By Eric Kim
The New York Times
Can you marry me something?
A certain number of recipes “marry me”, a protein draped in a tomato sauce dried in the creamy sun (“marry Me Chicken”; my colleague Alexa Weibel de Tomato, whom readers call “marry Me Bean”), made my publishers and I ask yourself: just because you can dip something in this 90s pink sauce, should you?
You should.
Otherwise, how would you discover that the salmon with clear skin is spectacular with the sauce “marry me”?
The Tuscan style chicken recipe from Lindsay Funston has raised millions of views after its publication on Delish.com in 2016 and found a new life on Tiktok for years later. “Marrying Me Salmon” is a fantastic riff, a fish dinner that you can cook for yourself and the love of your life any day of the week. It’s not so new.
In 2023, Alyssa Rivers of the Recipe Critical Blog published a version with a lemon zest, which helps the fatty fish usefully, just like Hajar Larbah, who directed the Moribyan blog. As Larbah describes the salmon, it is “so good that it will make you say” marry me “to anyone who does it for you!” His omits the dried tomatoes in the sun but maintains the lush and creamy essence of the dish. There are others also vary in ingredients, but all carry the title of “marry me”.
For weeks, I was looking for one of these old -fashioned emulsions of red, light on the palace, almost grazed but rich. While eating as many pink sauces as possible in the world, I realized that what distinguishes the best is simplicity, with nothing competitor – and a lot of yellow, soft, soft and familiar onion. You can add garlic, but salmon is not chicken, so its sauce needs a lighter touch.
The chicken broth works, but the bottleded juice in the bottle (a advice from my colleague Geneviève Ko), easily available in most grocery stores, gives you a taste of seafood with clean red sauce. A touch of thick cream takes you to the Rougit vodka territory. The sun-dried tomatoes make him “marry me”.
By launching the fish, mainly on the side of the skin, in the tomato oil dried in the sun, then gently poaching (and briefly) the flesh side in the “marry me” sauce, you get the overwhelming skin that gives the plush salmon. There is something beautiful in the way the simplest treatment can bring out the best qualities of an ingredient.
No one told me until I got on my knees in August and I asked my partner to marry me that nothing would change; There would still be dishes to make, invoices to pay and a laundry to sort. But after having integrated this dish into our busy life, I realized that wedding is everyday games, the parade of the week’s dinners during the occasional meeting party. “Me marry” can really mean anything, but above all, it is when the ordinary becomes transcendent.
Marry me the salmon
A vision of marrying Me Chicken, this dish is the weekly fish that you cook for your future life partner. The perfectly burned salmon bathed in a creamy sauce dried in the sun is anchored by the familiar punch of the dried oregano and the crushed red pepper. By cooking the fish mainly on the side of the skin, then gently poaching the flesh side in the sauce, you get a broken skin that gives the plush salmon. Bottle -up juice, easily available in the grocery store, gives the creamy red sauce a taste of seafood. Serve with crisp and soft Italian bread or your favorite pasta thrown with an oil dribbling from the dried tomato jar in the sun.
Make 2 portions
INGREDIENTS
2 salmon fillets, preferably skin (10 ounces in total)
Cosher salt and black pepper
1/4 cup of dried tomatoes in the sun with finely trenched oil, plus 2 tablespoons of oil from the pot
1/2 average yellow onion, finely chopped
1 teaspoon of dried oregano, more to taste
1/2 to 1 teaspoon of crushed red pepper, more to taste
2 tablespoons of tomato paste
1 (8 ounces) jui de clash (1 cup)
1/2 cup of thick cream
Fresh basil leaves, to serve (optional)
INSTRUCTIONS
1: Type the dry salmon and sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper everywhere.
2: Heat an average non -stick or dark pan on the high average, then add 1 tablespoon of oil from the dried tomato jar in the sun.
3: Sear the skin from the salmon down until the skin is golden and crisp, and the flesh is opaque about three -quarters from the top, from 5 to 7 minutes. Reduce the heat if the skin starts to burn. Transfer to one side of the plate skin upwards. (The fish will finish cooking in the sauce later.)
4: Reduce the heat to medium. Add the onion to the pan and season with salt. Cook, stirring from time to time, until it softens considerably, 5 to 7 minutes.
5: Reduce the heat to medium-low. Add the remaining tablespoons of dried tomato oil in the sun. Add the oregano and the crushed red pepper, stirring for a few seconds to flower them and open their flavors. Add the tomato paste and stir frequently to darker shade, about 3 minutes.
6: Add the clam juice and lift the heat to the medium-high. Cook, stirring from time to time until it is reduced by half, 4 to 5 minutes. Reduce the medium to the medium-low, add the cream and the tomatoes dried in the sun and cook, stirring constantly, until it is slightly reduced, about 5 minutes. Taste and add more salt, pepper, oregano and crushed red pepper as you wish.
7: Turn the salmon over the side of the flesh from the pan down, without having sauce on the crisp skin, then reduce the light to soft. Simmer until the salmon is cooked, about 1 minute. He will continue to cook because he is. To serve, garnish with basil leaves, if you use.
Eric Kim recipe.
