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crispy fried salmon with spring vegetable broth

main courses | serves 4
There's nothing like a piece of perfectly cooked salmon with a crispy, crunchy skin, perfectly complemented by a spring veg broth. In the markets and supermarkets these days you can get some fantastic spring vegetables: baby carrots with tops, baby fennel with its herby leaves, baby turnips, peas and broad beans, fine green and yellow French beans, all really colourful and easy to cook with. Here's a nice little combination – it's all cooked in the same pot and gives you a lovely broth. The only thing you have to do is control the cooking times by adding the veg that need longer in the pot first.

First, make the aïoli. When you've done that, bring your stock to the boil in a large pan then add your fennel and allow this to boil for 4 minutes while you heat up a non-stick frying pan. Take your salmon steaks and, if you fancy it, you could finely slice a little of your mint and basil and push this into the score marks. Pat the salmon steaks with a little olive oil, season and place skin-side down in the frying pan. Leave them for 2 minutes to get really crispy then check how they're doing. They'll want around 4 minutes on the skin side and 1 minute on the other. You'll get an idea of how they're cooking as you'll see the salmon change colour.

When the fennel has had 4 minutes, add the green beans and the broad beans. Give them a further 2 minutes. By this time you will probably want to turn over the salmon steaks for their last minute. Add the peas to the other veg and cook for a final 2 minutes. Don't be tempted to overcook the salmon – remove it from the heat. Divide the vegetables between 4 bowls, rip over the mint and basil, ladle over some of your hot cooking stock and place the salmon on top. Serve with a dollop of aïoli. Fantastic!


• from Jamie's Kitchen