Many years ago, after I had moved to Texas and bought my house, I was hosting a dinner party and looking at recipes. I had decided to serve salmon as the main course, but didn’t know how I wanted to flavor it.
Growing up in Oregon, we ate salmon almost every week, usually for our Friday night Shabbat meal. My mother usually cooked it simply by poaching it in the oven. While I always enjoyed it (except for a couple of years in high school where I got sick of eating salmon every week), it was clear that most people were used to eating fish either seasoned in an interesting way before cooking or having it served with a sauce.
Wanting to be a good hostess, I decided to look for a good sauce to pass with the fish, and somehow stumbled upon a recipe for a citrus nut sauce. It sounded good and simple, and it was a huge hit at that dinner.
Most years, I invite guests for two big dinners, one for the night of Kol Nidre (Kol Nidre is the night before Yom Kippur, one of the most important Jewish holidays) and one during Passover. I always serve fish, usually salmon but not always, and always serve this sauce. At this point I’m not sure it would be one of my dinners if it wasn’t served.
While I originally used almonds, we all prefer it to be made using pistachios. I made a small batch using sunflower seeds one year for a friend who is nut-free, and it worked quite well, too. Both sunflower seeds and pistachios are much softer than almonds (texture-wise), so the sauce is more cohesive.
I also upped the citrus from the original recipe, using the zest and juice from all the citrus rather than wasting some of it.
This sauce is also excellent as a salad dressing. In fact, I always look forward to eating a big bowl of leftover salad with leftover fish on top, and huge dollops of this sauce to bring it all together.
Citrus-Pistachio Sauce
Ingredients
- 3-1/2 ounces (100 grams) pistachio pieces (usually roasted salted, which is the easiest to find)
- 1 level teaspoon sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- Zest and juice of one lemon (usually medium to large)
- Zest and juice of one lime (if small, use two)
- Zest and juice of one orange
- 6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil (more or less as desired)
Instructions
- Place pistachios in a food processor and pulse until finely chopped. Alternatively, the nuts can be chopped by hand, but make sure to chop them as finely as you can.
- Place nuts in a bowl, and add remaining ingredients. Stir together until fully mixed. If you want a smoother consistency, leave the nuts in the food processor. Add the rest of the ingredients to the food processor and pulse to combine. For either way, add more olive oil if needed to reach desired consistency.
- Put sauce in a bowl with a spoon for serving.
- Sauce will keep about 3 days in the fridge. Unfortunately this sauce will mold so cannot be kept for long periods of time.
- To make fish:
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Cut two pieces of aluminum foil that are slightly larger than a half sheet pan, and place on on top of the pan.
- Take a large piece of fish (I usually buy a side of salmon, halibut, etc from Costco for a dinner party) and rinse it under cold water. Pat it dry, and place the fish (skin down if present, if no skin put a little oil down first) on the foil on top of the pan. Slice one or two lemons thinly and place over the surface of the fish. If desired, sprinkle a little oil on top. Place the second piece of foil over the fish, and crimp the edges of the two foil pieces together to make a sealed envelope.
- Bake fish for 15-20 minutes until cooked through. Be careful when opening the packet to check the fish, as the steam will be hot. If needed, re-crimp and place back in oven to finish cooking.
- Serve fish hot or at room temperature, as desired.