Pan Seared Salmon with Roasted Asparagus

 

Lover and I have been trying out some new recipes. I've grown tired of our normal rotation of chicken, beef, more chicken, more beef, the occasional soup, and more chicken. :-) So we've been trying out some fish - slowly and cautiously dipping our toes into the overwhelming world of seafood. Did I mention that Lover has a slight seafood allergy? Yeah, so we are taking it slow and seeing what is ok and what is definitely not A-ok. I thought salmon was a good place to start, as I'd heard it is like the steak of fish - cook it simply, add a few spices and you are good to go. The verdict? Yummy!

We cooked the salmon in a frying pan on medium heat, letting the olive oil heat up till warm before we put the salmon fillets in. They were thick fillets, so we let them cook on each side for about 3-4 minutes. Then, just before we pulled them out of the pan, we spread some "finishing butter" on each fillet and let them cook for another 30 seconds or so. The finishing butter was just some butter mixed up with garlic, salt and onion powder, very simple but oh so yummy. We let the cooked fillets sit for another 3 or 4 minutes before eating them - and I think this made them a lot juicier.

Whilst cooking the salmon, we were also roasting up some fresh asparagus in the oven that we had brushed with some olive oil and spices. We also threw a few rings of fresh pineapple in on a separate pan, and when everything was done we sat down to a table that looked like this:

 

The salmon was delicious, and the asparagus/pineapple combination was AWESOME. Like, may be my new favorite side dish awesome. Scrum-diddly-umptious kind of awesome. :-) Anyways. Make this meal, I dare you. And enjoy a yummy dish that contains neither chicken nor beef nor soup. :-)