Salmon with dill sauce
Crisp-skinned salmon with a creamy mustard dill sauce and buttery little potatoes, a German home-cooking classic.
- 40 min total
- 30 min hands-on
- A little more hands-on
- Serves 2
- About $6.72 a serving
- 860 calories
- Gluten-free
Dolly says: Read the steps once before you start. Everything goes smoother after that.
Ingredients
For 2 servings.
- 12 oz baby potatoes, halved if large
- 2 tbsp butter, divided
- 2 salmon fillets, about 6 oz each, skin on
- 1 shallot, finely chopped
- ⅓ cup vegetable broth
- ½ cup heavy cream
- 2 tsp Dijon mustard
- 3 tbsp fresh dill, chopped, divided
- ½ lemon, juiced
From your pantry
- 1¼ tsp salt, divided
- ¼ tsp black pepper
- 1 tbsp vegetable oil
Each serving has about 860 calories, 41 g protein, 34 g carbs and 63 g fat, and costs about $6.72 at typical US grocery prices. Both are estimates from what the recipe uses.
Missing something?
- No baby potatoes? Red potatoes or Yukon Gold potatoes work.
- No butter? Ghee works.
- No lemons? Limes work.
Steps
Tap an underlined word for a quick explanation.
Put the potatoes in a medium , cover with cold water, add ½ teaspoon of the salt and over high heat.
Saucepan. A saucepan is a pot with tall, straight sides and one long handle. It’s for things that need depth, like rice, sauces or a few boiled eggs.
How you’ll know: The food fills it about halfway, leaving room to bubble without spilling over.
Bring to a boil. It means heating a liquid on high until it’s fully boiling before you move on. A lid on the pot gets it there faster, which makes it a good moment to chop something.
How you’ll know: Big bubbles break all over the surface, and they keep coming when you lift the lid.
High heat
12 to 15 minutes, until a knife slides in easily.
Simmer. Simmering means keeping a liquid just below a boil, with small bubbles rising gently. It cooks food evenly and lets a sauce thicken without scorching on the bottom.
How you’ll know: Small, lazy bubbles break the surface every second or so, and nothing is churning.
Low heatTimer: 14 min
Meanwhile, the salmon dry and with ½ teaspoon of the salt and the pepper.
Pat dry. Patting dry means pressing paper towels onto food to soak up the moisture on its surface. Wet food steams instead of browning, so this is how you get a good sear and crisp skin.
How you’ll know: The surface feels tacky, not wet, and the last paper towel comes away barely damp.
Season. Seasoning means adding salt, pepper or spices to bring out a food’s flavor. A little at a few stages tastes better than a lot all at the end.
How you’ll know: When you taste it, it tastes bright and like itself, not flat and not salty.
Heat the oil in a large nonstick over medium-high heat. Cook the salmon skin side down for 4 minutes without moving it, until the skin is .
Skillet. A skillet is a frying pan: wide and flat with low, sloped sides. The shape lets steam escape, so food browns instead of stewing.
How you’ll know: It’s the pan you’d fry an egg in, and a 10 or 12 inch one handles most recipes.
Crispy. Crispy means the outside is dry, firm and crunchy. It comes from high heat, a little oil and room in the pan, because crowded food steams and goes soft.
How you’ll know: It sounds crunchy when you tap or bite it, and it doesn’t flop when you lift it.
Medium-high heatTimer: 4 min
Dolly’s tip: It sticks at first. Once the skin crisps, it lets go of the pan on its own.Flip and cook 2 to 3 minutes more, until the thickest part flakes easily. Move it to plates.
Medium heatTimer: 2 min 30 sec
Food safety: Fish is done at 145°F, when the middle looks opaque and flakes apart easily with a fork.
Turn the heat to medium, add 1 tablespoon of the butter and the shallot and cook for 2 minutes, until soft.
Medium heatTimer: 2 min
Pour in the broth, and let it bubble for 1 minute.
Scrape up the browned bits. It means loosening the brown bits stuck to the pan with a wooden spoon, usually right after adding liquid. Those bits are concentrated flavor, and they melt into the sauce.
How you’ll know: The bottom of the pan looks clean again, and the liquid turns darker and richer.
Medium heatTimer: 1 min
in the cream and mustard and 2 to 3 minutes, until thick enough to coat a spoon. Stir in most of the dill, the lemon juice and the rest of the salt.
Stir. Stirring means moving food around with a spoon or spatula so it cooks evenly and doesn’t stick. Unless the recipe says constantly, every so often is plenty, and it gives food time to brown.
How you’ll know: When you drag the spoon across the bottom, nothing is sticking or scorching.
Simmer. Simmering means keeping a liquid just below a boil, with small bubbles rising gently. It cooks food evenly and lets a sauce thicken without scorching on the bottom.
How you’ll know: Small, lazy bubbles break the surface every second or so, and nothing is churning.
Medium heatTimer: 2 min 30 sec
the potatoes and them with the rest of the butter and dill.
Drain. Draining means pouring off liquid, like tipping pasta into a colander or spooning extra fat out of the pan. Pour hot grease into a can or jar, not the sink, where it hardens and clogs the pipes.
How you’ll know: Only a few drips are left, and the food isn’t sitting in a puddle.
Toss. Tossing means gently lifting and turning food so everything gets coated, like pasta in sauce or vegetables in oil. It coats every piece evenly without mashing anything.
How you’ll know: Every piece looks glossy or evenly coated, with no dry spots hiding underneath.
Spoon the dill sauce over the salmon and serve with the potatoes.
Plan this in Dollop, and get the grocery list
Dollop puts this dinner on a night that suits your week, lists only what you still need to buy, and walks you through each step while you cook.
