The inspiration for this recipe found me on my trip to Norway, where I tried something similar in a restaurant. It looked really yum and it smelled even better – and the taste! The combination of roasted fennel and mysterious yellow sauce on juicy salmon was just delicious. After I got home and got hold of sustainably fished salmon ( 
) I didn’t waste any second and tried to develop my own version. I added fresh chilli and parsley from our garden and I was very happy with the result.. hopefully you will be too. It is simple to make and you can enjoy it hot as well as cold the day after.
Ingredients (serves 5-6):
(you can adjust amounts based on the size of the fish)
– 900g of fresh salmon with skin
– 2 tbs of good French Dijon mustard
– 1-2 tbs of thick honey
– 1 big fennel
– 2 carrots
– fresh chilli pepper
– 4 cloves of garlic
– bunch of fresh flat-leaf parsley
– pinch of salt
– 1tsp of freshly cracked black pepper (ground will work fine too)
– 1tbs of olive oil for cooking
Sweet chilli mayonnaise:
– 1 egg yolk
– 1 tsp of good french Dijon mustard
– 1 tbs of fresh lemon juice
– pinch of salt
– 200-300 ml of vegetable oil
– 1 tbs of sweet chilli (recipe for home made sauce mentioned here)
Method:
Preheat the oven to 200ºC
1. In a small bowl combine mustard and honey. The amounts are very dependent on how thick is honey that you are using. You want to make enough mixture for glazing the surface of the fish.
3. Using olive oil, lightly grease the bottom of a large roasting tray. Place the salmon fillet, skin-side down in the tray and rub honey-mustard mixture into the meat.
2. Chop carrots into long sticks (Baton style speaking the language of fancy cooks) and place it around the salmon.
3. Cut the fennel and chilli and spread it evenly on the top of fish.
4. If the garlic you are using is organic and clean, you don’t even have to peel it and you can just add it into the tray.
5. Season with salt and pepper and add chopped chilli pepper.
6. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until salmon is just cooked and veggies are still nicely crunchy.
7. Meanwhile but ideally even day before you can prepare mayonnaise. This is just an extra treat – you can serve salmon as it is or with simple vinaigrette or natural thick yoghurt with herbs.
8. When making mayonnaise it is very important that all ingredients are at the room temperature. Start with placing egg yolk into large bowl, add salt, mustard and lemon juice and mix together using just fork or whisk. Switch to the electric whisk and start gradually adding oil. Add the first third of oil very slowly, drop by drop, whisking the mixture constantly. Add the rest of oil more quickly. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper.
9. Add chilli sauce and mix thoroughly. Place in the fridge until served.
10. Take the fish out of the oven and add freshly chopped parsley.
Serve with lettuce, baked potatoes, potato salad or anything you usually like salmon with.