I promised this to Yuka for dinner as a repayment for a favor. We haven’t managed to get together to enjoy it, but Tod & I had it last night. Takes about 30 minutes, start to finish, and is wonderfully light and delicious. The secret is quatre epices, a French spice mixture of white pepper, nutmeg, cinnamon & clove.

Nut Encrusted Salmon
serves 2

2 salmon fillets
1/2 lemon
1/8 cup of panko (Japanese breadcrumbs)
1/4 cup of mixed nuts (almonds, pistachios, macadamias, walnuts, brazil nuts, etc)
dash quatre epices
salt & black pepper to taste
1 tsp butter

Squeeze the lemon over both sides of the fish fillets and set aside while you prepare the crumbs. Chop or grind the nuts finely. In a baking pan large enough to contain the fish, mix nuts with breadcrumbs and season with a liberal dash or two of quatre epices then salt & pepper to taste.

Press the fish into the crumb mixture, turn the fillets over and mound the remainder on top of the fish. Dot with butter. Bake in a 350/160 oven for 20 minutes.