Wild salmon with diced tomatoes, garlic and fresh mint

Fresh, wild-caught sockeye salmon cooks through and stays moist after about 13 minutes in a 375-degree oven. Costco Wholesale in Hackensack sells Copper River salmon from Alaska for about half what other stores charge.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

My wife picked up another fillet of fresh, wild sockeye salmon from Alaska for $14.99 a pound at Costco Wholesale in Hackensack.

From a fillet of about 1.5 pounds, I prepared five serving portions with organic diced tomatoes, garlic, fresh oregano, red wine and extra-virgin olive oil, and added chopped fresh mint right before serving them.

The only other ingredients you'll need are fresh lime juice and salt for the fillets before you put them in a 375-degree oven.

I roasted them for 8 minutes on parchment paper, pulled the large pan out of the oven, added the diced-tomato mixture and returned the fish to cook for 5 minutes more.

Fresh mint is the finishing touch.

Easily overcooked

Costco's label recommends an internal temperature of 145 degrees, but the fillets were cooked through in 13 minutes, even though they registered only 120 degrees, according to my thermometer.

Before I put the fish in the oven, I sautéed chopped garlic in extra-virgin olive oil, added a drained can of organic diced tomatoes from Costco, red wine, lime juice and fresh oregano, and brought them to a boil on the stove in an uncovered frying pan.

I turned down the heat, but inadvertently cooked off almost all of the liquid, foiling my plan for a rich sauce.

But when I ate the fish and diced-tomato mixture together, the salmon was wonderfully moist and full of flavor.

For breakfast today, I ate the last piece of wild salmon with a leftover wedge of frittata and brown rice.

I enjoy smoked Alaskan sockeye salmon year-round. Here, I added a few slices to organic eggs and ate them with mashed sweet potatoes, using extra-virgin olive oil, salt, cinnamon, curry powder, black pepper and powdered garlic. Almost everything is available at Costco Wholesale.

 

I boil skin-on sweet potatoes, drain them in a colander and return them to the pot to season and mash. Last week, a 6.5-pound bag of sweet potatoes was $5.99 at Costco.