Baked Salmon With Blood Orange and Chilli

I originally created this dish as a special Valentine’s recipe for Lanson Champagne. It pairs beautifully with their Le Rosé pink champagne and if you can get your hands on a bottle I do recommend it. I love the colour of this dish. The pink and red hues of the salmon, blood orange and chilli clash brilliantly, and as they cook, create a vibrant almost tangerine coloured oil. The use of the blood orange zest, juice and slices create an almost jammy texture that keeps the salmon beautifully moist and ensures that the garlic cooks to soft, sweet, caramelised perfection. Of course, this dish is perfect for Valentine’s but I recommend it any night of the week too. If blood oranges are not in season use regular oranges. I love to serve this with jasmine or brown rice and either wok’d greens or sesame oil drizzled broccoli.

Ingredients

| Serves 2-3 |

(Increase as necessary. If making this for a larger crowd such as 8 I would ask your fishmonger for 2 even-sized 500-600g pieces of salmon to ensure the timings are accurate)

1 tsp whole coriander seed
2 blood oranges
5 tbsp olive oil
3 fat cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
1 tsp red pepper flakes (or chilli flakes)
1-2 red chillis, seeds removed and cut into match sticks
pinch of flaky sea salt
500g fillet of salmon
coriander leaves to garnish

Method

Preheat your oven to 250 degrees fan setting.
Place the tsp of coriander seeds into a dry frying pan over a medium heat and toast for about 3 mins until they begin to smell fragrant. Transfer to a pestle and mortar and crush. (You could also use a small bowl and end of a spice jar or rolling pin for this)
Finely slice just one of your blood oranges and make sure the rest of your ingredients are prepared.
Into a large ovenproof dish large enough to accommodate the salmon, place the olive oil, finely sliced garlic, coriander seed, red pepper flakes, chopped chillis, finely sliced orange, zest and juice of the remaining orange, and a good pinch of salt.
Add the salmon fillet and toss everything together to coat making sure you turn the salmon over a couple of times to ensure it has a good coating of the marinade.
Loosely arrange some of the blood orange on top and bake for 20 mins.
Allow it to rest for a further five mins (it will continue to cook).
Garnish with fresh coriander leaves and serve. This dish is delicious served warm or at room temperature. I love to serve this with jasmine or brown rice and either wok’d greens or sesame oil drizzled broccoli.

This would work well served alongside this Spinach Salad with Zingy Coriander Dressing.