Roasted Buttered Salmon with Herbs and Capers

How I spent Lockdown 2020, let the French commence! And a lunch to impress

The first lockdown of 2020, was - for me - defined by a few things. One, I was stuck in New Zealand, stranded with a van and a Frenchman. This quickly led to a scuffle for the country’s cheapest Airbnb, and then a six-week encampment in the quietest hamlet known to man. We lived on a long road to nowhere in the middle of New Zealand’s South Island, along with five strangers we’d met on the road. In one direction stood mountains, in the other, sheep. And silence. Deafening silence.

Two; none of us had jobs because we’d all been caught on the hoof, starting or in the middle of eagerly awaited travels, so there was nothing to do. We walked a bit, but not too far because that was illegal, read books, and played fierce card games which at one point, made me storm off in a huff because I kept losing. I also listened to a lot of the podcast My Dad Wrote a Porno - shunning the real world and eventually my fellow prisoners for the one of Belinda Blinked was certainly a low point for me, but my housemate who some days didn’t brush her hair, would pause card games to check on her Sims, so I think we were all in a downwards spiral together.

Three; I tried to teach myself French. Six weeks in a cabin in the middle of nowhere is as good a time as any to learn another language, although I can say - three years later - that ‘tried’ is the optimal word. Teaching oneself is essentially structureless and, every day, I would dive into a big new topic that was far more advanced than my level. I also tried to read Harry Potter en français (or should I say ‘Arry Potteh’) and, as someone who knows the book down to exact line by line quotations, I had no idea what was going on. Gaylord acted like a benevolent yet often absent French-speaking overseer; he made me read Arry Potteh aloud over and over, but barely understanding his own native grammar himself, a promising start, he considered himself more of a hindrance than a help.

Since those quiet lockdown days of star gazing and French phonetics, I have tried and tested different language learning techniques, all to find the solution best suited to me. I’ve tried flash cards, Duolingo, watching French YouTube, watching Disney films in French with French subtitles, and both online and in person tuition. I managed to meet one of my closest friends who started off as my French teacher, but honestly, how much are you going to learn when all you want to do is go to a nearby rum bar, drink mojitos and spend the night jabbering away in a language you can both speak? It gets to the juicy stuff quicker.

So, this Tuesday I took action and started a two-week French course where my classmates and I use exercise books and write with colourful biros and highlight stuff, and also, most importantly, speak exclusively in French.

Thanks to our vocabulary still being limited, our conversations are rather expressive to help interpret the physical rather than the verbal, and there’s often a seasoning of English sprinkled on top. On my first day, my brain felt like pudding and I was fairly incoherent, my heart galloping along so violently I was sure people could see it through my skin. Gradually, we’re easing ourselves in, and today, we all commiserated about the day’s topic on the subjunctive and admitted that we all pretended to know what was going on.

This means, however, I have had no time to cook. In fact, I’ve eaten out three times this week and I wonder where my money goes. So, here is my favourite recipe for salmon, roasted and buttered in a lake of butter.

This recipe is inspired by that treasure Alison Roman who took a whole side of salmon to serve a party. This was just for me and my mum, a fillet each so a bit more approachable, which were topped with lemon and shallot slices, capers and lots of fresh herbs. The salmon fillets were, there’s no other word for it, succulent; all that additional moisture and fat really did what it sets out to do. They were rich and tender and salty, and served with new potatoes, my mum then covered hers in the lemony butter sauce. An undemanding lunch that impresses, everything I look for in one meal.

Wish me luck for the remaining six days of French class - I think I’m going to need it!

Roasted buttered salmon

Melt-in-the-mouth flaky salmon cooked in a bath of butter served with all the best flavourings – onion, lemon, capers and a sprinkling of fresh herbs

Prep Time: 15 mins

Cook Time: 15 mins

Course: Dinner, Lunch, Main Course

Keyword: butter, capers, lemon, salmon

Servings: 2

Author: Adapted from Alison Roman’s recipe

Ingredients

• 45 g butter

• ½ a lemon

• 1 shallot

• 1 tbsp capers

• 30 ml olive oil

• 2 salmon fillets

• 3 sprigs of dill

• Handful of basil leaves

• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan/350°F. Put the salmon fillets skin down on your baking tray and season with salt and black pepper.

• Melt the butter in a small saucepan, preferably one without a non-stick base so you can clearly see the butter’s colour. As it melts, finely slice your lemon and the shallot. Rinse the capers.

• Once the butter is sizzling add the lemon and shallot slices, toss them in the butter and cook for a couple of minutes, until the butter starts to brown. Add the capers and cook for a further minute. Stir in the oil, season, then pour it all over the salmon fillets.

• Put the tray of buttery salmon in the oven and cook for 15 minutes, until the salmon is opaque and the centre has just cooked through.

• Garnish the fish with dill and basil, and serve with potatoes and maybe some pickled red onions.