Tasting Notes

This dinner serves two.

Great meals are a sum of all their parts.

The salmon moist, juicy, the sauce – a hint of ginger, garlic, the zesty green onions add up to something Yummylicious. The steamed asparagus earthy goes well with the rice, the radish salad bright and refreshing.

What You Need

1 salmon filet about 10 ounces.

1 cup of rice.

10 stalks of asparagus.

8 radishes.

1 knob of fresh ginger.

1 small garlic clove.

4 sprigs parsley.

5 stalks green onions.

2 tablespoons of soya sauce.

2 tablespoons of Mirin, a sweet Japanese vinegar.

Equipment

2 frying pans, one small, the other medium size.

1 deep dish to put the salmon in.

1 medium-sized pot or a rice cooker.

1 medium-sized pot.

1 steaming basket.

Method

Take your five onions and slice them thinly, use the whole stalk, leave enough from two of them for the rice. Take your sprigs of parsley and chop them up roughly, do the same with the garlic clove and then place everything in the small bowl. Set aside.

With a sharp knife or a teaspoon scrape off enough ginger from the knob for one heaping tablespoon, then add to the bowl with the green onions and garlic.

In the small frying pan add your oil and get it hot. Once done pour it over the small bowl with the green onion, ginger and garlic mixture. Let it sit for a few minutes. Then pour it over the salmon, massaging it all over the salmon. Set aside.

While the rice and the asparagus are cooking start on your salmon – put one tablespoon of vegetable oil it in the large frying pan. Turn the stove to medium heat and once the oil shimmers add the salmon with the marinade and salmon its skin on the bottom. Watch it carefully. You can tell how much of the salmon is cooked by looking at the side of the salmon – what is cooked will show up as being a bit white. Once it reaches the half way mark, using a spatula flip it over and cook for no longer than two minutes. Your salmon is ready and you are ready to serve. There will be a bit of a sauce in the pan, spoon it over the salmon.

Take your one cup of rice and 1 3/4 cup of water and cook on a pot on the stove bring it to a boil and then to simmer, for 20 minutes. For the rice cooker follow the same process except you just turn the rice cooker on and then add your rice and water. It will shut off automatically when the rice is done. Now add your soya sauce, mirin, enough of the cut up green onions accounting for two of them.

Take your asparagus breaking off the stems and put them into a steaming basket that sits on top of some boiling water in your medium pot. This will take anywhere from 15 to 20 minutes depending on the size of the asparagus. Taste at the 15 minute mark to determine how much longer it will take or if it’s ready.

You are now ready to plate.