So it’s that time of year again, when you rack your brain for what to get that special someone for Valentines Day. Also equally taxing is finding a restaurant where it’s not grossly overpriced and packed for the special V-day meal. So how about this year, change it up and give a gift from the heart and cook at home instead? Two problems solved – gift and dinner in one! It doesn’t have to be stressful – YouCook, with Susur’s help, will show you this simple but impressive Roasted Crusted Salmon with Mussels meal that looks as good as it tastes, without having to slave for hours! This is a recipe from Madeline’s winterlicious menu. I was pleasantly surprised at how simple this recipe was (after all, I was cooking with Susur!), and was even more surprised at the secret to the crispy skin – which isn’t salmon skin at all! See the recipe below for his secret ingredient! Thanks Susur for showing us the secret behind your roasted crusted salmon and providing an elegant recipe perfect for the upcoming special occasion!
Summary
Preparation Time: 20 min
Cook Time: 20 min
Servings: 1 serving
Meal type: Main
Grocery Cost: $9.37
Recipe Rating: 
Ingredients
For the salmon:
- 1 piece of white bread
- 1 salmon fillet, about ½ lb ~ $3.50
- salt
- white pepper
- 1 egg
For the mussels:
- 6-8 mussels ~ $2.00
- 1 cup white wine ~ $1.60
- 1 cup chicken stock ~ $0.50
- 1 cup cream ~ $1.79
- chives for garnish
Instructions
For the salmon:
1. Prepare egg wash by beating an egg in a bowl. Set aside.
2. Roll a slice of white bread until it’s very thin. You can use a rolling pin or pasta roller.
3. If the salmon fillet has skin on it, cut it off using a sharp knife. Season the skin-less salmon fillet with salt and white pepper.
4. Brush the egg wash over the piece of salmon, on the side where the skin is.
5. Lay the salmon fillet with the egg wash side down over the flat piece of bread. Then simply cut around the bread to align with the salmon. This becomes the “crispy” skin.
6. Heat oil in a heavy cast iron pan that you can put in the oven. Fry the salmon with the “skin” side down for a few minutes.
7. Take the entire pan and put it in the oven to bake until done, about 20 minutes.
Learn how Susur does it in this video:
For the mussels:
8. Mix the white wine, chicken stock and cream in a saucepan.
9. Bring to a boil and reduce until you have about half a cup of sauce
10. Toss the mussels in the sauce until the mussels have opened.
11. Once the salmon is done, serve it with mussels, with a pureed vegetable or mashed potatoes on the side. Pour the sauce from the mussels over top, and garnish with chives.
Quick Notes
This recipe yields one serving, which is what Susur showed us, but you can easily multiply the ingredients to make multiple servings.
If you want a sauce that is less rich, you can use half a cup of cream instead of the full cup, and replace the half cup with milk or chicken broth.
Variations
You can use the rolled white bread to make a crispy skin with any other fish fillet, such as sea bass, haddock – feel free to use this on your favourite dish for a crispy touch.
Susur serves this dish with a pureed vegetable. You can puree many different types of vegetables, such as potato, squash, celery to serve as a side. I personally love pureed butternut squash. See our recipe for Roasted Butternut Squash soup, which I think you can adapt by adding less chicken stock so it’s thicker to use as a pureed vegetable side. I love the taste of roasted butternut squash with ginger. For that special Valentines Day touch, you can shape this into a heart shape!
Results
The result is a crispy skinned, tender salmon with a rich sauce and mussels on the side. I never knew that you could use simple white bread to make crispy salmon skin. If you had this at Madeline’s, please comment and tell us how you liked it! Also remember to vote for it on our Winterlicous app if you liked this dish! Happy Valentines Day – let us know how it turned out for you!
And has grown to an appreciation for how fine dining establishments have taken this dish to a whole new level with different cheeses, different toppings and different cream and oils. I always opt to order this at the classiest steak houses I go to and always get made fun of but, at last, I get the last laugh and a full comfy tummy. 
With Roux, you combine butter and flour, so you can pick your evils between fattening cream or fattening butter. Either way, this hearty Macaroni and Cheese dish would never make the top healthy meal award. I choose the cream for the sake of using less ingredients. 
