Fresh Lemon Dill Spice Blend Recipe

Fresh lemon dill is delicious

The garden is calling my name this morning, so I'll make this a quick post to share a useful recipe that may come in handy soon. If you like salmon and other fish or seafood, you probably use the occasional spice blend, often including lemon as a seasoning. The lemon pepper blends you find at the market just don't do a good fish steak or filet justice, though.

Whether you're grilling, broiling, frying, steaming or baking fish, the addition of herbs and a few other ingredients almost always enhances the mild flavor of seafood. The bad news is that using the wrong herbs, or too much of a good thing, will spoil the delicate flavor fusion you're trying to produce. The good news is that a couple of reliable ingredient combos always work like magic with fish.

The recipe below is a dill blend with lemon and pepper. It's amazing with firm fleshed fish like salmon, tuna and swordfish. Heck, when I have it around, I use it on almost any fish or seafood on offer. I even blend it into salmon patties.

The only caution I have is to use this lemon dill seasoning blend in moderation. A half teaspoon per single serving (four to six ounce) portion of fish is plenty.

Lemon Dill Spice Blend Recipe

Ingredients

• Zest from 1 small lemon (no white from the pith, please)
• 2 tsp. fresh dill, chopped fine (1 1/2 teaspoons dry)
• 1 tsp. white pepper (fresh ground is great if you have it)
• 2 tsp. sea salt 

      (You can use regular salt, but the minerals in sea salt really do add something to fish.)

Directions

Combine all the ingredients and refrigerate for an hour. You can refrigerate the mixture for up to a few days. I'll often make a batch of fish and reserve a little spice blend to sprinkle on leftovers.

Special note:  You can use black pepper instead of white pepper, but use slightly less.  White pepper is somewhat milder than black pepper. It also makes a nicer presentation in recipes that use pale ingredients.