on the East Coast eating potatoes. So I buy citrus online, specifically from this guy on Etsy but there are other farmers that ship, too. It is expensive and extravagant but cheaper than airfare and the only way I’ve figured out how to survive a real winter.

This homesickness led to one of my most popular and most loved recipes, which I wanted to share with you today in case you haven’t heard about the ginger-dill salmon—it uses my 40 ingredients plus citrus, and okay radishes. But it’s the salmon that’ll get your groove back.

This recipe is the result of January 2021, the first winter of Covid; I didn’t go home for Christmas, a rarity, and I’d just finished the manuscript for my cookbook. It was a sure thing in my mind that I would never have another recipe idea again, but to make money, I had to figure out something to cook. No food sounded good—Soylent kind of made sense?—but the combination of ginger and dill kept ringing in my head like some key to happiness, fulfillment, life.

My editors at the New York Times liked the idea of ginger and dill on salmon, and for something on the side, a little bit of a home that felt incredibly far away at that point: citrus and avocado. 

Really not Soylent.

I only tested it one time, another rarity, because it was exactly what I wanted/needed the first time around. Reviving, energetic, and nearly effortless.

The ginger-dill mixture has become “what I do to fish” very often, and the citrus salads come out as soon as my first box of citrus from California arrives (often with beets, too).

Here are not one but two videos of me making the recipe, plus some additional tips:

• Easily made ahead! Earlier in the day, bake the salmon (it’s great at room temperature) and cut all the citrus. 

• Accompaniments: I really love it with Samin’s Persian-ish rice (earlier in the day, make the rice up to step 5, then start the crisping 40 minutes before dinnertime). Maybe a little yogurt sauce too. 

• Switch up the fish: It works great with whole sides or fillets and sockeye salmon or any other fish you like to bake (cod, trout, etc.). Reference Seafood Watch for help selecting sustainable fish, and go by a thermometer or a fork instead of the cook time to discern when your fish is done.

• Citrus: You don’t need to use oranges and grapefruit. The goal is just a combination of sweet and tart citrus.

• Swaps: You don’t need the avocado since the salmon is soft and creamy, but you do need the crispness of radishes to balance all that softness. Instead of radishes, use another crunchy raw vegetable like celery, little gem lettuces, or fennel. 

Ginger-Dill Salmon

Originally published at New York Times Cooking

Serves 4

• Small bunch of dill

• 1 (2-inch) piece ginger

• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for serving

• Kosher salt and black pepper

• 1 (1½-pound) salmon fillet, skin-on or skinless

• 1 grapefruit

• 2 oranges

• 6 small radishes

• 1 avocado

• Flaky sea salt, for finishing (optional)

1. Heat oven to 325°F. Finely chop 6 tablespoons dill and transfer to a medium bowl. Scrub 2 inches of ginger (no need to peel), then finely grate into the same bowl. Add 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil and season to taste with salt and pepper.

2. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper. Pat 1 (1½-pound) salmon fillet, skin-on or skinless, dry, then place on the tray skin-side down (if there is skin) and season with salt and pepper. Spread half of the dill-ginger mixture over the top of the salmon. (Reserve the remaining dill-ginger mixture.) Bake until cooked through, 15 to 20 minutes. (You’ll know the salmon is done when the fish flakes or an instant-read thermometer inserted into the thickest part is 120°F.)

3. As the salmon cooks, cut off the top and bottom of 1 grapefruit and set the grapefruit down on one of the cut sides. Follow the curve of the fruit to cut away the peel and pith. Squeeze the peels into the remaining dill-ginger mixture to get out any juice. Cut the fruit in half from top to bottom, then slice into ¼-inch-thick half-moons and remove the seeds. If your pieces are especially large, halve them again. Transfer the fruit and any juice on the cutting board to the bowl. Repeat with 2 oranges. Cut 6 small radishes into thin wedges, then add to the bowl, season generously with salt, and stir gently to combine.

4. Break the salmon into large pieces, and divide across plates with the citrus salad. Peel and pit 1 avocado, then quarter lengthwise and add to plates. Season with salt. Spoon the juices from the bowl over top, and season with black pepper, another drizzle of olive oil, and flaky sea salt, if using.