salmon

Salmon Cauliflower Porridge

Salmon Cauliflower Porridge

This is my wife’s favourite quick and easy to prepare meal. It’s easy and it is fuss free, but more importantly, it is delicious.

The tail end of the salmon makes this dish suitable for toddlers as well and cauliflower once cooked this way is a simple and easy way to introduce vegetables to kids.

Top it up with chinese parsley and you can eat. Less than 30 minutes and it is done.

Recipe

Ingredients

Fresh Salmon (I usually get the tail end of the salmon as it is the best part for kids and lesser bones)
Cauliflower (half of a head of cauliflower would be sufficient)
Chinese Parsley (my wife loves lots of parsley in her porridge, so I would usually add in a lot for garnishing)
White Pepper just a dash.
White Rice 1 cup will do.
Thai Fish Sauce add till desired taste.

Method

1. Boil a kettle of water. This is for boiling the porridge faster. Pour the cup of rice into a pot once the water is booked, add it in to boil till rice is broken down.

2. Rough chop the cauliflower and add the pieces into the porridge to boil. The consistency of the porridge has to be watery not thickened. Add more water if necessary.

3. Slice the salmon into thin pieces and add these into the porridge. As salmon cooks relatively quickly, you don’t want to cook for too long. The trick is to cook it for 5 minutes and then off the fire to allow the heat to continue cooking it.

4. Once cooked the salmon should be a hue of bright pink, the cauliflower softened and the rice porridge texture broken down and watery.

5. Add Thai fish sauce to taste and white pepper for flavour. You can add the fish sauce during cooking or after. It is the same. Serve with chopped parsley.

Bon Appetit!

Boiled Salmon with Boiled Vegetables

Boiled Salmon with Boiled Vegetables

Nothing is as easy as this healthy meal. Boiled Salmon and boiled vegetables has got to be the least imaginative meal in the world. It is like going into the white t shirt section of a clothing store searching for white t shirts.

Eating salmon in this manner helps you with your cholesterol levels it seems and it is a good way to eat clean and maybe feel good about yourself. Needless to say the boiled vegetables also provide essential vitamins. I usually have a mixture of broccoli, cauliflower and carrots.

So one might say “Alright! How do I start?”

So easy. So simple (as uncle sim would tell you). Just boil the ingredients in water until they are cooked. For the vegetables you may want to make sure they are not cooked through until mushy soft, they should have that bright shine after you blanched them.

Just drizzle some salt, black and pepper and a squish of lemon and it is ready to be serve.

Recipe 

Ingredients 

Fresh Salmon (Per portion maybe 110 grams)

Broccoli, Cauliflower and Carrots (Just enough for one portion)

Sea Salt

Black Pepper
Juice if half a Lemon

Bon Appetit!

Creamy Salmon Pasta with Portobello and Scallops

Ho Sim Lang

Creamy Salmon Pasta with Portobello and Scallops

I got home slightly later today because of an Excel test that I had to sit for. Managed to get a good grade which was nice. Anyway, so I realised the value of rushing back home during peak hour traffic. I can’t imagine having to fight with the same bunch of people day in day out for space at the MRT station. It can be quite a terrible thing especially if you have to do a long commute to get to work.

Thankfully I managed to get out of class at about 5.55pm which I reckon is the thin line between being caught in the rush at 6 pm or the calm before the storm. People in the city go back home on time surprisingly.

So the wife asked me what I would cook for her tonight, and I couldn’t decide, we had already run out of ingredients at home, so she said why not cook a cream based Salmon Pasta. I replied, “Yuck.” and just nice my phone ran out of battery. So maybe the message didn’t manage to get through.

So it came as no surprise when a packet of fresh salmon landed on the kitchen table-top and a packet of glorious Portobellos. Surprisingly she bought Scallops as well. It was a gathering of all my favourite friends.

Recipe – Serving for Two

Ingredients

Fresh Salmon – a fillet for me and a fillet for you.

Fresh Scallops – I like at least 5 pieces for my plate. You can have lesser if you like.

Portobello Mushrooms

Fresh Rosemary – 2 sprigs 

Lime

Garlic

Cooking Cream – 1 small packet will do.

Milk – 1 cup is sufficient.

Mixed Italian Herbs

Black Pepper

Cayenne Pepper

Sea Salt

Olive Oil

 

Method

1. In a pot, cook about 200 grams (dried) Fusilli Pasta (this type of pasta is fantastic for cream-based sauces). I use Barilla Brand because it is one of the better ones. Cook the Fusilli Pasta for 11 minutes in hot boiling water mixed with a generous helping of salt and a tablespoon of olive oil. Once pasta is cooked, strain it immediately and douse it in cold water to stop cooking. Pasta should be just nice.

2. Heat a saucepan of two tablespoons of olive oil until slightly smoking, then add in minced garlic (3 wedges) and stir-fry gently until the garlic is fragrant. Meanwhile, de-bone and slice the salmon against the grain and add to the saucepan once garlic starts to brown a little. Fry the salmon until flesh turns pinkish. Do not fry the salmon too long as it tends to become dry. Once all the salmon turns pinkish (which is about 3-4 minutes) remove from saucepan and set aside.

3. In a frying pan, heat a tablespoon of olive oil (you can use butter if you like, but be careful as it burns easily) and place the Scallops to allow it to sear and burn on each side. My wife bought 4 pieces! Remove the Scallops after a few minutes of frying over medium heat.

4. In the same frying pan, fry the sliced Portobello Mushrooms and rosemary leaves with a sprinkle of sea salt. Stir-fry the mushrooms, sea salt and rosemary until it starts to burn a little, then add a tablespoon of olive oil and sauté until the portobellos turn soft (and delicious).

5. Assemble the Pasta (weigh about 180 grams per portion, 200 grams if you prefer a heavier meal) with Salmon on top, scallops on the side, and the rosemary-infused portobellos. If you have some leftover baby spinach or rocket from yesterday it would be great!

6. Now in the saucepan, cooking about 200 grams of cooking cream and about a half a cup of fresh milk. Add black pepper, mixed Italian herbs and a little salt to taste. Allow the cream to cook until it bubbles and forms a thin layer. The cream sauce is ready at this point. Ladle the cream sauce onto the pasta and serve with a wedge of lime (I ran out of the lemon!). I like my Salmon with a light sprinkle of cayenne pepper.

Bon Appetit!

So you may ask, why go through all that effort for a simple meal – as in cooking everything separately and then assembling it later? Well, I like to taste my food, so that’s why I cooked them separately, it just tastes better that way don’t you think so? Furthermore, different ingredients have different cooking temperatures and I have to respect that. Seafood tends to be a little more temperamental and less tolerant of mistakes.

It was a good decision to cook it this way. The wife loves it, and I must say it’s not too bad either.