Recipe 12: Baked Salmon with Goat Cheese

To makeup for missing last week's Fishy Friday, I made baked Salmon with goat cheese, based on a recipe from one of my favorite cookbooks, 15-Minute Single Gourmet. The recipes aren't totally gourmet, but I really like the fact that Mitchell generally uses my favorite types of ingredients: fresh. Not having 3 days of leftovers is a nice plus too!

Materials
~ 1/4 tsp olive oil
~ 1 garlic clove, minced
~ 8 oz can of tomatoes
~ 1 tsp fresh rosemary, chopped
~ pinch crushed red pepper
~ dash ground black pepper
~ 1 salmon fillet
~ 1 tbl goat cheese

Methods
Preheat oven to 375F. Meanwhile heat olive oil over medium heat. Add garlic and cook until tender.


Add tomatoes, rosemary, and red and black pepper. Quarter the tomatoes and cook for a few minutes to reduce the sauce.



Meanwhile, spray a baking pan with olive oil and place salmon fillet skin side down. Pour the tomato sauce over and around chicken. Place pat of goat cheese on top of fillet. Cover and bake for 10-12 minutes until cooked through.

Verdict

I enjoyed my dinner over a bit of angel hair pasta I had sitting in the cupboard. I felt like this dish was ok. I wouldn't say it was great but I wouldn't say it was horrible. I always enjoy tomatoes and cheese, so that worked well together.

However, today was not my superstar day in the kitchen. I'm not a fan of measuring, so I imagine I didn't have enough rosemary (but it was nice to step outside and just pull some fresh rosemary off of my bush). The original recipe called for a tsp of minced shallot instead of garlic. I would either use the shallot or up the garlic quotient. I forgot to get a shallot at the store and was down to my last clove. Perhaps a little more pepper would have done it. It just needed something to make it pop. Also, the recipe called for 1/2 cup of tomato juice, however I was being blonde and used all of the juice. I think that worked in my favor though. Finally, I'm so dense that I was out of foil. I covered the dish with parchment paper, but I imagine it would cook better with foil. So not a losing meal, just nothing super spectacular.

So in summary if I made this again i would 1. use more spices, 2. use more garlic/shallot, and 3. cover it up properly when cooking.