Whip It Up! Favorite Chef Edition

This week's WIU "assignment" was a tough one-- so I went with the chef whose recipes I find myself making most frequently. They're generally easy, tasty, and impressive despite the short time it takes to make (most of) them. Also, I am not sure whether she qualifies as an actual chef, but I do know (from her Chefography, yeah shut up) that Giada De Laurentiis does have actual culinary training (unlike, ahem, Sandra Lee), so I'll just call her a chef for brevity's sake.

We had some salmon on hand, so I settled on her recipe for salmon baked in foil.

Ingredients

4 (5 ounces each) salmon fillets

2 teaspoons olive oil plus 2 tablespoons
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 tomatoes, chopped, or 1 (14-ounce) can chopped tomatoes, drained
2 chopped shallots
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried thyme

Method

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Sprinkle salmon with 2 teaspoons olive oil, salt, and pepper. Stir the tomatoes, shallots, 2 tablespoons of oil, lemon juice, oregano, thyme, salt and pepper in a medium bowl to blend.

Place a salmon fillet, oiled side down, atop a sheet of foil. Wrap the ends of the foil to form a spiral shape. Spoon the tomato mixture over the salmon. Fold the sides of the foil over the fish and tomato mixture, covering completely; seal the packets closed. Place the foil packet on a heavy large baking sheet. Repeat until all of the salmon have been individually wrapped in foil and placed on the baking sheet. Bake until the salmon is just cooked through, about 25 minutes. Using a large metal spatula, transfer the foil packets to plates and serve.

I served it with an orzo salad from Cooking Light, which was sort of meh but will improve with some doctoring.

Was the recipe easy to follow?
Oh yes. This is one of her simpler dishes-- and handily involved only dried herbs and other things I had on hand. Super, super easy to put together ahead of time and then just pop into the oven. GP was not thrilled with a 400 degree oven on an 85 degree day, but he didn't have to make dinner, so he was quiet about it.

Did the dish taste good?
Yup. I am used to a lighter, lemonier salmon, so this was a fun departure. I feel like this would be a really good and cozy dish, especially in the winter.

Would you make it again?
Certainly. Maybe when it has cooled off a bit, and I am getting fewer glares when I turn on the oven...