Baked Salmon in a Lemon-Garlic-White Wine Butter Reduction, with Sauteed Spinach & Goat Cheese

The best thing about this recipe is that it looks, smells, and tastes so impressive but doesn't take much effort. Whenever I have company I wish to impress, or cook for a co-worker who is kind enough to let us cut out half of her wild rosemary tree from her garden (more on that later), this comes out of my shirt-sleeves.

You have two options for choosing your cuts of salmon, which will depend on your preference. One is to try to select a thin cut of fish, which may be difficult OR you can request that the fish be butterfly cut, which will make stuffing it with the ingredients easy.

Take your salmon filets and rest them in a cooking pan, preheating your oven to about 350 degrees. In a large saute pan, drizzle some fresh baby spinach with olive oil, 1-2 cloves of crushed garlic, and a dash of rock salt. With an eye on the spinach, in a small saute pan, add the juice of two-three lemons, 1/4 cup of white wine, 1/4 cup of butter, and crushed fresh garlic (I generally add about three-four cloves). Stirring occasionally until the butter is melted, cover and reduce heat.

When the spinach is done, layer this on top of the salmon filets, adding a layer of fresh goat cheese on top. Sprinkle with fresh chopped thyme, chervil, basil, parsley, and tarragon.

At this point, if you chose the thinly sliced salmon, take your salmon-spinach-goat cheese and roll them up, sticking through with toothpicks to hold. Depending on the thickness of the cut, you may need only two per roll, or you may need upwards of 5. If you chose the non-rolled and/or butterfly cut fish, you can just disregard the previous step.

However you chose to prep your fish, the next step is to slowly pour your sauce over the fish.

Put the pan in the oven and cook for about 30-45 minutes. I like my fish to get a little crisp so I leave it in just a few minutes longer before serving it with the remaining spinach over brown rice.