Baked Wild Salmon with Herb Butter

"Baked Wild Salmon with Herb Butter" from Alice Water's "The Art of Simple Food: Notes, Lessons, and Recipes from a Delicious Revolution".  We used one of the variations suggested by this recipe, which is to cook the salmon at a low temperature (225 F) for about 30 minutes.  It makes a very succulent and tender fish that is barely cooked, almost the consistency of lox.  I like this, and it was hassle-free to cook, since we didn't have to constantly check to see whether it was cooked through yet or not.

This piece is a little over 1 pound of salmon that was caught in the Bay area by a local fisherman.  It has never been frozen, so the people at the fish stall in the farmer's market said it should be cooked or lightly cooked, and not served raw since sushi salmon is usually frozen first to help kill any parasites.

I served this with a a balsamic vinaigrette salad made of butter lettuce and a few halved cherry tomatoes.  It was nice to have some greens to go with the fish, but this particular salad slightly clashed with the salmon.  Perhaps an arugula salad or something like that would go better.

This was about the right amount of fish for lunch with a small salad.

Before adding the herb butter:

The herb butter, made from about 3 Tbsp butter (I wrapped the extra in plastic wrap and formed a log, and froze it so that I can use it later):

Part of the salmon with some herb butter (I briefly returned the salmon to the still warm oven to melt the butter since the salmon didn't have enough residual heat to melt it):