Madhouse recipe : Lime butter salmon with caramelised carrots

After spending years coating my salmon fillets in garlic salt and lime juice, I swapped over to a Turkish-inspired combination of zesty sumac and tart but sweet pomegranate molasses last year (click through for the recipe), after our holiday in Kusadasi. Alas, I recently finished off the last of my sumac, so I was wondering what to try next. A recipe caught my eye on the The Recipe Critic for Lime Butter Salmon so I decided to give that a try. My own dish ended up far removed from the original though so make sure you head over to see that version too. The butter seemed to make the salmon extra soft and moist and the carrots were lovely as a fresh, summery accompaniment.

Lime butter salmon with caramelised carrots

ingredients :

1 salmon fillet per person

salt & pepper

a knob of butter per fillet

lime juice and zest

carrots

Lay out the salmon fillets and grind over some salt and black pepper. Squeeze over lime juice, scatter with lime zest and put a knob of butter (a generous teaspoon) on each piece.

I planned on putting the salmon in a foil bag in the oven, as per the original recipe, but once I'd put the carrot sticks in there, there was no room left, so I just left the salmon in the ovenproof dish as usual. The original recipe used courgettes, red pepper, squash, red onion and asparagus, which sounds delicious, but it was one day before the weekly grocery shop and all I had left in the fridge was carrots !

I put the carrots (peeled and sliced into sticks) into the foil bag along with some more lime juice, zest and butter, as well as half a cup of water to create steam. They were still very firm 20 minutes later when the salmon was ready, so I poured the entire contents of the bag - carrots, water, butter, lime juice/zest - into a saucepan and cooked them on a high heat until the liquid evaporated and they started to caramelise. This made a nice refreshing, summery, healthy lunch that tasted just as good as the pomegranate molasses and sumac combo.

What are your favourite flavours with salmon? I'm sure there must be other recipes for me to try.