Valentine’s Day can be a pitfall of expensive flowers and cheap chocolate, but you can add some sophistication to the event if you prepare a memorable meal and open a matching bottle of wine.

Chef Pieter de Jager shares his straightforward but scrumptious recipe for a romantic roast salmon with beautiful Mediterranean flavours. To ensure a rosy evening in more ways than one, enjoy the beautiful blush of the Leopard’s Leap Chardonnay Pinot Noir in generous glasses.

Click here for the how-to-video

Roast salmon with olive, tomato and feta

Serves 2

Ingredients

500g Norwegian Salmon or Franschhoek Salmon Trout fillet, skin off.

10 Kalamata olives, pitted and chopped

30 g Danish style feta, cut into long batons

30 g Sundried tomato, chopped

10 Basil leaves, chopped

3 cloves garlic, crushed

1 bunch thyme

1 lime/ lemon

1 bunch chopped dill

Salt

Pepper

Olive oil

Butcher string

Micro herbs for garnish

Method

Preheat your oven to 230°C.

Butterfly the salmon and open it up like a book.

Add the chopped sundried tomato, olives, feta and basil.

Close the salmon up and gently tie it using the butcher string.

This will prevent the parcel from opening up during the cooking process.

Place the salmon into a roasting tray.

Season with the juice of 1 lime, salt, pepper and a drizzle of olive oil.

Add the crushed garlic and thyme.

Roast for 9 minutes.

Remove from the oven and leave to rest.

Sprinkle with chopped dill.

Slice into 4, even size, pieces.