by Elisabeth Duckeck
My daughter and I have been to a restaurant lately and fell in love with this dish. That is why we wanted to try it out ourselves at home, and here is the result.
While the restaurant version was fantastic, I wanted to recreate it at home using only fresh ingredients—completely free from the thickeners and flavor enhancers often hidden in store-bought sauces. This recipe has quickly become my go-to for a healthy, high-protein dish. Combining the crispy fried salmon with silky creamed spinach and my spicy homemade French fries, it is a clean-eating classic that proves you don’t need any convenience products to achieve restaurant-level flavor.
Tips for the success of your cooking
Spinach
I prefer to use fresh leaf spinach and I recommend it as with deep-freezed you might have a problem with the cooking time as it needs to de-frost while cooking. Also, it will release more water so that your creamy spinach will be too liquid.
If you buy it fresh from the market, you will need about 1kg of spinach as you will have to cut off the thick stalks. That is why I usually buy the fresh spinach in a plastic sack from the supermarket, as it is already cleaned. In this case, you will need only 500gr.
The creamed spinach is really easy to cook. To keep the nice green color of the leaves you should use a large pot with a lid to fit all the amount of the spinach at once. As soon as you have added the spinach into the pot, close the lid immediately, as by this way the leaves won’t change the color.
French Fries
You might have heard of “Curly Fries”. When we tried this dish in the restaurant it has been served with these spicy french fries. There are a lot of recipes in the web but it might be difficult to make the curl of the fries at home and – at least in my local supermarkets – you might not find any in the deep-freezer. Also, I do not like very much french fries for deep-frying at home, so I always buy oven fries. It is really easy to make them taste like deep-fried curly fries and they have less calories.
Choice of spices
If you do not want to use smoked paprika powder or cayenne pepper mentioned below, replace the mentioned amount by sweet paprika powder. These spices will also give an additional taste to the cream sauce when served.
Cooking tip: how to get the salmon crispy
To get the outside of the fish really crispy it is important to fry it in a really hot dry pan. Do not use any extra butter or oil. Salmon fish is a quite “fatty” fish and you will realize at the end of the cooking the oil from the fish remaining in the pan.
If you want to check, if your pan is hot enough, simply sprinkle some water with your hand into the pan. If the drops jump around like little pearls it’s hot enough. If it just evaporates, wait some more time. If you use an aluminum pan do not move the fish until it comes off all alone. Only by then it is crispy from outside. If you use a anti-sticking pan just let it fry until the fish has browned nicely. I have tried both the first time I made this dish, the results are the same.
Last but not least:
I recommend not to add lemon juice to the fillets before frying as it will burn on the fish at this high temperature.
Fried Salmon Fillet on Creamed Spinach with Spicy French Fries
Equipment
- 1 Frying pan
- 1 sauce pan
What you need
For the cream spinach
- 500 gr fresh leafy spinach
- 1 large red onion
- 1 clove garlic
- 2 Tbsp olive oil
- 1 heaped tsp corn starch
- 80 ml dry white wine
- 200 ml cooking cream
- 1/4 tsp salt
- some pepper to taste
- some nutmeg to tast
For the salmon
- 4 salmon filets without skin
- 1 juice of a lemon
For the spicy French Fries
- 500 gr French fies (chips) frozen
- 1/2 tsp smoked paprika powder
- 1/2 tsp sweet paprika powder
- 1/2 tsp curry powder
- 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper optional
How to prepare
Cooking the creamy spinach
- Cut the onion in quarters and then cut in slices. Chop the garlic. Rinse the spinach.
- In a large pot heat the olive oil and fry the onion slices and the garlic on high until glassy. Add the corn starch and stir for appr. 1 minute. Deglaze with white wine. Add the cream, salt, pepper and nutmeg. Add the spinach and close the lid. Let cook on high for appr. 2-4 minutes. Open the lid and stir the spinach. When it collapsed, turn off the heat and let it stand with the lid closed. Eventually, add some more salt to your own taste.
Fry the salmon filets
- Heat a dry pan on high.
- In the meantime rinse the salmon fillets, eventually remove the gray fat parts. Pat dry, add some salt and pepper. Place the fish into the hot pan without any additional fat and let fry on high for 2-3 minutes, then reduce the heat on medium. Let fry until the fish comes off alone. Fry the fish from the other side until crispy and add some lemon juice on top of the fish. Let the fish cook on medium heat until done to your own taste.
Preparing the spicy French fries
- Mix the olive oil with the spices. Add to the french fries and mix well until all fries are covered evenly with the mixture. Cook as instructed on the package in the oven until crispy. Add salt to your own taste.
Loved this salmon recipe? Find more ideas for salmon dishes and follow this link to Fish dishes
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