Wild Salmon with Sweet and Sour Braised Cabbage

I’ve mentioned before that I’m not big on desserts because I get bored easily with sweet flavors. But when sweet is paired with sour and savory? Now that’s a taste sensation I can always get behind! Fortunately it’s front and center in this dish, where silky braised cabbage is the star. Savory, smoky bacon fat adds a touch of richness, crispy pancetta bits provide a nice crunch for textural contrast, and fresh dill – a classic pairing with red cabbage and caraway – lends a hint of herbal warmth. (If you’d rather not use pork, I’ve provided an alternative in the “Notes” section of the recipe.) I prefer red cabbage for its hearty texture and wonderful color, but you can also make this with green cabbage. It won’t be quite as pretty but it will taste just as good.

This braised cabbage contains very little fat and a ton of flavor, so it’s the perfect partner for a fatty and assertive fish like salmon. I personally only eat wild Pacific salmon which tends to be leaner than its farmed and Atlantic counterparts, but it’s still swimming with healthful omega-3 fatty acids. The salmon doesn’t need complicated seasoning, just salt, pepper, and a little dill to tie it in with the cabbage. We’re baking it low and slow in the oven until barely cooked through to maintain its beautiful bright color and unctuous texture. (Few things make me sadder than a gorgeous piece of salmon that’s over-cooked and chalky.) This slow-cooked method in a low oven is my favorite hands-off way to cook fish of any kind – you get perfect results every time and you’re much less likely to have all that unattractive white albumin oozing out. Fillets vary wildly in thickness, so the time your salmon spends in the oven will depend on how thick your salmon is. I estimate 9-10 minutes of cooking time per half-inch of thickness, so if your fillets are 1 inch thick they’ll take 18-20 minutes. If they’re a really meaty 1 ½ inches thick like the ones in my photos they’ll take 27-30 minutes. These estimates are based on the assumption that you take your salmon like I do – just barely medium-rare. If you want it more on the medium side, add another 1-2 minutes per half-inch of thickness.

Got all that? Good. Now get cooking!

I like to slice the pancetta or bacon into thin strips to mimic the shape of the sliced cabbage. If you’d rather go with a thicker cut like dice, you’ll have to cook it longer to render the fat. I wouldn’t make it thicker than a half-inch as it won’t render as well, and you want to keep the focus on the cabbage – the pancetta should be a background player here.

Remember last week in the post about Sweet Potato, White Bean and Rainbow Chard Hash when I said my cats love bacon? I wasn’t kidding. That’s my little Sophie trying to steal the pancetta. After this happened I hid it from her, and of course I forgot all about it until after I photographed the finished dish, dug in, and realized something was missing. Oops. Hey, even pros make mistakes!

This is how you want the onions to look before you add the cabbage – they should be nicely softened, translucent, and starting to shrink up from loss of moisture.

After you’ve wilted the cabbage a bit and added all the remaining ingredients it will look like this. Now bring it up to a simmer, cover it with a tight-fitting lid, reduce the heat to low and let it cook for about an hour, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking. If your lid isn’t super tight and allows steam to escape, you may have to add a little extra chicken broth along the way to keep it from drying out.

Season the salmon fillets and place them skin side down on a bed of whole dill sprigs. As the dill heats up it will perfume the salmon. Once the salmon is cooked, carefully peel off the skin. There’s probably a grayish-brown film underneath the skin. If your fillets are wild, don’t scrape it off – that layer is where a lot of the healthful omega-3 fatty acids reside. If you’re using farmed salmon I recommend removing it because it may contain harmful pollutants. Once you’ve done all that, lay each salmon fillet on a plated mound of cabbage and dig in!

Here’s my plated dish. I like to finish it off with a drizzle of good aged balsamic vinegar (or balsamic reduction), but it’s completely optional.