Roasted Salmon with Lime & Fennel

I had seen a recipe for salmon that was cooked on a bed of thinly sliced fennel with a few limes, and of course I couldn’t find it again - Pinterest doesn’t always pull through for me 😆. Oh well, I usually end up improvising somewhat anyways and I wanted a salmon dinner, and so another experiment commences. It was delicious on the first attempt, I wouldn’t change a thing!

INGREDIENTS -

2-4 salmon fillets
2 limes
1 fennel bulb, sliced thin
1/2 tsp fennel seeds
1/4 cup olive oil (approximately)
salt
pepper

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Zest one lime into a small bowl. Add the fennel seeds to the lime zest along with 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper, then stir to combine. Rub this mixture all over salmon.

If you have the tops of the fennel (the fronds), chop them up and set aside, they look great sprinkled as a garnish on top when you serve the salmon. Cut the second lime into thin slices and set aside. Slice the fennel bulb thinly and place it in the bottom of your baking dish. Drizzle about half of the olive oil over the top of the fennel then mix to coat the fennel with oil. Add a sprinkling of salt and pepper and then arrange the salmon on top of fennel.

Place the lime slices on top of the salmon and drizzle a little more olive oil over the lime slices and salmon.

Roast until the salmon is just barely done, it will continue to cook after you remove it from the oven, so allow time for that. The fillets in this photo are on the thicker side and they took about 20 minutes to roast, then rested for a few minutes and were perfect. Thinner fillets will cook faster so check them frequently.

Serve the salmon with the cooked fennel alongside it, these flavors together are surprisingly wonderful. A little savoy cabbage slaw on the side and roasted purple potatoes, and you have yourself another beautiful, healthy and tasty meal!

Enjoy!