Recipe by Jodie Smith

Whole Baked Salmon With a Hot Chilli Jam Glaze

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TGK Bills Hot Chilli Jam (350g)

$16.95

Hand-packed and dispatched from our Corio, Victoria warehouse, with free delivery Australia-wide on orders over $100.

Jar of TGK Bill's Hot Chilli Jam 350g, the jam brushed over this whole baked side of salmon

A whole side of salmon, baked for 20 minutes and brushed with hot chilli jam for the last five, so the jam melts into a lacquer instead of sitting on top as a lump. Serves 8 as a main. Prep 10 minutes, cook 22, rest 5. It is the Christmas main for a house that does not want a hot roast.

The jam does what a ham glaze does, in five minutes

A ham glaze is three things: sugar, acid and something aromatic, painted on near the end and given just enough heat to catch. Bill's Hot Chilli Jam arrives as all three already cooked together. Roasted red capsicums and serrano peppers, red wine vinegar and aromatics, reduced until the jar sets. Loosen four tablespoons in a pan, brush it over a side of salmon and give it five minutes in a hot oven, and it slumps, spreads and turns glossy. Same finish as a scored ham, without a ham, without studding anything with cloves and without three hours of oven time on the hottest day of the year. If the ham is still happening at your place, how to glaze a Christmas ham covers that job properly.

It is also the one jar in the range that will do it. The Tasmanian Gourmet Kitchen range runs to seven jars and the other six are chutneys and marmalades: Bill's Beetroot Marmalade, Caroline's Caramelised Onions, Bill's Ploughman's, the Red Pepper Marmalade, the Spicy Tomato Chutney and the Spicy Pear Chutney. All of them are built to sit next to a slice of something in visible pieces, which is exactly what you want beside cold meat and exactly what you do not want on a fillet. The chilli jam is the smooth one. That is what lets it go on in a thin even coat and melt into itself rather than into lumps with gaps between them.

The discipline is timing, and there is only one rule. The jam is mostly sugar, so it goes on at the end and never at the start. Brushed on before the fish goes in, it has 20 minutes to run past caramel and turn bitter and black at the edges. Brushed on with five minutes left, it barely has time to do anything except melt and gloss.

Buy the fish, we sell the jar

To be plain about it, we do not sell fresh fish. The side comes from your fishmonger or the seafood counter, and the jar is our half of it. Ask for a whole side of Atlantic salmon or ocean trout, skin on, pin bones out, and take the biggest one that will lie flat on your largest oven tray. That is the real limit on this recipe, not the oven. In December, order the fish a week ahead and collect it on the 23rd or the 24th, because the queue at a seafood counter on Christmas Eve morning is its own event.

The argument for salmon over a hot roast is not that it tastes better. It is that it takes 22 minutes, it does not need the oven for the whole morning, and it is genuinely better cold the next day, which almost nothing else on a Christmas table can claim. Cook it in the morning, glaze it, leave it on the platter, and it will still be good at four in the afternoon when people drift back to the table. Our three Christmas menus, traditional, cold and low effort put this kind of main in context with everything else that has to come out of one kitchen.

Ingredients

Serves 8 as a main, or 12 to 14 alongside other dishes. Prep 10 minutes. Cook 22 minutes. Rest 5 minutes. We stock the jam, the oil, the salt flakes and the preserved lemons. The fish, the herbs and the fresh lemons are a Friday morning buy.

Ingredients

The salmon
1 x 1.5kg	side of salmon or ocean trout, skin on, pin bones removed (a fishmonger buy; we do not sell fresh fish)
2 tbsp	Kangaroo Island extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp	Kangaroo Island garlic salt flakes, or plain sea salt flakes
	freshly ground black pepper
1	lemon, half sliced thinly, half kept for juice
The glaze
4 tbsp (about 90g)	Bill's Hot Chilli Jam, or Daylesford sweet chilli jam for a milder table
1 tbsp	lemon juice
1 tsp	olive oil, from above
To finish
2 wedges	Belazu preserved lemons, flesh discarded, skin rinsed and finely chopped
1 handful	coriander or flat-leaf parsley leaves
2	spring onions, sliced on an angle
1	long red chilli, thinly sliced (optional)
	lemon wedges, to serve

The milder jar, and the honest answer for a mixed table

The hot jar says hot on the label and means it, which is fine for eight adults and a problem the moment a nine year old is handed a plate. Daylesford sweet chilli jam, 330g at $12.95, is the straight swap. It is a jam rather than a sauce, so it behaves the same way in the oven; what changes is where the heat sits. The sweet jar reads as sweetness with a warm finish, and nobody pushes their plate away.

For a table split between the two camps, glaze with two tablespoons of each. That is not a compromise so much as a better glaze, because the sweet jar brings a little more sugar to gloss with and the hot one brings the finish. The other move, if you have both jars, is to glaze the whole side with the sweet one and put the hot jam out in a small bowl with a spoon in it, so the people who want heat can add it themselves.

Two other swaps worth knowing. The preserved lemon at the end is not decoration: it is salt and sourness against a sweet glaze, and without something acidic the dish flattens by the third mouthful. With no jar in the cupboard, use the finely grated zest of a lemon and a good pinch of salt flakes. And if the fish is going on the barbecue instead, glaze it in the last five minutes over indirect heat with the hood down, never over a direct flame.

How much salmon to buy

Allow 150 to 180g of raw fish per person for a main course, remembering that a skin-on side loses weight to the skin and to cooking. A 1.5kg side feeds 8 properly with a little left for the cook, and stretches to 12 or 14 when there is a ham, a salad and a bowl of prawns on the same table. If you need more, two smaller sides laid head to tail on one tray beat one enormous one: a side much over 1.8kg will not lie flat on a domestic tray, and the part that curls up the sides is the part that overcooks.

Method

Take the salmon out of the fridge 20 minutes before it goes in, and heat the oven to 200°C, or 180°C fan-forced.
Line your largest oven tray with baking paper, leaving a hand's width over each end. That overhang is how the salmon reaches the platter.
Pat the salmon dry all over with paper towel and lay it skin side down on the paper. A wet surface sheds a glaze instead of holding it.
Rub the olive oil over the flesh, then season with the garlic salt flakes and plenty of black pepper.
Tuck the lemon slices under the thin tail end so it sits level with the thick end and the two cook at a similar rate.
Bake for 15 minutes. It will look barely done, which is correct, because it has a second stint to come.
While it bakes, warm the chilli jam with the lemon juice and the teaspoon of oil in a small pan over low heat for a minute, stirring, until it brushes easily. Do not let it bubble.
Pull the tray out and brush the glaze over the whole surface, including the sloping sides where it wants to run off. Use all of it.
Return the tray for 5 to 8 minutes, until the glaze is glossy and darkening at the edges and a thermometer in the thickest part reads 50°C for a just-set centre, or 63°C for fish cooked through.
Rest it on the tray for 5 minutes. The fish climbs a few more degrees and the glaze tightens as it cools.
Lift both ends of the baking paper, carry the salmon to a long platter, then slide the paper out from under one end. No spatula, no cracked fillet.
Scatter over the preserved lemon, herbs, spring onion and chilli, and put lemon wedges down one side. Serve warm or at room temperature, cutting down to the skin and lifting each portion off it.

Cold the next day, which is the real reason to cook a whole side

Leave what is left on the platter until it stops steaming, then cover it and refrigerate. It keeps 2 days. Do not reheat it: reheated salmon goes dry and chalky. Cold it is better than it was hot, because the glaze has set into a firm skin and the flesh flakes in proper pieces.

Flake it through a cold potato or rice salad with a spoonful of the preserved lemon and a lot of herbs. Pile it into a baguette with mayonnaise and cucumber for a Boxing Day lunch that takes four minutes. Our guide to salads for Christmas lunch covers what goes beside it on both days.

Questions we get asked

How long do you bake a whole side of salmon?

About 20 to 22 minutes at 200°C, or 180°C fan-forced, for a side of roughly 1.5kg: 15 minutes bare, then 5 to 8 more once the glaze is on. Thickness matters more than weight, so go by a thermometer in the thickest part rather than the clock: 50°C for a just-set centre, 63°C for fish cooked through. It keeps cooking as it rests, so pull it early.

Can you serve baked salmon cold the next day?

Yes, and a glazed side is one of the few Christmas mains that improves. Cool it, cover it and refrigerate within two hours of it leaving the oven, then eat it within 2 days. Serve it cold or at room temperature rather than reheating, and take it out of the fridge 20 minutes beforehand so the flesh is not fridge-hard.

What glaze goes on salmon?

Anything sweet with acid in it and enough body to stay put: chilli jam, a marmalade loosened with lemon, honey and mustard, or miso and mirin. Brush it on in the last 5 to 8 minutes only, because all of them are mostly sugar and sugar burns long before the fish is cooked. A firm-set jam beats a runny sauce, because it clings to the sloping sides instead of pooling on the paper.

Should you cover salmon with foil when baking?

Not for this. Foil traps steam, and steamed fish will not take a glaze or hold colour. Bake it uncovered on baking paper. If the tail end runs ahead of the thick end, fold a scrap of foil over just that end.

The hot jam is $16.95 for a 350g jar and sits with the rest of the Tasmanian Gourmet Kitchen range, alongside everything else in our gourmet condiments. Shipping is free Australia-wide on orders over $100, and orders placed before 12pm on a weekday are dispatched the same day from our Corio, VIC warehouse, tracked with Australia Post. We do not offer same-day delivery. If the jars are headed for someone else's kitchen, our Christmas hampers are packed by hand by the same team.

Products in this recipe

BELAZU Preserved Lemons (200g)

$12.95

DCC Sweet Chilli Jam 330g

$12.95

Kangaroo Island Olives - Extra Virgin Olive Oil 250ml

$19.25

TGK Bills Hot Chilli Jam (350g)

$16.95