7 Minute Pan Seared Salmon

You heard it here first, or second, you can cook a salmon dinner in 7 minutes. I mean, if you want to, it's totally possible. I'll tell you how...

First of all, start with some salmon... obviously. I have the amazing luck of living in the Pacific Northwest and have the privilege of having a father who is quite a fisherman. He is always calling me and letting me know he has a drawer full of fresh salmon, or crab, or halibut, or some other amazing that I can help myself to. So, naturally I drive right over and grab a beautiful, caught-that-day, king salmon fillet. If you can think of something that represents the western coast of Washington better than salmon I would be shocked. I mean, I guess there's Starbucks, and Micro Soft, and Amazon... But whatever, we're talking about SALMON, people, don't get smart!
In the beginning there was a salmon fillet:

I wanted to keep this simple, healthy, and quick. When the meat of a recipe is amazingly fresh and perfect sometimes adding too many layers of flavors detracts from the star of the show, which is the case with this dish. I began by lightly salting and peppering the fillet on both the meat and skin sides. I know some people are a little "iffy" with skin on fish but with the tenderness of this meat it is important to keep it on for the cooking process and you can totally take it off afterwards.

The next step was to start cooking this beauty up. You only need one pan and a little olive oil to cook this. Butter is totally an option to put in the pan but I wanted to keep this as healthy as I could so olive oil was my choice. I heated the pan to medium-high and put the fish in skin-side-up. 

I put a few sprigs of fresh rosemary in with the fish to add a little bit of herbiness to the dish and let it sizzle away for about 4 minutes. After that I flipped the meat over and cooked the skin side for about 3 minutes. The flip is where keeping the skin on comes in handy because it holds the fish together. 

The color should be a nice golden brown, try not to cut into the center of the flesh to check "doneness" because that will affect how moist the fish turns out. Just go with your instincts and timing, also, meat continues to cook after it is removed from the heat so this probably will never come out underdone.

After you take this out of the pan you could put a little more salt and pepper to taste and of course you could melt some butter over the top!
I garnished with fresh lemon slices and more fresh rosemary which both complement the flavor of salmon so, so well. This salmon tastes amazing, not fishy at all, and the meat is perfectly tender and flaky just like fresh fish should be.

If you are not usually a seafood lover, I would totally recommend trying a red fish like salmon because it is so flavorful and never fishy. Plus, king salmon is crazy healthy! It has about 6 grams of protein per ounce and 375 milligrams of omega 3 fatty acids per ounce. Not to mention all of the minerals it provides including phosphorus, calcium, and potassium. What's not to love?!

Here is the step-by-step-

Serves: 2       Prep Time: 0-3 Minutes       Cooking Time: 7 Minutes       Total Time: 7-10 Minutes

Ingredients:

• Fillet of salmon
• 1 lemon
• several sprigs of  fresh rosemary (or a couple tablespoons of dried)
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• 1 teaspoon of Olive Oil

Instructions:

1. Heat medium sauce pan to medium-high heat with olive oil in pan
2. Season both sides of the salmon with salt and pepper
3. Place fish in pan skin side up and cook for 4 minutes
4. Add 1/2 of your rosemary to the pan for flavor
5. Flip fish and cook for 3 more minutes
6. Remove from pan and let rest, garnish with fresh sliced lemon and rosemary, or as desired

Enjoy-