Salmon & Greens Pasta with Zesty Crème Fraîche

Salmon & Greens Pasta with Zesty Crème Fraîche -

Serves 4 - Prep time 20 minutes

If you've never been a fan of fish with skin on, I beg you to try this method and see if it changes your mind. It has amazing health benefits and if done right won't have the fatty, slippery texture which is very unappealing. 

As with all my recipes it's super easy to cook, just 2 pans involved. This is a basic version, if you have some soft herbs at hand like parsley, they would go great. You can also swap the greens for anything else you have in your fridge like peas, asparagus, sugar snaps.

Ingredients

• 4 salmon fillets, skin on
• 400g fusilli pasta
• 1 head of brocolli
• 220g green beans
• 1 lemon
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• 40g parmesan
• 300ml Crème Fraîche
• 1 tsp salt

Method 

1. Fill your kettle and boil water to use for pasta

2. Preheat a large frying pan with the vegetable oil. The heat should be medium, the salmon will cook skin side down for most of the time, too high heat and it will burn. 

3. Unpack the salmon fillets and season with salt on both sides. Make sure the skin is seasoned well, this will draw out moisture to ensure it going crispy. Place in the pan skin side down.

4. Fill a big stock pan with the boiling water, bring to the boil and add the pasta. Set a timer for 2 minutes less than the pasta cooking time on the packet - this will probably be about 8 minutes as most fusilli takes 10 minutes to cook.

5. Chop the brocolli into florets, halving the larger ones, the veg only has a couple of minutes cooking time. Trim the ends of your green beans. 

6. Check the salmon as it cooks, it should gradually turn to a golden brown crispy colour. If the pan looks like it's dried up add a dash more oil. Keep cooking skin side down until the top of the fillets are nearly all light pink colour. Once this is complete, turn off the heat and flip the fillets over. These will finish cooking with the pans residual heat while you sort the pasta out.

7. When the pasta timer goes off, chuck all the broccoli and beans into the pasta water. After 2 minutes more cooking, drain the lot into a colander the put back in the pan. Add the whole tub of crème fraîche, zest and juice of lemon and about 200ml of boiling water so it isn't so gloopy. Mix it all round with a big spoon so the crème fraîche melts and covers everything.

8. Check the salmon is cooked - you can gently prise open the flesh. A little bit pink inside is good, but mainly it should still have lots of moisture. Then I like to slice it skin side up with a large serrated knife, I thin this make it more appetising and the kids can just use their forks to grab them with.

9. Check if the pasta mix is gloopy and add a bit more water if so then serve into large pasta bowls. Add the chunks of salmon on top then grate parmesan to finish.