Compound Butter for Salmon

I've never liked most fish and seafood, but it's a moot point anyway, since I'm a vegetarian.  But, my husband love, love, loves fish, so we do occassionally buy it.  He doesn't know how to cook for the most part, so even though I don't eat the fish, I do usually end up cooking it.

We ended up with some salmon in our freezer because we bought some on sale and I knew we wouldn't use it up in time.  So, I portioned it and froze it.  The other day, I saw an idea on a cooking show for a simple way to cook the salmon if the skin is still on - which it was, as I left the skin on when I portioned it.  So, I pulled a salmon portion out of the freezer to let it thaw in the fridge for the next day.

The idea I saw was to make a compound butter which gets slathered on the skin of the salmon, and then the whole thing is baked.  As the butter melts it coats and flavors the salmon as well as crisping the skin.  Sounded like something Dan would like.  You all know what compound butter is - just butter mixed with whatever sounds good.  I love making herb butter.  That day I happened to make it with lemon basil, tarragon, and a little bit of mint and oregano, since those are the fresh herbs I currently have in my Aerogarden.  I also added a bit of spicy brown mustard and a dash of lemon juice, and of course salt and pepper.  It's easiest to make the compound butter when the butter is room temp, but then I let the butter chill in the fridge for a few minutes before using it on the salmon, so that it would be firm and cold when it went into the oven.  The salmon, on the other hand, I let sit out to get to room temp so it would cook evenly.

I spread a generous layer of the mustard-herb butter right onto the skin of the salmon (after scoring it so it wouldn't curl) and put just a tiny dollop of butter underneath the salmon to help keep it from sticking.  The salmon cooked for maybe 10 minutes or so - that depends on how done you like it.  The butter oozed all over and made the kitchen smell delicious.  Dan got home and dug in, and loved it.  He said the skin got crispy and the herb butter was great.  I didn't taste it at all but he said he loved it.  I'll keep that in my arsenal for cooking skin-on fish in the future.

Happy eating!