Need to impress someone?  How about a dinner that's deceptively easy?  This baby takes less than 30 minutes to make, even if you need to prep the Firecracker Walnuts at the time you're making the salmon.  It looks awesome, the flavor will leave the eaters wanting more, and everyone will be asking when you became a gourmet chef!

Firecracker Salmon

Prep time: 15 minutes   Cook time: 10 minutes   Total time: 25 minutes

Yield: 4 servings

Directions

Ingredients

  1. Prepare Firecracker Walnuts as instructed by the recipe.  You don't need to let them cool all the way once they've come out of the oven for this, just enough so you don't burn yourself while handling them.
  2. Preheat oven to 350ºF.
  3. Cut the salmon filet into 4 equal-sized pieces.  Drizzle olive oil over the tops of the fish and crush walnuts into crumb-sized pieces.
  4. Place walnut pieces in a bowl, and press oil-covered salmon filets into the crushed walnuts.  Repeat for all 4 pieces, and then sprinkle remaining walnut pieces over the areas on the fish where they may not have stuck.  Press these into the fish gently with your fingers.  Sprinkle filets with sea salt.
  5. Bake salmon for 10-12 minutes in a parchment paper-lined cookie sheet.  Cooking time of the fish depends on thickness of the filet, so look to the side of the cuts to see if the meat is done to your liking before removing from the heat.
  6. Allow to cool slightly, about 2-5 minutes, before removing from the cookie sheet and serving.  

1 lb wild-caught salmon

1 cup Firecracker Walnuts

2 Tbsp olive oil

1/2 tsp sea salt