This herb and fennel-crusted salmon might just be my new favourite way to eat it. I love salmon raw, poached, grilled and pan-fried, but this flavour-packed crust gives it an amazing texture and it’s so easy to do. I love recipes that kind of cook themselves and require minimal prep. Perfect for when you are time-strapped but want to impress.

I paired it with the De Wetshof Estate The Site Chardonnay, a classic wine with typical Chardonnay characteristics of nuttiness & vanilla. It’s a beautiful and complex wine with bold flavours that are well served with something a little special.

Herb & fennel crusted salmon with D e Wetshof Estate Chardonnay

It cuts through the fattiness of the salmon and marries perfectly with the fennel. Made from grapes that come from perfectly located vineyards that date back to 1986, this wine is made in the vineyard as much as it’s made in the cellar. It spends one year in French oak barrels to give it more character.

I added fennel seeds to the sweet potatoes too, along with thyme and olive oil, and both crisped up beautifully adding amazing flavour. The hint of fennel seeds in the salmon crust gets toasted off first to release their aromatics. It doesn’t overpower in an aniseedy kind of way and my favourite fennel salad with radish and lemon would be perfect to accompany this dish.

In case you missed them, I’m producing a series of recipes that pair well with the delectable range of Dewetshof Estate Chardonnays and so far I have done:

Risotto alla Milanese with brown butter pan-fried prawns

pasta in a creamy roasted onion & fennel sauce with pork meatballs & gorgonzola

Jamie Oliver’s chicken in milk

A few other fish & seafood recipes you might like:

Baked whole trout with herbs and lemon

Mussels with white wine garlic and cream

Creamy salmon pasta with spinach, capers & lemon

Creamy Tuscan salmon with sun-dried tomatoes

Trout en Papillote with fennel

Prawn pasta with tomato, garlic & cream

Jamie Oliver’s fantastic fish pie

Recipe – serves 2

Ingredients

Salmon

550 – 600 gm salmon
½ cup Asian panko crumbs
3 Tbsp olive oil
¼ cup flat leaf parsley finely chopped 2 Tbsp
1 tsp chopped thyme leaves
1 tsp fennel seeds lightly toasted
zest from half a lemon
sea salt & black pepper

Roast sweet potatoes

3 medium orange sweet potatoes peeled and cut into wedges
approx 3 – 4 Tbsp olive oil
1 tsp fennel seeds raw
4 sprigs thyme
about 8 cloves garlic bruised
salt and pepper

Horseradish crème fraiche

¼ cup crème fraiche
2 tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 tsp creamed horseradish
salt and black pepper

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 200C. Toss the sweet potatoes in the olive oil and spread on a baking tray in a single layer. Sprinkle over the fennel seeds, thyme stalks and salt & pepper. Roast for 30 – 40 minutes until golden brown.
Pin bone the salmon and place it on a baking tray lined with non-stick baking paper skin side down.
Mix all the crumb ingredients together and spread evenly over the salmon. Bake for 15 – 20 minutes (depending on how thick the fish is) at 200C and until the crust is golden brown and the salmon just cooked through.