Fruited Salmon with Mushrooms and Mustard Sauce

Another 150 Tagines recipe. It comes together quite easily, and quickly for a tagine. We served it over noodles, but it would probably go well with couscous as well -- in which case you may want to start cooking the couscous first, as it will take longer than the tagine if done properly.

We did find it rather excessively tart. symbol suggests replacing the lemon next time; either a sweeter lemon hybrid, or a non-lemon citrus such as blood orange.

The recipe calls for a frozen or preserved lemon, and we had neither; instead we peeled a standard lemon and added the wedges to the tagine, then squeezed the flesh out and removed the skin of the wedges as it was cooking.

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 onion
• 4 cloves garlic, sliced
• 1 tbsp butter
• 1 lb cremini mushrooms, quartered
• 1 pear, chopped
• ½ frozen or preserved lemon, finely chopped, with juice
• 1 tbsp grainy dijon mustard
• 1-1½ lb salmon filet, skin on one side

Procedure

1. Heat the oil in the tagine.
2. Add onion and sautee for five minutes.
3. Add garlic, butter, and mushrooms. Cook, stirring frequently, until the mushrooms soften and release their juices, 5-7 minutes.
4. Add pear, lemon, and mustard, and cook, stirring constantly, for 1 minute.
5. Place salmon on top of vegetables, skin side up (you may need to cut it into pieces to fit it all in the tagine). Cover tagine and cook until fish is opaque and flakes easily when attacked with a fork, 15-20 minutes.