FFwD: Salmon with Basil Tapenade

Salmon with Basil Tapanade

This week’s French Fridays with Dorie has probably been of of my favorites — salmon stuffed with a little olive tapanade and basil. As I was describing the dish to jwa last week, it went a little something like this:

me: the next French Fridays is salmon…

jwa: yes

me: and you take olive tapanade…

jwa: yes

me: and stuff it…

jwa: yes

me: inside and cook it.

jwa : yes.

So, in other words, this meal was not really a tough sell. It was really, really good! I only wish I had gotten my next shipment of Copper River Salmon before making this, but the timing was off by a couple of days, so *gasp* I actually had to go buy salmon. I ended up with some wild sockeye. Delicious!

Notes:
1. I added a splash of white balsamic vinegar to my tapanade, along with a minced garlic clove. Just because.
2. I did my salmon exclusively on the stovetop (about 4 minutes per side), because it was really hot and I really didn’t want to put the oven on 450.
3. I thought the baggie was a little difficult and eventually just used my fingers to get some tapanade in the salmon.
4. We had this with some couscous and kale chips.

I’m not sure what the deal is with the FFwD website, but if there’s a link available, I’ll add it here. Link! Okay, pictures!

Salmon with Basil Tapanade
Making tapanade..oh yeah, I added a little shallot there too.

Salmon with Basil Tapanade
The challenging tapanade baggie.

Salmon with Basil Tapanade
Stuffed and ready to cook.

Salmon with Basil Tapanade
I thought it cooked really well on the stovetop.

Salmon with Basil Tapanade
Ready to nom…

Completely unrelated, I caught the last episode of Freaks and Geeks on Sundance tonight and I really love that last episode. It makes me so happy when Lindsay blows off the academic thing to go follow the Dead with Kim for two weeks.

It’s not even that I particularly like the Grateful Dead or anything. Or that I dislike academic things. The end of the show makes me irrationally happy and teary-eyed. It just does.

13 Replies to “FFwD: Salmon with Basil Tapenade”

  1. Just beautiful! John thought it was a little tough dealing with a slippery fish in one hand and a slippery bag in the other, too. I thought maybe a baster – in reverse – might work better???
    Are you part of the Facebook group? A bunch of us have been posting our links there. I’m beyond frustrated with the group admin refusing to have a back-up when so many of us have offered to help out.
    Have a wonderful weekend!

  2. I didn’t realize so many steps were involved – I kimd of went rogue onthis one.
    I think Laurie is on vacation?
    Have a great weekend.

  3. Hi, so I am going to try one more time and then give up. I read your posts regularly, but usually have trouble leaving a comment. Your blog asks me to solve a simple math problem to leave a message and never seems to like my answer because often I get a ”Sorry, your answer to the math problem was wrong. Please try again.” error message. And I might not be a math wiz, but last time I checked, 6+6=12.
    Anywho, enough complaining. Your meal looks delicious.

  4. I thought this was delicious! Yours looks great and you really got the tapenade inside! I think I could do a better job of it next time now that I know what to expect!

  5. All I can say is this is frustrating….. However, this week’s recipe was great and hubby and I really enjoyed it. Yours looks fantastic. I think stuffing it was confusing, if hands work, use them instead of little plastic
    cut bags that don’t. Happy weekend….

  6. I guess Dorie thought we couldn’t figure out how to use a small spoon to stuff this so suggested the baggie but I thought that was a lot more trouble than it was worth! Good ideas to add shallot and white balsamic. I think I will be having fun with this one with all the great suggestions from Doristas this week.

  7. Yes, it was so messy to stuff this. I think a dollop on top would give plenty of the delicious tapenade flavors for next time. I used wild sockeye too. Your entire meal looks great. I’ve been wanting to try making kale chips.

  8. I’ve made this one before, so make a lot less tapenade mixture than called for and just spoon it in – seems to work much better. Love your photos, especially the top one.

  9. Yeah, I went with the wild sockeye also (pricey) and DID put it in the oven. In my opinion (and, Betsy’s) the salmon was over-cooked. But, delicious. Thought the baggie trick was fun but now particularly needed for this. Your meal looks good. Very good.

  10. Your salmon looks great! I’ve missed so many weeks of French Fridays and I will definitely be going back to catch up on this one!

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