Orange & fennel baked salmon

This dish was inspired by an Alison Roman recipe called citrus salmon in which she slow cooked her fish with grapefruit, orange and lime!

I decided to keep it super simple and create a dish around orange. Traditionally we seem to just favour lemons when it comes to fish and meat cookery, but the delicate juiciness of an orange really lends itself to a fattier meatier fish and when you cook the orange with the skins on they caramalised slightly and are delicious eaten whole.

There were very few ingredients in this recipe, fennel and orange is quite a classic combination so all the recipe needed to finish it off was some lovely white wine and good quality olive oil.

I would have loved to cook everything together in one parcel for ease but I think that for fennel to truly become it's best it needs a slightly longer cooking time than the salmon!

I served this with a fresh salad of watercress and peas, and some grains!

Serves 4-5

Ingredients

• 4-5 salmon fillets (try and source good quality salmon if you can!)

• 2 oranges (cut into thin slices)

• 2 bulbs of fennel cut into thick quarters (save the green fennel fronds for finishing the dish at the end)

• Nice quality white wine

• Good quality of olive oil

• Salt and pepper

Method

Fennel:

1. Preheat your oven to 180°C

2. Line a small baking dish with some parchment

3. Place in your prepared fennel

4. Place in 1 of your prepared oranges

5. Cover with lots of olive oil (about 2-3 tablespoons)

6. Finish with a good glug of white wine

7. Cook in oven for 20 minutes

Salmon:

1. On baking tray lay a large piece of baking paper

2. Place your salmon vertically down the middle ensuring it’s got space between the fillets

3. Cover with the orange

4. Drizzle with a good glug of olive oil

5. Slug over some white wine

6. Finish with salt and pepper

7. Create your parcel by folding together the sides of the paper roll over the sides to seal the parcel

8. Bake fish in oven for 12 minutes

9. Remove from oven and open the bag to ensure the fish doesn't keep coming

10. Bring together the fennel and the salmon and top with the fennel fronds and more black pepper