To keep salmon succulent in a skillet, baste then sauce

FOR weeknight cooking, we love seared fish since it usually cooks in half the time as chicken or other proteins. But it’s a fine line between cooked and completely dried out.

So for this recipe from our book “Milk Street Tuesday Nights,” which limits recipes to 45 minutes or less, we made three choices to ensure succulent seafood every time.

First, the choice of fish. Salmon is our go-to because its richness makes it more forgiving in a skillet than most white fish, which can overcook quickly and flake apart. Then we take a two-step approach to ensure it stays moist, basting it in butter as it cooks and then serving it with a luscious but bright sauce.

For the sauce, we borrow from Colombia’s take on guacamole — spiked with both lime juice and vinegar as well as fresh chilies — to create an easy, no-cook sauce for the