Slow-roasted Salmon
Why I Love This Recipe
This is another convenient and quick-prep dish; especially for Friday night dinners during Lent. Serve it over the accompanying rice. This recipe comes from Nigella Lawson.
Salmon marinates very quickly; in fact, if you leave it in a marinade for too long, it'll often become mushy. You can use a nonstick skillet, but a good cast iron grill/griddle or skillet will give you a better sear on the fish. Don't let the fish stay on the grill too long - it'll finish cooking with its own residual heat in the foil packets. And if it's a little underdone, that's okay; salmon can be eaten with a little pink in the center.
If you don't have sake around, use seasoned rice vinegar or something equivalent. Wasabi powder is usually sold in your grocery's Asian section. It's potent stuff, lasts longer than the paste, and you can make the paste at home as needed. I don't always make the sauce for this - the fish is pretty flavorful in its own right.
Ingredients You'll Need
1 teaspoon English mustard, or wasabi paste*
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon garlic or chili oil
1 tablespoon sake
2 salmon fillets
1 cup basmati rice
2 cardamom pods
Sauce for salmon and rice:
1/4 cup sake
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon fish sauce or brown rice vinegar
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon English mustard, or wasabi paste
Directions
In a freezer bag, combine the mustard or wasabi paste, Worcestershire sauce, soy, oil, and sake and add the salmon fillets.
Leave to marinate for about 20 minutes.
Put rice in a pan, bruise cardamom pods and add, and put double the volume of water as you have rice.
Bring to the boil, then turn down to the lowest you possibly can, clamp on a lid and leave until the rice has absorbed the water and is cooked, about 15 minutes.
Remove from heat and leave, uncovered, for another ten minutes or so, to rice can reabsorb residual water.
Heat a smooth griddle or skillet, and cook the salmon fillets for 1 1/2 minutes on 1 side then a minute on the other side.
Remove the salmon, double wrapping each fillet in foil parcels and let them rest for 10 minutes on a cutting board.
Bring the sake to a boil in a small saucepan to let the alcohol taste evaporate.
Take the pan off the heat and add the other sauce ingredients, whisking to combine.
Unwrap the salmon fillets, removing them to the board for carving as you do so.
Arrange some rice on 2 plates, and slice the salmon fillets into thin slices.
Lay the carved salmon on top of the rice and spoon over the sauce, letting it gloss the fish and drip here and there over the rice.
