Anne Morgan Here is Delia Smith’s salmon with avocado and crème fraîche recipe, a summer salmon dish for 6 people. You bake salmon steaks in foil with white wine, lemon and herbs, then serve them cold with a green avocado sauce. The salmon cooks in only 20 minutes, and you can make everything earlier in the day.
Her name for the dish is Salmon Steaks with Avocado and Crème Fraîche Sauce, and it is in The Delia Collection: Fish. She printed it before that in her Summer Collection in 1993, with a few small differences. This page follows the later version, which is also the one on her website today.
Delia suggests it for a special summer dinner party, and she says it leaves the cook free. In the Summer Collection it is also a main course on her buffet menu for 18 people, next to her parmesan chicken recipe.
The sauce is smooth, green and creamy, and it has a little garlic and sherry vinegar in it. In winter, Delia says this salmon goes just as well with a parsley sauce, and that recipe is on the salmon with parsley sauce page.
Delia Smith’s Salmon Steaks with Avocado Sauce
Course: DinnerCuisine: BritishDifficulty: Easy6
servings15
minutes20
minutes480
kcalA cold main course for a summer table. Watercress fills the hollow of each steak, and the sauce is handed round separately.
Ingredients
- For the salmon:
6 fresh salmon steaks, 175g (6oz) each
6 small sprigs of tarragon or parsley
6 small bay leaves
1 small lemon, thinly sliced
6 dessertspoons white wine
salt and freshly milled black pepper
- For the sauce:
1 good-sized avocado
200ml (7fl oz) crème fraîche
1 small clove garlic, peeled
1 teaspoon sherry vinegar
salt and freshly milled black pepper
- To garnish:
1 bunch watercress, or other pretty leaves
Directions
- Oven: Heat the oven to 180°C, fan 160°C, gas mark 4.
- Foil: Lay a large sheet of foil, about 60 x 90cm, in a shallow baking tin. Wipe the salmon steaks with kitchen paper and put them on the foil.
- Flavour: Put a sprig of tarragon or parsley, a bay leaf and a slice of lemon on each steak. Season them, then spoon a dessertspoon of wine over each one.
- Wrap: Wrap the foil loosely round all the steaks and make a pleat in the top to seal it.
- Bake: Bake the parcel on a highish shelf for exactly 20 minutes.
- Cool: Take the tin out of the oven and let the salmon cool inside the foil. Do not open the parcel.
- Avocado: Halve the avocado, take out the stone, cut it into quarters and peel off the skin. Put the flesh in a liquidiser or food processor. Then scrape the inside of the skin with a teaspoon and add that greenest part too.
- Blend: Add the garlic clove, the sherry vinegar, salt and pepper, and blend until smooth.
- Fold: Move the purée to a mixing bowl and fold in the crème fraîche until it is well mixed. Taste it, because it may need a little more vinegar.
- Chill: Cover the bowl with clingfilm and keep it in the fridge until you serve.
- Skin: Open the foil. Ease the strip of skin off the edge of each steak with a sharp knife, then take off the herbs and lemon.
- Serve: Move the steaks to a serving dish and put a small bunch of watercress in the hollow centre of each one. Hand the sauce round separately.
Notes
- Make the sauce only a few hours before the meal, so it keeps its green colour.
- The herbs, bay and lemon are there to scent the salmon lightly. They do not change its flavour.
FAQs
What did her 1993 Summer Collection version use?
Tarragon only, 2 bay leaves and no lemon. In that book each steak gets a sprig of tarragon and a piece of bay leaf.
The later book adds the slice of lemon, a whole small bay leaf for each steak and the choice of parsley. The sauce, the oven heat and the baking time are the same in both books.
Does this recipe work with boned fillets?
Yes. A note in her Summer Collection says boned fillets cook in the same way. She uses fillets of 150g there and bakes them for only 10 to 15 minutes.
For fillets of up to 175g, Book Two of How to Cook gives 15 to 20 minutes. For hot fillets, her salmon with pesto crust roasts in 10 minutes.
How far ahead can I cook the salmon?
Cook it on the morning of the meal, my own view, so it has time to go cold. Delia’s Complete Cookery Course says a salmon parcel can stay unopened until just before serving.
Keep the closed parcel in the fridge if the wait is longer than 2 hours. That is my own tip, for food safety.
How do I make it for 12 or 24 people?
Bake more steaks in the same way. Delia says you can line up any number of them, such as 12 or 24, for a buffet party.
I’d make one foil parcel in its own tin for every 6 steaks, so each parcel still seals well. By my own sums, every 6 steaks need 1 avocado and 200ml of crème fraîche for the sauce. For one big fish instead, her baked whole salmon serves 8.
Does Delia have another avocado sauce for cold salmon?
Yes, a simpler one called Avocado Sauce, in her Complete Cookery Course. You mash it in a bowl, and it makes enough for 4 to 6.
You need 1 medium avocado, 1 tablespoon of lemon juice, 1 crushed clove of garlic and 150ml of soured cream or Greek yoghurt. Mash the avocado to a purée with the lemon juice, garlic, salt and pepper. Then mix in the soured cream until the sauce is smooth.
Cover it tightly and chill it, and make it on the day you need it. She also uses it as a dip, with thin strips of raw vegetables.
