King salmon with summer fruit sauce vierge

Sauce vierge is a punchy fresh tomato sauce traditionally served with fish. Here, Rosheen Kaul embraces seasonal fruit, adding berries and peaches to the sauce. It's a sauce you can make at any time of the year, using what's in season.

Credit: Jiwon Kim

• serves

  4

• prep

  10 minutes

• cook

  5 minutes

• difficulty

  Easy

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Ingredients

• 4 King salmon fillets, skin-on
• Salt
• 3 tsp cooking oil
• 3 tsp butter

For the sauce vierge (makes 2 cups)

• 10-12 cherry tomatoes, quartered
• 10-12 strawberries or raspberries, quartered
• ½ firm peach, diced
• 1 eschallot, thinly sliced
• ½ cup olive oil
• 1 tbsp Chardonnay vinegar
• 2 tsp fish sauce
• 2 tbsp tomato juice
• 2 tsp sriracha
• ½ lemon, juiced
• Black pepper
• ½ tbsp chives, thinly sliced
• 1 tbsp basil, thinly sliced
• 1 tbsp flat-leaf parsley leaves, thinly sliced

Marinating time: 10 minutes

Instructions

1. To make the sauce vierge, in a medium bowl, combine the tomatoes, berries, peach and eschallot with the olive oil, vinegar, fish sauce, tomato juice, sriracha, lemon juice and generous pinch of black pepper. Allow to marinate for 10-15 minutes to soften, then taste and adjust. Stir through the herbs. This sauce will keep for 1-2 days in the fridge, but it is best eaten immediately.
2. Gently pat the salmon fillets dry with a paper towel, then sprinkle both sides liberally with salt. Heat the oil in a heavy-based frying pan until smoking, then gently add the fish fillets skin-side down, using a fish weight if you have one. Cook for 1½ minutes, or until the skin is crisp and golden, then flip. Add the butter to the pan and baste the fish occasionally until the fish is cooked through.
3. Spoon the sauce vierge onto a serving plate, top with the salmon and serve.

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Cook's Notes

Oven temperatures are for conventional; if using fan-forced (convection), reduce the temperature by 20˚C. | We use Australian tablespoons and cups: 1 teaspoon equals 5 ml; 1 tablespoon equals 20 ml; 1 cup equals 250 ml. | All herbs are fresh (unless specified) and cups are lightly packed. | All vegetables are medium size and peeled, unless specified. | All eggs are 55-60 g, unless specified.