Last Tueday we celebrated hubster’s birthday. Now although it is tradition we have practised in our family to have ‘ang jiu mee suah’ on all birthdays, frankly that time I just didn’t feel like I had the energy nor the capacity to cook a whole mee suah meal. And I have never bothered to make mee suah on my own birthday either.
This time around, I thought I’d try to cook some fish dish. I always imagined myself if I were to ever enter some cooking competition, fish might be my kryptonite. I’m not afraid of fish, like the scaling, gutting and all. I’m just not into it nor do I have the patience or finesse to gut a fish properly. Needless to say, we eat very little fish at home, say for the whitebaits which are easy to cook and sometimes when mom comes, she will bring fresh fillets.
But for a birthday, it has to be something special like a salmon dish. Now, I don’t eat a lot of salmon myself, somehow the smell rather puts me off. But cooked salmon on fried rice or salmon mousse, salmon salad…these I’m not so turned off. So, for birthday man, I wanted no fuss lunch while making sure the fish can still be moist. I had seen these baked salmon in bags circulating around YouTube…I didn’t follow a specific recipe to a T but rather combined several ideas together for this recipe. But in essence, the garlic butter ones pretty much have the standard ingredients and methods.
This turned out really good and be sure to pick really good salmon fillets. The vegetables can vary according to your taste and you can use different sauces and rubs on the fish. Either way, cooking it in a bag like this seals in a lot of the moisture and the fish won’t taste dry.
SALMON BAKED IN FOIL WITH LEMON AND GARLIC 
Ingredients;
300 gms salmon fillet
125 gms butter (melted)
4 cloves garlic (chopped finely)
Chopped parsley
4 cherry tomatoes (halved)
Broccoli
4 lemon slices
Salt
Black Pepper
Steps;
1. Preheat your oven to 180C. Melt the butter
gently, when all butter has melted, mix in
the garlic and parsley.
2. Take a long sheet of baking paper and a long
sheet of tin foil. Place the baking sheet on top
of the tin foil.
3. Fold in half together.
4. Open it back, on one half, place some broccoli and the halved cherry tomatoes.
5. Sprinkle salt, pepper and some of that garlic butter. Toss.
6. Pat dry your salmon filet with kitchen paper. Check if they’re any bones left on the sides, remove it if you find them. Place the salmon filet on top. Spoon over the garlic butter generously covering the surface. Place lemon slices over the fillet.
7. Fold the foil over and seal all the sides, making sure it’s roomy on a the sides.
8. Place on a tray and bake in the hot oven for 12-15 mins.
9. To eat, pierce the foil in the middle and tear open the paper. Eat as it is or transfer contents to plate.
Enjoy!
