Ina Garten's 5-STAR Panko-Crusted Salmon

Panko-crusted salmon is one of my favorite ways to prepare salmon. It's delicious salmon and it's got a great crust with lemon zest and mustard. It's fantastic. And the best part of it is I can make it in advance and just throw it in the oven before dinner so I can have fun with my friends. So I've got four salmon fillets and then I'm going to make a crust with panko. Panko's like great Japanese breadcrumbs and they're really crusty. You can buy them in a specialty food store, a grocery store in the Asian section. My seafood shop has it. I need two-thirds of a cup of panko, two tablespoons of parsley, lemon zest, that should be about a teaspoon, half a teaspoon of salt, half a teaspoon of pepper. I'm just going to drizzle it with two tablespoons of olive oil. Just stir it up and this is going to go right on top of the salmon. This looks great. You can really smell the lemon zest and the parsley. It looks great. Okay, next to the salmon. So I'm going to sprinkle it with salt and pepper. Make sure it's really well seasoned. And next some mustard. So the salmon and mustard and panko, they're going to be great together. I'm just going to brush the mustard right on the salmon. It gives it lots of flavor but it also helps the panko adhere. And now the panko. I'm just going to spoon it on and just sort of press it down so it adheres to the salmon. This is really one of my favorite ways to prepare salmon. So good. Okay, that's done. So I've got a really hot pan. I put in two tablespoons of vegetable oil. I'm just going to cook the salmon skin side down. How gorgeous does that look? This is a great way to do it because when you sear it, you get the skin really nice and crisp and then you put it in the oven and roast it and it makes it moist and delicious. So I'm going to sear it for three to four minutes in this pan and then I'm going to take the whole pan, put it in the oven 425 for about five to seven minutes and then let it rest. Salmon with lentils, it's a great party dish because you can make it in huge quantities but for two it's also perfect. So I'm going to make it for Michael and me. So first I'm going to make the lentils. I'm going to pour boiling water over the top and just let them soak for about 10 minutes so they soften. So I'm going to put the lentils aside. I'm going to sauté all kinds of vegetables, cook the lentils with it and then sauté the salmon separately and put it together. A little bit of olive oil. I have two cups of onions. I'm just going to sauté them together and two cups of leeks. They're both pretty much in the same family but the leeks are a little more delicate than the onions. They're great together. And some fresh thyme, about a teaspoon. None of this has to be exact. So you just sauté this for about 10 minutes until the onions translucent. A little bit of salt, some pepper and while that's cooking I'm going to cut up some carrot and celery. I'm going to put in about a tablespoon of chopped garlic, cook that for a minute and then one and a half cups of chopped celery, one and a half cups of chopped carrots. This is really chunky. It's got lots of flavor and the lentils are just part of it. I'm just going to sauté that for a second. One and a half cups of chicken stock, two tablespoons of tomato paste. Just stir it in. I'm going to add the lentils. I'm going to cook these together for about 20 minutes, the lentils and the vegetables. Then I'm going to sear the salmon and then I'm off to Michael's. The key to the salmon is to just sear the outside so you make a really crisp crust and then it seals in all the flavor. Drizzle this with a little bit of oil, lots of salt and pepper. This is really the only seasoning so you want to make sure you season it really well. Okay, really hot pan. Just make sure you can really feel it and then take the salmon and put it in, seasoning side down and just leave it. I know it's really tempting to move it around but you want to really create a really great crust. So I'm just going to cook it on this side for about two minutes and then flip it over and roast it in the oven and it'll be perfect. Sort of crusty on the outside and tender inside. Okay, two minutes. Let's turn it over. Okay, into the oven for about five to seven minutes at 450 degrees. This is how they cook in restaurants and it comes out perfectly. I'm just going to finish the lentils and I'm off to Michael's. Well, the salmon's perfectly cooked. This is going to be wonderful. So I have a little bit left to do on the lentils so I'm going to add about two tablespoons of red wine vinegar. Just really sort of perks up the flavor a lot. Let's see how this is. I can smell it. I love when it hits the heat. It's delicious. A little more salt. Always needs a little more. The sweetness of the red wine vinegar and the carrots and lentils is going to be great with the salmon. So I'm just going to take a platter and just fill it up. The good news is it's good hot but it's also good room temperature. Salmon on top and then the leftovers I'm going to put in the refrigerator. Love leftovers. Don't have to cook tomorrow night. Crab cakes always have a wonderful mix of vegetables in them and I like to use red peppers and onions. I'm going to saute them until they're just softened. One tablespoon of olive oil, one tablespoon of butter and I mix the two. Olive oil has a higher burning temperature. Butter has more flavor. So I get the best of both qualities by mixing them. So I've already chopped up the vegetables actually. I have half a cup of red pepper, half a cup of yellow pepper, three quarters of a cup of red onion and one and a half cups of chopped celery. They're all small diced. I'm a big believer that you really only need like 10 recipes and if you can make each one of those recipes three different ways you've got a repertoire of 30 recipes. I mean how many recipes do you need? And this is one of those recipes. I make crab cakes. I make salmon cakes. If I have leftover lobster I make lobster cakes. Okay now for some great seasonings. These have to have a lot of flavor and they're all things that you can find in your pantry. A little parsley, like quarter of a cup. I actually don't pick the leaves off the parsley. What I do is just run your knife along the stems and just chop them up and the stems are just fine. If it's something like rosemary you can't eat the stem so you want to pick the leaves off. Okay so about a quarter of a cup right in and now some spices. I like capers in it. It has sort of a vinegary edge that's nice, a few tablespoons. Worcestershire sauce, a dash of it. Smells great. A hit of Tabasco, give it some heat. As much as you dare. Some Old Bay seasoning which is classic for crab cakes and salmon cakes. Any kind of fish cakes. Lots of salt and pepper to make sure it has great flavor. I'm going to let this just simmer for about 20 minutes into all the vegetables and the flavors are blended and the vegetables are softened. This smells wonderful and it looks great. I love the colorful sort of confetti idea of it. Okay I'm going to get some salmon to put in. I need roast salmon. I've actually roasted it already and chilled it so it'd flake really easily. Let me tell you how I did it. I just bought a half a pound of salmon fillet on the skin and I put it on a sheet pan. I brushed it with olive oil, sprinkled it with salt and pepper and roasted it at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes until it was almost done. Then I took it out and wrapped it in foil and allowed it to sit at room temperature for 10 minutes to finish the cooking. I have about a half a pound of salmon fillet and it's really important that it's cold otherwise it's just a mess. I need about one cup of breadcrumbs. That should be just about right and then to bind them together, keep them really moist, I'm going to do half a cup of mayonnaise, two teaspoons of cotija mustard and two eggs. I'm just going to mix all this up and the vegetables should be cool a little bit. I want the vegetables cool because you don't want the egg to cook when they go in unless you have scrambled eggs. Just mix this all together and then I'm going to make salmon cakes and fry them. A little bit of butter and oil. This is a great mixture. It's got all kinds of vegetables and the capers and salmon. It's going to be just delicious. So I'm going to chill it now. When it's chilled, it's easier to make into salmon cakes. It's firmer. Okay, that's the last one. It's 10 salmon cakes and when my friend Laura Donnelly gets here, we're going to saute them up. These look good too. I'm having a baby shower. I'm going to make two huge platters of salmon noisseuse and everybody can just help themselves. I'm making a marinade for the salmon. It's going to sit on it for a little while and then I'm going to roast it at really high temperature. It's delicious. So the first thing I need is the zest of four lemons. Okay, that's good. So I'm just going to put this all in a big bowl. Next thing is a quarter of a cup of olive oil, a quarter of a cup of mustard. I love to use Dijon mustard. I think it has great flavor and then I'm going to put in lots of garlic. Four cloves of garlic chopped right into the marinade. Make sure it's really flavorful. One and a half tablespoons of salt, half a tablespoon of pepper. I'm just going to whisk this all together and then spread it on the salmon. You know, this has great flavor. I can smell it already. So I'm just going to put all this on top of the salmon and let the flavors get into the meat of the salmon. It'll sit for about 15 minutes and then I'm going to roast it at very high temperature. Perfect. So what I have is one and a half pounds of these Erica Verzi French string beans. You can really find them anywhere. I'm just going to put them right into a pot of boiling water. A little bit of salt. Actually blanching is a great way to cook a lot of vegetables. Put it in hot boiling water, cook it for three, four minutes depending on the vegetable until it's crisp but still tender and then you shock it by putting in ice water. It stops the cooking, sets the color and makes sure they stay crisp which is wonderful. So I'm going to just take the beans out. They don't cook very long at all. Into the ice water, stop the cooking, cook the salmon. I'm going to cook it at 500 degrees for about 12 to 15 minutes and the high heat really sort of caramelizes the top. It has so much flavor. Okay I'm going to cook 12 eggs. I'm going to turn on the heat. Here's my foolproof hard-boiled egg trick. Bring the water up to a boil, turn off the heat, leave the eggs in for five minutes exactly and then take them out and let them cool at room temperature for two minutes and then peel them. It's perfect every time. No dark circles around the yolks. Okay I think the salmon's ready. Oh that's perfect. It's nice and browned on the top. Wonderful. Now comes the fun part, assembling the salmon this was platter. So I chilled the salmon so it flakes really nicely. I'm just going to take big pieces of it and put it right on the platter. The salmon's perfectly cooked. It's sort of medium rare and you can see all the flavors on top, the garlic and it's just wonderful. Just big bold flakes of salmon piled up. The main course is the salmon so I'm just going to put it right down the middle. Okay so the next thing is the potatoes. So they've steamed, they've cooled and I've sliced them big thick slices. I'm going to do two platters. So many people I just want to make sure everybody has lots to eat. Then tomatoes. I took medium-sized tomatoes and cut them in sixths and then the arico vera which we steamed and blanched. Everything's room temperature. The key about a big platter is just big blocks of color. You don't want a little here and a little there. You want big blocks of color. Okay next is hard-cooked eggs. This is really classic salad in a swath. It's just done with roasted salmon so rather than tuna I just think it has so much more flavor. So I'm going to do a big bunch of watercress instead of little bits of it around just one big bunch. It really sort of balances the green. I have olives. Can't have a salad in the swaths without olives. So instead of black olives which we have in the gazpacho I'm going to use green olives and for those of us that love anchovies just a few anchovies but I wouldn't put it all over just in a few places so anybody that loves them can help themselves. Okay the last thing is the vinaigrette. Really quick quarter cup of champagne vinegar, teaspoon of mustard. Good Dijon mustard is essential. Salt and pepper. Make sure it's really well flavored and a half a cup of olive oil. I like the easiest vinaigrette in the world. I love the way the mustard emulsifies this vinaigrette. Okay I'm just going to pour it over the vegetables particularly the potatoes. Make sure they have lots of flavor. A little drizzle on everything else. Oh I think I hear girls voices. I think there's a party about to start and I can't wait to see Sinead's face. Salmon cured with dill and pernod is basically like gravlax but with the volume turned up. I'm going to serve it paper thin on pumpernickel bread with the mustard sauce. It's delicious. So I'm going to start with three pounds of salmon and it's a filet. I'm going to cut it in half. It's beautiful salmon. All the bones have been taken out but it's still on the skin. So I'm going to take half of it and put it in a big dish just like that. Now I'm going to make a salt and spice and sugar cure to put on top. So first I need two tablespoons of whole peppercorns, one tablespoon of whole fennel seeds. Just think how good that is. Lots of flavor and just grind it up like this. If you have a spice grinder you can use that too but you want it really coarse and if you do this you really bring out the oils and the flavor in it. If it's already ground just it's not as fresh. Just grind it until the pepper and the fennel seeds are broken up. So what I'm doing is I'm making a spice mixture and that's going to mix with the salmon and the juices in the salmon are going to mix with the salt and make a cure and it sits for two days and it kind of pickles the salmon. It's just delicious. Okay that's the spice mixture. Now I need half a cup of salt. I know it's a lot of salt but we're curing it and half a cup of sugar. So that's the salt and spice mixture. So the next thing I'm going to do is I have lots of fresh dill and it's really important for this. I'm going to take a big bunch of fresh dill and just put it right on top of the salmon and that flavor that kind of like dill flavor it's so unique so Scandinavian. It's going to get into the salmon. Okay next is the spice mixture. Just all of it right on top. I know it seems like a lot of salt and a lot of sugar but that's how you cure salmon. It sounds like the cure for the common cold but it's salmon. Okay and then some pernod which is very anise flavor. Two tablespoons and that's going to help dissolve the salt and the sugar and get right into the salmon. So next I'm going to take the other half of the salmon and put it right on top. Look how great that looks. I love it and then I'm going to take a dish. I want to weight it down. I'm going to take a dish that can sit right on top. A little precarious but it sits right on top and then I'm going to weight it. Go to the pantry and get two cans preferably crushed tomatoes. No it doesn't matter what kind of cans. Any kind of cans and just weight that on top and that's going to sit in the fridge for two days and every 12 hours I'm going to flip the whole salmon thing over and then it'll marinate the other side and then flip it back again. Okay let's see if I can get it into the fridge without dropping it. Whoa. Be right back. Happily I have one that I did two days ago. So I'll show you how it looks. Two cans. It's amazing how it's transformed by marinating it. So these are the two pieces of salmon. Remember I flip them every 12 hours. Take one off. Put it right on the board. The salt and the sugar and the spices and fennel all got into the salmon. I'm just going to take the dill off and put it back in the marinade so it's flavored it but you don't want to slice the salmon with the dill. And then I'm going to take any pieces of pepper and fennel leftover off. When I first bought my specialty food store Barefoot Contessa the first thing I had to learn was how to slice salmon and I was really nervous because it's not so easy. But I'll show you. You have a very thin knife and it's very flexible and you just go right along the top. You want to make sure it's really sharp. First slices are just to get it started. When I first learned the woman who taught me actually said slice on one side and then the other side until you get really comfortable which is really good advice. And this is actually called a smoked salmon knife so if you really want to treat yourself it's not a bad idea because you really can't do this with a chef's knife. It'd be impossible like trying to do surgery with a screwdriver. You just always need the right utensils for the right job. So you really want to do it not just paper thin but also evenly and it takes some practice but you can do it. See how thin this is? It's really paper thin. It turns out after 20 years I still remember how to do this. Kind of like riding a bicycle. Once you've mastered it you never forget how to do it.