Salmon Florentine
Salmon fillets seared until golden, then nestled into a silky sauce of cream, white wine and wilted spinach. This is saumon à la Florentine, a proper French bistro dish that looks impressive but takes about half an hour from start to finish. One pan. Minimal washing up. Maximum smugness.
Ingredients
For the sauce
- 30 gr unsalted butter
- 2 shallots
- 3 cloves garlic
- 100 ml dry white wine
- 250 ml Double cream
- 200 gr baby spinach
- ¼ tsp nutmeg
- 1 squeeze lemon juice
- 1 handful flat-leaf parsley
- salt and black pepper
Equipment
- 1 braisière shallow dutch oven
Instructions
1. Season and sear the salmon
- Take the salmon out of the fridge about 15 minutes before cooking, room temperature fish cooks more evenly. Pat the fillets dry with kitchen paper and season generously with salt and pepper on both sides.Heat the olive oil in a shallow dutch oven over medium-high heat. When the oil shimmers, lay the salmon fillets in skin-side down. Don't touch them. Let them sizzle undisturbed for 3-4 minutes until the skin is crispy and golden, and you can see the flesh has turned opaque about two-thirds of the way up the sides. Flip briefly to sear the top (just 30 seconds or so) then transfer to a plate. The salmon won't be cooked through at this point, and that's fine. It'll finish in the sauce.
2. Build the sauce base
- Turn the heat down to medium and add the butter to the same pan. Once it's foaming, add the shallots and cook gently for 3-4 minutes until soft and translucent. Don't let them colour. Add the garlic and cook for another minute until fragrant.Pour in the white wine and let it bubble away for a couple of minutes, scraping up any golden bits stuck to the bottom of the pan. This is where a lot of the flavour lives, so don't skip the scraping.
3. Add the cream and spinach
- Pour in the double cream, stir well, and let it come to a gentle simmer. Add the spinach in handfuls, stirring each addition until wilted before adding more. It looks like a ridiculous amount at first, but it collapses down to almost nothing within seconds.Season with the nutmeg, a squeeze of lemon juice, and salt and pepper to taste. The nutmeg is traditional with spinach in French cooking, it lifts everything without being identifiable. Go easy though; you want a hint, not a Christmas candle.
4. Finish the salmon in the sauce
- Nestle the salmon fillets back into the sauce, skin-side up this time to keep it crispy. Spoon some of the creamy spinach mixture over the tops of the fillets. Cover the pan with a lid and cook over low heat for 5-7 minutes, until the salmon is just cooked through. It should flake easily but still be slightly translucent in the very centre, it'll carry on cooking from residual heat.
5. Serve
- Scatter over the parsley and bring the whole pan to the table. Serve straight from the pan with crusty bread to mop up the sauce, or alongside new potatoes or rice.
Notes
- Use wine for the sauce you'd actually drink, a dry white like Muscadet, Sauvignon Blanc, or an inexpensive Chablis. Avoid anything too oaky or it'll overpower the delicate sauce.
- Baby spinach wilts fastest and has the mildest flavour. You can use regular spinach but remove the tough stems first. Frozen spinach works in a pinch, thaw and squeeze out excess water before adding.
- Stir in a tablespoon of Dijon mustard with the cream for a sauce moutarde variation, or add a handful of grated Gruyère at the end for a proper gratin finish.
- Skin on or off? Skin-on salmon gives you that gorgeous crispy texture contrast. If your fishmonger has skinned them already, sear the fish for slightly less time on the first side.
- Don't overcook the salmon: The biggest mistake people make with salmon is cooking it to death. It should still have a blush of pink in the centre when you take it off the heat.