Smoked Salmon Pasta with Capers and Dill

It's amazing how certain combinations of ingredients just work so well together. Lemon, capers, and dill are one of those, I can think of a number of recipes that have at least two if not all three of those. And they are not all German.  The basis of this one was a Jamie Oliver recipe, modified slightly to fit the ingredients we had in the fridge. It's always like that, a little substitution here and there...which I actually really like to do, as you can discover new things. Of course it can always bomb too, but that is just bound to happen once in a while when cooking. Anyway.

This turned out to be really flavourful and super easy (actually I hate that expression, sorry). We had a shrink-wrapped pack of smoked salmon - probably 3/4" thick, not the thin slices, although that could work too - from B.C. from my parents' last trip out there. Not sure how much it was, the piece was 8" long and 1/2" wide, turned out to be enough for the two of us. Good thing SSO ate already.

Smoked Salmon pasta with capers and dill

I ended up not liking the pasta shells I used, I would go with something else next time. But that is what we happened to have. I think I needed to add more freshly ground pepper as well - a healthy dose would have provided a good counterpoint. I also used some cream Sherry instead of white wine, since we only had a little bit of white left in the fridge and it was SO's favourite. I was worried the Sherry would be too sweet, but it turns out that the lemon and capers were just tart enough to balance the sweetness.

Next time: different pasta, would thicken the sauce more, and use more pepper

Me: 9/10
SO: 9/10
SSO: n/a

Smoked Salmon Pasta with Capers and Dill
This was enough for two people

Ingredients

• Smoked Salmon, I had a large thick piece 8" long by 1/2" wide, the package didn't have a weight
• half an onion
• 1Tb capers
• half a lemon
• several generous glugs of wine, sherry, or whatever
• one small glug of milk, cream, half-and-half, or whatever
• fresh dill
• freshly ground pepper
• kosher salt

Method

1. Get the pasta boiling.
2. Soften the onion in butter or oil, then add the capers, stir for a minute
3. Add the lemon juice, and the wine/sherry. Reduce a bit.
4. Add the milk/cream, and reduce a bit.
5. Add the dill, salt, and pepper, and the chopped up salmon.
6. Drain the pasta, but reserve a little bit of pasta water. That stuff is great for adding to sauces.
7. Add it all together, and serve it up.