Salmon Saltimbocca

Succulent salmon wrapped in crispy prosciutto and doused in a lemon, butter and white wine sauce … what’s not to love? Served up over nutty, fluffy rice pilaf – this is a dish easy enough for a weeknight yet fancy enough for company. In other words, the perfect Dishing Out dinner!

Salmon Saltimbocca with Rice Pilaf
Serves 4

For the Pilaf
1/3 cup orzo
1 cup white rice
2 cups chicken stock
½ red onion, diced
1 t paprika
½ t turmeric
2-3 garlic cloves, minced
2 T unsalted butter
Salt and pepper to taste

Add the butter to a pot over medium heat along with the orzo and onion. Cook, stirring occasionally for 4-5 minutes or until orzo is nutty smelling and onions are softening. Add rice, garlic, paprika and turmeric along with salt and pepper to taste. Stir and cook for 2-3 minutes more. Add stock and bring to a simmer. Stir well then cover, reduce heat to low and cook for 15-18 minutes. Remove lid, fluff pilaf with a fork, then recover and sit at least 10 minutes before serving.

Set aside and prepare salmon.

For the Salmon
4 6-8 oz salmon filets
8-12 fresh sage leaves
8 slices of prosciutto
1 large shallot, minced
4 T unsalted butter
1 T olive oil
¾ cup dry white wine
1 cup chicken stock
2 cloves garlic, minced
Zest of 1 lemon
Juice of ½ a lemon
Salt and Pepper to taste

Pat the salmon filets dry and season with salt and pepper. Place 2-3 sage leaves down on the flesh side of the salmon. Wrap each filet in 2 slices of prosciutto.

Heat oil and 1 T butter over medium heat in a large skillet. Lay in the filets and cook for 3-4 minutes a side or until cooked to your liking and the prosciutto is crisp. If filets are thick, flip onto each side of the filet and cook for a minute or two as well. If filets are very thick, you could finish them in a 375 F oven.

Remove salmon and add the shallot to the pan. Stir and cook for 2 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute. Add wine and deglaze the pan. Add in stock, lemon zest and juice and bring to a simmer. Reduce by at least 1/3 and turn off the heat. Taste and add salt or pepper as needed. Finish the sauce by adding 3 T cold butter and swirl off the heat until the sauce is emulsified.

To serve, lay down a bed of pilaf followed by a salmon filet drizzled with the saltimbocca sauce. Garnish with fresh parsley or basil and a wedge of lemon for squeezing.

Succulent salmon wrapped in crispy pushcuto and dowsed in a lemon, butter, and white wine sauce. What’s not to love? Served up over nutty, fluffy rice peeloff, this is a dish easy enough for a weekn night, yet fancy enough for company. In other words, the perfect dishing out dinner. [Music] To begin, we’ll grab a couple tablespoons of butter and add those into a pot over medium heat along with 1/3 cup of orzo and 1/2 of a red onion, which I put a medium dice on. We’ll go ahead and let that butter melt and stir those onions and that orzo around for 4 to 5 minutes until the orzo is nutty and lightly browned and those onions are turning translucent. At that point, we can add in a cup of long grain white rice and just stir it around in that butter and toast those grains off for another 2 to 3 minutes or until they are starting to smell a little nutty as well. We’ll definitely need to add some flavorings here. So, I’m going in with some fresh cracked pepper, a nice strong pinch of salt. Couple cloves of crushed garlic off camera, and then some paprika, and a little bit of turmeric for color. We’ll go ahead and stir that in and toast those spices for a good 60 seconds or so in that hot butter before finally adding in two cups of chicken stock. If you can find the low sodium stuff here, I prefer that helps you control the salt content, but either way, add it in, bring it to a boil, reduce it to a simmer, cover it, and cook on low for 15 to 18 minutes, at which point it should be beautifully steamed, just like that. So get in there with a fork and make sure you break it up and fluff that rice. Take it off the heat. Recover for at least 10 minutes, but it’ll stay hot for at least 30. So anyways, turning our attention to our salmon. I’ve got two fillets here. This recipe down below is written for four people or four fillets, but going to do two here with some fresh cracked pepper and a pinch of salt. As with any salt and bokeh, it’s going to start with sage. So we’ve got some fresh sage leaves going down here right on the flesh of that salmon. The skin is still on the salmon. And you could take it off if you don’t like it, but we’re going to give it a nice crispy exterior via some pushuta. Wrapping two to three slices around each salmon fillet here, depending on their thickness. And don’t worry about getting it perfect here and making sure it wraps all the way around. It really just serves as a vehicle for flavor, crispy exterior, and to hold those sage leaves in place so they impart all their flavors and oils directly into the skin and flesh of that salmon. I’ve got a tablespoon of butter and a tablespoon of olive oil over medium high heat in a skillet here. I’m just going to go ahead and lay each salmon fillet in very carefully. We’re going to put that presentation side down first so that that pushutto gets nice and crispy and golden brown on the top. Just press to make sure they’re getting good contact. Give them 3 or 4 minutes. Look at that beautiful crispy pushut. Flip them over and give them 3 or 4 minutes more. Now, these salmon fillets were relatively thick. I do like my salmon nice and medium, but in order to get these cooked through, I had to turn them on their sides and give them 2 to 3 minutes on each side as well. But you could always pop yours into a 375°ree oven to cook them through if you’re having issues with that. But mine are nice and medium right now, slightly medium rare in that very thickest part. But that’s all right. We’re going to get them out and let them rest for a moment. Do not, I repeat, do not get rid of any of that beautiful flavor in the skillet. We’re going to use all of it by adding in one minced shallot, stirring that around. You can drop your heat down to medium at this point if you’d like to. We don’t want to burn these shallots. Use any liquid that comes out of those shallots to scrape some of the fond off the bottom of that skillet. We’ll add in one to two more cloves of garlic right at the very end here, or at least before we start adding liquid. We don’t want that garlic to burn. Once that garlic is fragrant, we’re going to go in with about 3/4 of a cup of a nice dry white wine. That liquid will help us to remove any additional fond that’s on the bottom of this skillet. Just bring it up to a boil. Just like that. Most of that alcohol is going to cook off. And now we can scrape up that fond. Beautiful and easy. And you see the beautiful color we get in the liquid from that fond. Oh, just gorgeous. We’ll add in maybe a cup or so of chicken stock to add some more volume to our sauce along with the zest of an entire lemon. And depending on how big it is and how juicy it is, the juice of at least half, maybe the whole one if you’re struggling to get the juice out. But half a lemon was just fine for me here. This is one of those things you’re just going to have to taste. See if it’s too acidic. See if it needs more stock. See if it needs more salt and pepper. That sort of thing. But anyways, we’re going to bring this up to a boil and reduce it by at least a third. We’re not looking for this to get super thick, but if you can just barely see the bottom of the skillet when you drag a spoon through it, that’s just about perfect. So, at this point, we can kill the heat. Again, taste for seasoning. And once it’s perfect, we’re going to swirl in 3 tablespoons of cold unsalted butter. Basically, want to stir the whole time here. Those butter cubes are going to help emulsify this liquid so it is rich and luxurious and smooth and slightly creamy. So, to serve this, pretty basic. We’ve got a bed of our beautiful peel off there. Top with one of those golden brown crunchy crispy salmon fililelets. To make sure you know there’s lemon in there, I like to add a few little slices for presentation and for squeezing. Then that beautiful shallot lemon white wine sauce. Ah, just absolutely beautiful. Don’t cover up all that crispy skin, but definitely want to put a little over the top and let it drizzle down. We’ll hit it with some parsley for color and a little herbal note. And that is one beautiful and relatively healthy bowl of food. So check it out. That nice little opaque sort of translucent salmon there. Yep. That’s still got a nice medium medium rare to it. The thinner parts are going to be cooked all the way through, but that’s totally fine cuz all the flavor is in that crunchy crispy pushut. Those softened onions and shallots in the peel off and in that salt and bokeh sauce. And I love this because it’s so vibrant and pecant and lemony, but so rich from that depth of flavor from the salmon. That rice is just the perfect bed to soak up that liquid, all those fatty flavors that run off of the skin of the salmon. Oh man, definitely give this a try. Obviously, this is traditionally made with veer chicken, but I think it works absolutely dynamite with a piece of fish like this. So, hope you’ll give it a try. And now, thanks for watching, and it’s your turn to go make something delicious. [Music]