Recipie: Teriyaki salmon

Teriyaki salmon with coconut rice, garlic beans and sesame cucumber

(one of my favourite meals)

Ingredients : (serves 6)

For the teriyaki salmon:

-6 pieces of salmon

-60ml soy sauce

-60ml mirin (found in the japanese section in supermarkets)

-50g soft brown sugar 

-1 red chilli, chopped (if you don't want it hot then take out the seeds)

-Juice of half a lime

-2 tbsp rice wine vinegar

-A few spring onions, chopped (to garnish)

For the coconut rice:

-2 cups of rice 

-4 cups of water

-2 cups of coconut milk

For the garlic green vegetables:

-2 packs of trimmed green beans

-1 pack of sugar snap peas

-6 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped

-2 tbsp of oyster sauce

-1 tbsp soy sauce

For the sesame cucumber:

-1 whole cucumber

-3 tbsp sesame oil

-1 tbsp soy sauce

-handful of black sesame seeds (or use white seeds if you can't get hold of black)

Method:

Salmon

1) Put the soy sauce, mirin, sugar, chopped chili and lime juice into a bowl (which will fit all your salmon in) and mix. (Try to get a bowl size which will fit your salmon in tightly, this way they marinade better). 

2) Add the salmon to this.

3) Put clingfilm on the salmon and put into the fridge to marinade for at least 15 minutes. The longer the salmon marinades the better, so leave this overnight in the fridge, if you can. However, usually I just marinade the salmon until I have got my rice and vegetables ready (see below), then cook the salmon last.

4) Put a pan onto MEDIUM heat and once hot add some oil to it (only a very small amount). Make sure the pan is on medium heat and not high or your salmon will burn. Put the salmon SKIN side down first on the pan and leave for 3 minutes. Don't worry if the skin turns black, it is because the sugar in the marinade is being caramalised.

5) After this, pour all the marinade left in your bowl into the pan.

6) Flip the salmon over now, so their skins are on top. Cook for a further 3-4 minutes. When the salmon is perfectly cooked will depend on how thick the piece of salmon is. After about 3 minutes I usually find the thickest (in depth) piece of salmon and cut into the middle of it. If it is just flaking but not still fleshy and pink then all of the salmon will be done, and take them out of the pan. If this piece is undercooked then I will leave all of the salmon in the pan for a further minute or so.

7) Once cooked, place the salmon on a plate and keep the remaining sauce in the pan. Add the rice wine vinegar to the pan and keep on HIGH heat for about 1-2 minutes. The sauce should reduce and now be sticky. 

Pour this sauce on top of the salmon, and garnish the salmon with spring onions.

Coconut rice

1) Simply add the rice, water and coconut milk into a pan and put on LOW heat for 25 minutes.

Unlike normal rice, because of the coconut milk, this rice is more prone to sticking to the bottom of the pan and boiling over the pan, so make sure that you are using a low heat and that you stir the rice every so often. 

Garlic green veg

1) Heat up a wok on high heat. (If you don't have a wok then just use a regular frying pan). 

2) Add a some oil to the pan and leave for a few seconds to heat up.

3) Add the garlic to the work/ pan (be careful the oil will spit). Keep stirring the garlic and it only needs less than a minute until it turns golden.

4) Then put the beans, sugar snap peas, oyster sauce and soy sauce into the wok/ pan and stir for 2 minutes.

5) To cook the veg fully, add half a glass of water to the wok/pan, turn the heat down to medium, cover up with a lid and cook for about 7 minutes, stirring half way.

Sesame cucumber

1) Get your cucumber and cut it into half length ways. Get a teaspoon and scoop out all the middle seeds (they make the cucumber too watery). Then cut the remaining cucumber into slices.

2) Add the sesame oil, soy sauce and sesame seeds onto the cucumber and stir. Refrigerate until you serve it.