CREAMY LEMON DILL PAPPARDELLE WITH ASPARAGUS AND SALMON

Dinner, Italian, Seafood by Cafe Christina

This is by far my favorite dinner lately. Honestly, anything with salmon is my favorite. I love it. It’s easy enough for a weeknight meal, yet fancy enough for a dinner date at home.

Pappardelle pasta is one of my all time favorites. It’s a super thick noodle, probably 3 times the thickness of fettuccine. If you’ve never bought it before, I highly recommend you do for this dish. You can certainly use a regular fettuccine, linguini, penne, rigatoni or bow tie. Any type of thick noodle will do. Yet, the pappardelle adds a different texture to the dish that I just absolutely adore. You can find it in any grocery store on the pasta isle.

I start by making a lemon dill cream sauce, with garlic and onion. Oh, and a touch of white wine that will get reduced over the heat. Plus a little bit of butter that goes a long way. You can’t go wrong with a cream sauce and pasta. The two just belong together. Since I served it with salmon, dill was my herb of choice. The two flavors marry together very well. If you don’t like dill, you can certainly use basil or oregano. Both will do just fine.

Once you mix the pasta with the sauce, you’ll pull on some steamed asparagus and a pan grilled salmon filet. Squeeze on a touch more lemon and you’re all set. So easy. So delicious but looks very impressive.

PRODUCTS I LOVE:

CREAMY LEMON DILL PAPPARDELLE WITH SALMON AND ASPARAGUS

Prep time: 10 minutes

Cook time: 35 minutes

Total time: 45 minutes

Serves: 3

INGREDIENTS:

  • 1 lb bag pappardelle pasta

For lemon dill sauce:

  • 1/2 small yellow onion, minced
  • 8 cloves garlic, minced
  • 3 tbsp butter, salted
  • 1 lemon, juice and zest
  • 1/2 cup white wine (I used Chardonnay)
  • 3/4 cup heavy cream
  • 1 tbsp fresh dill, chopped small
  • 1 tsp dried parsley
  • Salt and pepper, to taste

For asparagus:

  • 1 bunch asparagus, chewy ends chopped off
  • 1 tbsp butter
  • Salt and pepper, to taste

For salmon:

  • 3 sockeye salmon filets, or whatever type you prefer
  • Olive oil
  • Kosher salt
  • Freshly ground black pepper

DIRECTIONS:

  1. Cook pasta according to package instructions. Drain but do not rinse. Reserve 1 cup pasta water for later use.

For lemon dill sauce:

  1. Place onion, garlic and 1 tbsp butter in a large pan. Sauté for a few minutes on medium heat until onion is soft.
  2. Add in wine and reduce by 3/4.
  3. Add in lemon juice, heavy cream, dill, parsley and 2 tbsp butter. Bring to a soft boil.
  4. Add in salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.
  5. Turn off the heat and add in the pasta. Add a couple tbsp of pasta water at a time until it reaches your desired consistency.

For asparagus:

  1. Steam the asparagus until tender and bright green. Toss butter, salt, pepper and asparagus in a pan until evenly distributed. Turn off heat and set aside.

For salmon:

  1. Heat a large pan to medium high heat.
  2. Liberally season both sides of the salmon with salt and pepper
  3. Pour enough olive oil in the pan to lightly coat the bottom.
  4. Add in salmon and cook for about 2-3 minutes a side. More or less depending on how you like it cooked.

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