Salmon Melts

When life hands you salmon…make salmon melts. I had a nice dinner with friends Saturday night, my classic 5-thing-salmon on a bed of feta/basil pasta with peas. But I bought two fillets of Salmon, and I only needed one.

So tonight I decided on a Salmon melt for dinner. I already had all the ingredients. I had hoped on smoked up some pork for a pulled pork meal, but the boston butt showed up too late at the store. So this was my plan B, and it’s a great plan B.

Normally I make a tuna melt with this recipe, but Salmon works great two, and as noted, I had a fillet that was already marinated with my 5-thing marinade.

So, broil the salmon for about 5 minutes.

Make a Tapenade. I had a fun shortcut here. Since I always have garlic stuffed queen olives, I just chopped up 4 of them. That gives me my green olives and my garlic. I chopped up 4 katamala olives, chopped up a tablespoon of capers and squeezed in the juice of half a lemon.

With the salmon done, I toasted 1/3 of a french baguette in the oven with the broiler still on, and then applied a little Irish butter. Then I built my melt. I flaked on the broiled salmon onto the two halves. The other filet is destined to be an omelette in the morning. Then I spooned on the Tapenade. On top of that I put some thin slices of baby Swiss. I normally would use Monterey jack, but I happened to have some baby Swiss slices on hand.

This is built on my stoneware dinner plate, which then goes back into the oven. Carefully monitor it until the cheese is melted and the bread edges begin to darken.

Serve and enjoy. Bright, fresh, crunchy.