Herbed Salmon with Peruvian Inspired Lettuce Sauce

The more I cook, the more I realize that many times with a good dish it's all about the sauce.  Certainly the food needs to well seasoned and properly cooked, but an exquisite sauce really makes the dish extraordinary.  In fact, a fabulous sauce can save a mediocre dish.  It's all about the sauce.  That's how I feel about today's dish. It's not that the herbed salmon is mediocre, it can certainly stand on it's own, but it's the sauce turns this dish into something special.

What's funny is that I wasn't planning on making a sauce, but this time of year the CSA bombards us with greens, greens and more greens.  I'm pretty good with using up the tougher greens such as kale, collards, chard, spinach in various recipes, or in the case of use it before it spoils, my go to recipe is winter greens pesto.  Make it, freeze it, move on and use something else before next week's box comes.  The problem for me is lettuce.  I love salad, but not every night.  I had some romaine and the outside leaves were losing it, so I knew that I needed to act.  I went online and looked for lettuce sauces and found a nice variety of ideas.  One that caught my eye was a Peruvian sauce with mayo in it. I used that concept as my base and threw this sauce together with items that I had on hand, including some garlic scapes that I needed to use up.  As I get the hang of sauces like this, I realize it's not always in the exact ingredients, just use whatever you have. So as you read this and find that you have no garlic scapes use garlic (a little less) or scallions (a little more) to make the sauce.

Herbed Salmon with Peruvian Inspired Lettuce Sauce

Lettuce Sauce

1/2 head romaine lettuce, roughly chopped

1 teaspoon capers

1/3 cup mayonnaise

2 jalapenos, seeds removed and chopped

2 garlic scapes chopped

1 teaspoon salt, or to taste

1/4 teaspoon pepper, or to taste

1/2 cup cilantro, roughly chopped

Herbed Salmon

1 lb salmon fillet

2 garlic scapes, minced

1/8 cup garlic chives, chopped

1 1/2 tablespoons honey

juice of one lime

salt and pepper to taste

1/4 sup olive oil

romaine lettuce chopped

Puree the lettuce sauce ingredients in a food processor and then refrigerate until ready to serve.

Prepare a broiler pan with foil underneath the rack to protect the pan and preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Place the salmon on the rack.  Mix the remaining ingredients and pour on top of the salmon.  Roast in the oven for about 10 minutes and then turn up the heat up to broil to caramelize the honey during the last few minutes of cooking.  If the fish browns before it is cooked to the desired degree, turn the oven back to 450 degrees to complete cooking.

Serve the fish on a bed of lettuce with the lettuce sauce drizzled on top.