Baked Salmon with Lemon Pesto Crust

I recently ran a low FODMAP cooking workshop at the Nutrition and Wellbeing Clinic

The low FODMAP diet is an elimination style diet that has been shown through scientific studies to be an effective treatment for people with symptoms of IBS (wind, gas, bloating, diarrhoea and/or constipation).  This dietary approach eliminates among many other foods, both onion and garlic, which is quite difficult to do when cooking if you like food with lots of flavour.

We created a fabulous menu for the cookshop and used lots of fresh herbs and spices in interesting ways to help with flavour.  This is another recipe that examples that theme.

Usually pesto gets a lot of its delicious flavour from garlic.  To not miss out completely, garlic-infused oil is used, plus lemon zest and juice are added for an extra zing.  These flavours team well with salmon so one use of the lemon pesto is to smother salmon fillets with it and bake them in the oven.  This makes a great very quick, very easy, delicious mid-week or anytime meal, especially if you make the pesto ahead of time (the pesto will keep in the fridge for around 1 week or you can freeze it).

This pesto can also be used as a spread on sandwiches or as a dip by adding a small amount of low fat Greek yoghurt to it (1/3 cup pesto + 2 tablespoons yoghurt) and this combination makes a great dressing for potato salad.

So try this variation on the traditional pesto, whether you can tolerate garlic or not and I can guarantee you won’t be disappointed, as it is delicious!

Baked Salmon with Lemon Pesto Crust

Serves 2

• 2 x 140g salmon fillets, trimmed, washed and pat dry with paper towel
• 2 heaped tablespoons lemon basil pesto (see recipe below)

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 160 degrees
• Line an oven tray with baking paper
• Place salmon skin side down on oven tray
• Top with pesto and spread evenly over surface
• Bake for 12-18 minutes depending on how well you like your salmon done, and how thick it is (thicker fillets will need longer)
• Serve with vegetables or salad

Per Serve (using 1 1/2 tablespoons pesto): 1200kJ or 286 calories; P 30g Fat 18g SFat 4g CHO 0.5g Fibre 0.6g

Lemon Basil Pesto

Makes about 1 1/2 cups pesto

• 1 bunch fresh basil (approx. 4 cups loosely packed leaves)
• 3 tablespoons pine nuts, toasted
• ½ cup (70g) coarsely grated Parmesan cheese
• ¼ cup fresh squeezed lemon juice
• ¼ cup garlic-infused extra-virgin olive oil
• 1/6 – ¼ teaspoon salt

Directions:

1. Wash basil leaves and spin dry or dry with paper towels.
2. Put basil leaves into food processor along with pinenuts, cheese and lemon juice and process until finely chopped.
3. You may need to take off the lid and scrape the sides with a rubber scraper if you have a hard time getting the basil all chopped.
4. Add the oil through the feed tube as you process and continue to process for 1-2 minutes more, until the pesto is mostly pureed and well mixed.
5. Season to taste with salt and pulse a few times more.

Store basil pesto in the refrigerator in a glass jar, where it will keep for more than a week.

Pesto can also be frozen.

Per Serve (1 tablespoon 20g):  246kJ or 59 calories; P 2g Fat 5.5g SFat 1.2g CHO <0.5g Fibre 0.5g