You Had Me at Margarita

Since we were not going to be able to get together for gaming this week with everyone leaving town for the holidays, we decided to just have an informal get-together-and-hang-out night at our house on Tuesday. It was my turn for the main dish, and since I am trying to trim a few pounds I decided to see if I could find a new salmon recipe. The first one that caught my eye for obvious reasons was this recipe from Cooking Light for Margarita Salmon. It was fantastic! It is a nice easy recipe to feed a crowd and quite reasonable too if you get your salmon from Costco (2 1/2 pounds for 13 bucks!). The citrusy marinade infused the entire fish and was a nice alternative to some of the other balsamic or soy sauce based marinades I tend to use with salmon. The recipe recommends serving it over cooked pasta but I served it over spring salad greens and I thought that was much better. It also stands well on it's own with just the fillet. I will definitely make this again. I give it 4 out of 5 stars all together. The only negative was that my hands hurt from squeezing all the limes. This would make a very nice summertime meal.

Margarita Salmon

Ingredients

1 teaspoon grated lime rind
3 tablespoons fresh lime or lemon juice
1 tablespoon tequila
2 teaspoons sugar
2 teaspoons vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon grated orange rind
1 garlic clove, crushed
4 (6-ounce) salmon fillets (about 1 inch thick)
8 ounces uncooked angel hair pasta
Cooking spray
Lime slices (optional)

Preparation

Combine first 8 ingredients in a large zip-top plastic bag; add fish to bag. Seal and marinate in refrigerator 20 minutes.

While fish is marinating, cook pasta according to package directions, omitting salt and fat. Drain and keep warm. Remove fish from bag, reserving marinade.

Preheat broiler.

Place fish on a broiler pan coated with cooking spray; broil 7 minutes or until fish flakes easily when tested with a fork, basting occasionally with reserved marinade. Serve over pasta. Garnish with lime slices, if desired.

Yield

4 servings (serving size: 1 fillet and 1 cup pasta)

Nutritional Information

CALORIES 520(30% from fat); FAT 17.3g (sat 2.9g,mono 7.5g,poly 4.5g); PROTEIN 42.2g; CHOLESTEROL 111mg; CALCIUM 23mg; SODIUM 381mg; FIBER 1.4g; IRON 0.7mg; CARBOHYDRATE 45.9g

Cooking Light, JUNE 1999