Ever since I came to Finland, I’ve had all sorts of smoked fish – especially salmon of course. I usually bought them ready from Stockmannin Herkku or from Kauppahalli in Hakaniemi. But I had never ever actually cooked salmon myself. So, on Friday, I lost my virginity on that and cooked salmon for the first time in my life. I could not believe how easy it was! And oh my, baking the salmon in the oven does result in an extremely light and delicious way – I can go back to eating salmon now!

I bought the raw salmon fillet from Kauppahalli in Hakaniemi. When the sales person asked me what I wanted, I just had a look at all those salmon pieces and I said “well, I don’t know, just give me a little piece..”. I think I ended up buying Norwegian salmon, though I am not 100% sure… Maybe next time I can be a little bit more aware of what I am doing!!

Long story short, here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

1 slice of salmon (As you can see from the pictures below, I bought a rather thin slice)
Fresh basil
Fresh parsley
Spring onion (there is an oriental market down in Hakaniemi metro station, I bought the onion there it was extremely delicious – not at all like the ones in K-market or Stockmann)
1/2 table spoon olive oil
1 table spoon lemon juice

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1. Chop basil, parsley and onion in very small pieces and mix them altogether in a bowl. I used about 8 leaves of basil, same amount of parsley and 2 onions for that thin slice but next time I cook this, I will use even more of each. By the way, I cannot believe that I willingly cooked something using parsley. My friends always knew for instance that I hated parsley and dill.. But being exposed to something even worse, called CORIANDER, I think I grew to tolerate, and even “to like” parsley. Add the olive oil and lemon juice to this mixture. If you want, you can add some salt – I did not, but even though I usually like food to be salty, I did not feel the need to add salt even later..

2. Preheat the oven to 150C.

3. Put the salmon slice on an oven tray. I always use baking parchment paper, but if you don’t want to use that, then don’t forget to put some oil or butter on the tray, so that the salmon does not stick to the tray. Cover the salmon with the mixture you made in Step 1.

4. When the oven is warm enough, put the salmon in. I used the middle section of the oven. Wait for 20 minutes and then check if it is cooked enough. In my case, it still needed a little bit more time, so I increased the heat to 170C and cooked for 7 more minutes. When it is cooked enough, take it out.

That’s it! You can see that it’s very easy and you will see that it is very delicious and light. As you can see in the picture, I cooked some celery as a side dish (inspired by a recent dinner I had in my cousin’s place during my short Paris trip), but potato is a very nice side dish for salmon as well.. Anyway, hope you like it!