SALMON MEDALLIONS WITH ASIAN INSPIRED SAUCE

For the love of food, I urge you to try this at home! As you know I love Asian food and this sauce for the salmon totally nails the whole idea how a sauce should taste in the Orient. It is a very simple yet glamorous dish suitable for special occasions.

My recipe in Estonian may be found here.

SALMON MEDALLIONS WITH ASIAN INSPIRED SAUCE 

2 salmon medallions (ca 700 g, but you may subsititute with some other fish or other pieces of salmon, e.g steak, whole fillet)

20 g of scallions (about two stalks), chopped diagonally into long strips

2 tbsp of minced fresh ginger

4 garlics, chopped roughly

4 shallots or other small onions, sliced

for the sauce:

2 tsp honey

1 tbsp soy sauce

1 tsp oyster sauce

3 tbsp white wine (may be substituted with rice vinegar)

Additionally you will need foil and some cooking oil (olive or grapeseed etc)

Set the oven to 200 C. Blend all the ingredients for the sauce. Taste to make sure the saltiness is suitable for you, if too little add more soy sauce. Prepare four pieces of foil that are big enough to cover the two salmon medallions. Pour some cooking oil on one and then put the salmon medallion on it. Sprinkle with half of the prepared garlics, shallots, ginger and scallions and pour half of the sauce on top. Cover with another piece of foil and seal firmly the foil pieces together. Do the same with the other salmon medallion. Bake in the oven for 25 minutes.

May be served with cooked rice.

Detox Special: Salmon and Vegetables with a Japanese sauce

This is another quicky that I made during the week. I steamed salmon without any salt nor other spices. Took about 15-20 minutes. Then made a sauce from soya, water, sesame oil, mirin sauce and rice vinegar, which gives the dish a Japanese feel to it. Additionally I boiled cauliflower, which is one of the detox power foods (yet I rarely eat it even though it is delicious) and made a salad from cucumber, basil and goat milk yoghurt. As you see this dish is very basic, the only thing giving it a kick is the sauce, but despite of the minimalism it is very yummy. Sometimes going back to the roots is a good thing! ;)

The Detox Special: Fish and Quinoa salad

 

To give you a better idea of what my detox project looks and tastes like I'd like to share my today's dinner with you in pictures and words. :)

I think this way of making fish is one of my classics. It's an absolute winner every time!

Quinoa Salad:

First make the quinoa as said in the instructions, usually takes about 20 minutes to cook it. Meanwhile chop tomato, goat cheese, avocado, basil. Mix everything together and add olive oil. Done! :)

Fish:

I use fish fillet and today I made bass/perch, but any kind of fish goes really, salmon included. Naturally whole fish can be made too.

First I chopped some garlic and fresh ginger. Meanwhile I heated up some olive oil in a frying pan and added the garlic and ginger, sauted it a bit until garlic was golden then added the fish and covered for 2 minutes. Poured a little bit of water so that the bottom of the pan is covered, added heat so it started to boil, then reduced and covered. Some minutes later I flipped the fish to the other side and let it simmer there another couple of minutes, covered. Then removed from heat. Notice that I am not adding any salt nor any other spices, there's really no need to kill the natural taste of this divine fish. ;)

When I started eating I added a bit of low salt soy sauce and there we have the Merle's version of Chinese steamed fish!

I have to say it's a real quick health-freak fix, because it doesn't take more than 30 minutes to cook (quinoa is the longest to make). Detox in mind I should have of course steamed the fish, but the frying part is really minimum here as well.