salmon with leeks and capers

We had salmon with leeks and capers, and pesto mash tonight, and it was delicious. I found this recipe in one of the foody magazines that I get a few months ago. Unfortunately I have absolutely no idea which one. I think my version is slightly different, although I can't be sure. I went through a phase where I must admit that I became just a little bit obsessed with making this. At one point, poor Mrs McMuffin was having to eat it twice a week, and I would have made it more often, but she put her foot down. The recipe is really straightforward and takes virtually no time to prepare. The results are fantastic. I had no idea that leeks and capers compliment each other so well. Anyway, here is what you do:

1 Take about 500gm of leeks. Clean them and finely slice on the diagonal. How you cut them isn't really important, but they look nicer.

2 Put the sliced leeks in a bowl along with about 100gms of drained capers. I think the capers preserved in wine vinegar taste best in this dish. Add a good grind of black pepper. I don't think it needs any extra salt, but that's up to you. Liberally douse the leeks and capers with some olive oil and give the whole thing a good mix up. Spread the leeks and capers on the bottom of an oven dish of some sort.

3 Take four boned and skinless salmon fillets and season both sides with salt and pepper, then place the fillets on top of the leek mixture. Sprinkle a bit more olive oil over the salmon.

4 Cover the dish with some tin foil or a well fitted lid and cook in a medium oven (remember my oven doesn't have any numbers on it, so I have no idea of the temperatures). It's hot but not too hot, if you know what I mean. Cook it for about 35 minutes with the cover on and for about another 10 minutes with the cover removed.

I like to serve the salmon and leeks with capers with a pesto mash, which is basically a good creamy mash with a couple of spoons of pesto swirled through it. I usually have a few roasted baby tomatoes with it too.

It is that simple. Let me know what you think.

PS I just did a search for a picture to go with this post. I searched for leeks and capers and found 156,000 entries. It looks like quite a few people have discovered the joys of combining leeks and capers.

PPS There is a small chance that I have posted about this already. In my searches I discovered that Google had indexed something from our blog about leeks and capers, but I couldn't find the entry. Ah well, it is a recipe that is worth repeating.