Grilled Salmon with Lemon Caper Sauce Salad of Cucumber, Red Onion & Garden Herbs
I was inspired by the classic Smoked Salmon Platter: a beautiful presentation of a thinly sliced smoked salmon served with capers, red onion, diced egg, cucumbers, lemon and dill.
All these ingredients are duplicated in my recipe:
Smoked Salmon – Grilled Salmon, we’ll catch that smokiness off the grill
Capers, Diced Egg, Lemon & Dill – Along comes our Lemon Caper Sauce and the garnishment of a hardboiled egg.
Cucumbers, Red Onion, More Dill & More Lemon – Now part of our salad
Certain ingredients just love each other! So why change a perfect combo, let’s just find a new and fun way to put them back together.
You can make both your Lemon Caper Sauce and the Cucumber Dill Salad ahead of time. Grill the salmon and serve.
It’s important to use the best ingredients you can find. I highly recommend using fresh salmon not a frozen product. Wild caught salmon season has begun so the options are plentiful. You don’t need to (but it is amazingly delicious) use wild caught salmon. There are some delicious fresh sustainably farmed salmons that are high in Omega 3 fats. These fats are what give the salmon a mild flavor with a moist texture. And…Omega 3 fats are so very good for you!
Ingredients
Lemon Caper Sauce
- ½ cup Mayonnaise
- 2 teaspoon Lemon Zest
- 4 teaspoons Lemon Juice
- 2 tablespoon Fresh Dill chopped
- 2 tablespoon Capers rinsed and chopped
- ¼ teaspoon Celery Salt
Salad of Cucumber, Red Onion and Garden Herbs
- 1 1/2 English Cucumbers 4 cups
- ½ Red Onion thinly sliced and cut into quarters, 1 cup
- ¼ cup White Wine Vinegar
- 1 tablespoon Honey
- ½ teaspoon Salt
- 2 tablespoons Fresh Dill
- 1 tablespoon Fresh Parsley
- 1 tablespoon Fresh Mint
Hard Boiled Eggs
- 4 Farm Fresh Eggs
Grilled Salmon
- 4 Salmon Filets 6-8 ounces each
- 1 tablespoon Avocado Oil (good for high heat applications)
- Salt & Fresh Ground Pepper
- ½ Lemon for drizzling after cooking
Instructions
Lemon Caper Sauce
- Add the above ingredients to small bowl. Whisk to blend. Refrigerate for a couple hours to incorporate flavors. Can be made a day or two ahead of time.
Salad of Cucumber, Red Onion and Garden Herbs
- Removing excess water:Slice cucumbers and onion. In a colander, do 3 layers of cucumber, sprinkling ½ teaspoon of salt (total, not per layer) in between each layer and on top. In another colander, do 2 layers of onion, sprinkling 1/8 teaspoon of salt (total, not per layer) in between the layer and on top.Let sit for 30-45 minutes. Thoroughly rinse in cold water to remove the salt. Dry cucumbers and onion with a flour sack towel.
- Creating the salad:In a medium bowl, toss cucumber and red onion. In a small bowl combine the white wine vinegar, honey and salt. Add the dressing to the cucumbers and red onion. Refrigerate for 20 minutes. Toss with dill, parsley and mint. Refrigerate for an hour or two. Can be made a day ahead.
Hard Boiled Eggs
- Fill a sauce pan with cold water to cover the eggs. Place the pan on the burner at medium high heat. Once the pot boils, remove from the heat and cover for 17 minutes. Rinseboiled eggs under cold water and refrigerate until ready to peel and cut.
Grilled Salmon
- Remove salmon from refrigerator and let them get to roomtemperature. Heat your grill to medium high(450-500 degrees). Scrape the grates clean. Brush grates with oil.
- Pat dry the salmon. Brush with avocado oil and season with saltand fresh ground pepper. Place thesalmon on the grill, cover. Grill for5-6 minutes. Flip the fish (if it sticksgive it another minute or two – do not force it). Cover and cook an additional 4-5minutes. The internal temperature of the salmon should reach 125-135 degrees. Remove from the grill. Drizzle with lemon juice and serve immediately.
- Note: Rule of thumb – cooking time is 10 minutes per one inch of thickness. You do not want to over cook the salmon. It will continue to cook once you remove it from the grill. Personally, I like my salmon a little rarer (125 degree internal temperature). Do this with only high-quality salmon. The texture “melts in your mouth”.