Spicy Salmon with Mango Salsa

Mango salsa with a touch of chili powder brings bold taste to salmon fillets with a hint of cayenne pepper. Recipe below.

The kitchen is open. Again. Sort of. Our new apartment is still filled with boxes and chaos, but we’re making headway. I was on the phone with a friend the other day and said, “It still looks like a bomb went off in here, but a much smaller bomb.” Marion added, “And a bomb that folded a little laundry.” I’ve decided that we either have to move more often, so we don’t acquire too much stuff, or else never move at all.

But I’ve actually managed to cook a few meals now. It feels good to be back in the kitchen—even a kitchen where I can’t find anything yet and the stove and fridge are in completely different places from where my brain says they should be. It’s almost like cooking in a parallel universe—pans and utensils seem reassuringly familiar, but everything is slightly out of whack, slightly off kilter. Cue ominous background music.

The good news is the new stove is vented, a first for me. I’ve been itching to try it out since the first time I saw it; I figured pan seared salmon would be the acid test. I had learned from Helen over at Beyond Salmon that one reason my Salmon Tarragon on a Bed of Vegetables didn’t stink up the place with my unvented stove was that I was using a cooking method involving liquid, steaming it. She also said that pan searing does cause the house to smell, particularly with fatty fish. Enter the salmon.

The mango salsa is a variation on one I’ve been making for a while. Fruit alone—the mango and strawberries, in this case—would be too sweet for the fish. The addition of green onion tops [you could also use chives] gives it a fresh wildness and just a bit of a bite, making it play nicely with something savory—the salmon, for instance, or grilled chops or chicken. You could also use minced shallot, but I think this would cause a definite onion taste to take over, rather than just the lively green flavor of green onions or chives.

Adding the chili powder gives the salsa just the tiniest bit of heat, but it really ramps up the taste. Similarly, the cayenne pepper only adds a hint of heat to the salmon; don’t expect a fiery Thai dish intensity with this meal.

Spicy Salmon with Mango Salsa
Serves 2

For the salsa:
1 ripe mango, peeled and cut into cubes
fresh strawberries, sliced—roughly equal to the amount of mango
1/4 cup sliced green onions, green tops only
1/4 teaspoon chili powder

For the salmon:
2 salmon fillets, about 6 ounces each
salt, freshly ground pepper
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil

Combine all the ingredients for the salsa in a medium bowl. Set aside.

Season flesh side of salmon with salt, pepper and cayenne pepper [see Kitchen Notes].

Heat a large non-stick pan over medium high flame, about 90 seconds or until rim of pan feels hot to a quick, gingerly touch. Add oil to pan and heat until just shimmering, then add salmon fillets, flesh side down. Sear until flesh side is golden brown, about 4 minutes, then turn and cook until fillets are just cooked through, about 2 minutes or so. If the fillets are still a little pink inside, that’s actually a good thing.

Transfer salmon fillets to dinner plates. Spoon salsa on and around fish. Or, as you can see in the photo, I served the salsa over lightly salted avocado halves, creating a satisfying, healthy side dish. A mixed greens salad completed the meal.

Kitchen Notes

Skin or no skin? Salmon fillets can have skin on or not, depending on how your grocer or fish market sells them—it doesn’t matter with this recipe. But even if the skin has been removed, you can still tell which is the flesh side of the fish. If the fillets have skin, you can carefully slide a thin spatula between the cooked fish and the skin to remove it before serving or just serve it with the skin, which is what I do. The flesh separates easily from the skin with each forkful.

Oh, and the results are in: The vent above the stove worked like a charm!

Also this week in Blue Kitchen

In tune with a rainy Sunday Evening. The kitchen boombox gets upstaged this week by the newly installed stereo. Listen in on my inaugural music choice for the new place in What’s on the kitchen boombox?