The Right Side of the Menu

We celebrated our 27^th wedding anniversary last month with a lovely dinner out, reminiscing about many other anniversaries over these last years.  It is a benchmark of progress in building our life together to reflect about how those celebratory dinners have changed over the years.  When we were first married during college, the $20 anniversary dinners were bought with weeks of frugality and budgeted savings.  In later years, the dinners turned into a relatively affordable splurge.  One of our favorite dining traditions for a number of years was to go to certain restaurant and order the featured seasonal “Copper River Salmon” with an appetizer of shrimp, and no-holds-barred all the way through the key lime pie dessert and an anniversary toast.  

We remember a quote we heard back in our early years, from some newly-famous rock star (1980’s early MTV-era) who said “The best part about finally being successful is when you can go out to a restaurant to eat and not even have to look at the right side of the menu.”  The sentiment rang true for us and we have counted our blessings every year we’ve been fortunate enough to enjoy an anniversary dining extravaganza.

Our favorite seafood restaurant closed shortly before we moved away from that coastal area.  Nevertheless, we found a fabulous way to prepare salmon at home and now enjoy it as a special treat.  This wonderful recipe for “Citrus Salmon” is a modified version of a recipe provided by my brother’s family in Seattle.  Baked or grilled, this recipe yields a delicious lemon-garlic-caper sauce which is spectacular spooned over steamed asparagus and new potatoes --  a wonderful celebration dinner menu. 

Citrus Salmon 
(Oven-Poached or Grilled)

2-3 pound fresh salmon fillet

In a small saucepan, combine the following ingredients, bring to a boil and cook for 5 minutes:

Juice of 1 large lemon

Zest of ½ lemon peel

3 Tbsp. butter

2 Tbsp. olive oil

3 garlic cloves, pressed

1 tsp. dried basil

1 tsp. dried dill

1 Tbsp. prepared Dijon mustard

2 Tbsp. pickled capers

1 green onion, finely chopped

Place 2 large sheets of aluminum foil, doubled up, on a large rimmed baking sheet. Place the salmon filet skin side down on the foil and fold edges of foil upward.  Pour sauce over the fish and double-fold the foil edges together to seal the top and ends well.  Bake at 400 degrees for about 30 minutes (depends on the thickness of the fish…look for foil to puff up and hear a good bubbling sound.)   You can also grill the fish for 10-15 minutes with the barbecue covered (leaving the foil open a little bit and without using the baking sheet.)

Salmon before baking

Salmon after baking

 Enjoy!