Ovnsbakt laks med fløtesaus

The story

Modern salmon farming began on the island of Hitra in 1970, when the brothers Ove and Sivert Grøntvedt set out 20,000 young salmon in sea pens. Exports grew slowly until Japanese buyers took to raw Norwegian salmon in the late 1980s. In 2024 Norway exported more than 1.2 million tonnes of salmon to 113 countries, about 53 percent of the world market. Norwegians eat plenty of it themselves. The Norwegian Seafood Council puts consumption at 5.63 kilograms of salmon per person in 2021, and notes that Norwegians eat fish less often than southern Europeans but in bigger portions, fillets of 150 to 200 grams. Official advice is fish for dinner two or three times a week, and salmon baked in the oven and served with a light cream sauce of lemon and dill is one of the simplest ways to follow it. The supermarket chains REMA 1000 and KIWI both print versions on their recipe pages. Serve it with boiled new potatoes, as the REMA 1000 recipe does, and a quick cucumber salad, and the main course is on the table in about 40 minutes.