Pistachio-crusted salmon recipe: Day 42

Let me begin with the end: while cleaning up after our delicious dinner of Pistachio-crusted salmon, I was elated to discover what looked like slender sheets of toffee attached to the foil that was used to bake the salmon. It wasn’t toffee, but rather the runoff from the sauce that was brushed onto the salmon. "Dare I try it?" I asked myself. I like to eat chocolate flavoured with cayenne pepper, so why not try maple curry Dijon toffee? As you can probably guess, I tried it. Let me just say that I really enjoyed cleaning up this dinner. And that the foil had very little residue on it once I (finally) disposed of it.  

We ate this meal accompanied with rice and the Classic Caesar salad. My husband cooked the rice as soon as he got home, and the salad was prepared while the salmon was baking. A very nice meal indeed.

I had fun chopping the pistachios, though I did have to shell them. As I was shelling, I reminisced about the adjacent bin of pre-shelled pistachios that I could have purchased instead. The shelled nuts were twice as expensive as the shell-on version, but next time I’ll buy the pre-shelled version to save some time — particularly once there’s a new baby in the house.   

Our two-year-old really enjoyed this meal. At first, he kept calling the salmon "chicken" but he got it right after a few bites. He particularly liked the pistachios and loved saying the word "pistachio" every time he ate one. I loved this salmon dish as well. I had made a version of it years ago – minus the curry powder – from the recipe section in Chatelaine magazine. If you think that making a sauce out of maple syrup, Dijon mustard and curry powder is hard, just take the curry out of the equation and you’ve got a ridiculously simple to make, but impressive dish. This is yet another fast and simple weeknight meal that is good enough to pass off on the weekend.   

My 19-year-old sister-in-law was less excited about this meal than the rest of us. She doesn’t like "food that looks like what it is", so the scaly salmon skin "creeped her out". Yes, I know that the recipe called for "skinless" salmon fillets but for a weeknight meal (and a hungry uber-pregnant cook in the kitchen) and in the interest of saving time, the skin was staying on. No need to lengthen the five minute preparation time! Once she removed the skin from sight she fared better but still only ate half her portion. Oh well, more leftovers for the rest of us. 

I think I’ll have my leftover salmon mixed with rice and speckled with torn nori sheets for my lunch to take to work. Too bad I didn’t have any leftover ‘toffee’ to take, too!