Salmon with poached pears

I am Bengali so of course I love fish. And salmon is one of my favorite fishes available here in Europe. It is tasty, oily, succulent.. Its oil reminds me somewhat about Bengal’s favorite Hilsha, though both of them are much different in all other respects.  Therefore, whenever I get a nice piece of salmon from the fish market, I cannot just wait to go home and have it. This time I decided to keep it simple. I would just fry it with a crispy skin. To counter balance the oily taste, I decided to serve it with poached pears. The pears would be poached in milk without much addition of extra sweetener. The subtle sweetness of the pear was what I was looking to bring out. Clove is one of my favorite spices and I decided to incorporate its flavor subtly in both the poached pears and salmon. The final result was a delicious combinations of subtle flavors.

You can print the recipe for your kitchen here: PRINTABLE RECIPE 

 

INGREDIENTS:

(Serves 2)

1 pear

2 pieces of salmon (~200g each)

200ml milk

50ml water

2tbsp honey

10 cloves

Salt

Olive oil

METHOD:

1.       Peel, core and quarter the pear.

2.       Put the milk, water, honey and half the cloves in a pot. Heat until honey dissolves and the liquid is warm.

3.       Put the pears in and reduce the heat. Poach the pears for 15-25 minutes depending on the type of pear. Take care that the pears do not turn mushy. Let it cool in the liquid itself.

4.       In the meantime, season the salmon pieces with salt.

5.       Heat a greased pan. Add the rest of the cloves.

6.       Put fish in the pan skin side down and hold it down for a minute.

7.       When almost the whole fish is cooked (changed color), flip over and cook the other side for a minute.

8.       Serve each salmon piece with two pear pieces (without the poaching liquid).