Salmon Rice Bowl

As I’ve mentioned previously, our son Dov generally comes by during the week for a nice meal and is very happy to be experimented on with various and sundry creations I develop. I had a hankering for a salmon rice bowl and miraculously had all the necessary ingredients to hand including the ever elusive ripe avocado (an endless pursuit of this quarry, perfectly ripe can be a matter of hours! but I digress). So I knew I could count on Dov for an honest opinion and despite not being a true foodie like say, Netanel, our youngest, he appreciates and enjoys good food.

I also didn’t want to use the oven (random, just didn’t want to) and decided to pan cook it. A note, the rice bowl needs, obvs, rice, so you can either prepare my Simple Basic White Rice or my Excellent Basic Brown Rice – either one it’s up to your preference, and in addition to the sliced avocado, you will make a quick and easy cucumber salad. It all goes remarkably quickly so that you can have the whole shebang done in say, 25-30 minutes. So gather your ingredients, and onward!

So as you can see above, the rice is already cooked and the cucumber salad is prepared. This is your best way to go about it since they both go into your salmon bowl cold or room temp. Go into the link above to prepare the rice and the cucumber salad is super easy to put together. Slice your cukes in rounds, take a red onion and slice put in a bowl and add rice vinegar, white sugar, salt and oil toss and set aside. Done. It will now marinate merrily till you are ready for it. Wanna speed up your meal? Prepare the rice and cucumber salad the night before and boom, Bob’s your uncle, all you have left to do is pull it out of the fridge to come to room temp while you slice the avocado and prepare the salmon. K. Now season your fillets with salt and pepper and prepare the marinade. Although I’ve done this in a bowl, it’s super fast and easy to take a ziploc bag and put all your marinade ingredients into the bag then plunk the salmon fillets in the bag to marinate. I’ve done this a bunch of times so I’ll show you the marinade in the bowl, easier to see the ingredients but imho easier in the ziploc.

Put the sugar, soy sauce, lemon juice, thinly diced fresh ginger (try to get fresh, gives a wallop of flavor), chopped garlic cloves and a tablespoon of oil in a bowl or ziploc bag and combine till sugar dissolves.

A note, if you get fresh ginger and feel you won’t use it up fast enough, peel it (crazy trick, scrape off peel with the edge of a spoon, works a treat) and slice in slices and place in a ziploc bag in your freezer. Just take out how much you need for any given recipe. It’s still more flavorful than the grated frozen commercial kind and you won’t be irritated knowing it’ll go off on you and not get used up.

K, place the salmon fillets in the marinade in the bag like so:

Now go have a cup of tea or a little rest for about 15-20 minutes while it marinates. Every so often, pass by and flip the bag so it can get to both sides properly. Good. By the way, family late? Company calls to say they’re not coming for another hour? No worries, pop the fish in the fridge and it’ll just marinate a bit longer. Avoid marinating much past 2 hours. K. Take a nice heavy frying pan big enough to accomodate your 4 fillets and put in about 2 tablespoons of oil to coat bottom of pan like so:

Don’t stint on the oil here, you are getting a crispy fish out of the deal. K. Your fish has marinated about 20 minutes at least, your rice is cooked (you can cook it while the fish is marinating if you haven’t before) your cucumber salad is also marinated at least the same amount of time so you’re ready to roll. You can even peel and slice the avocado and have ready since this all goes into your bowl and you lay the prepared cooked fish on top. Heat the oil in the pan to hot, remove the fillets from the marinade but DO NOT discard the marinade!!!!, you are going to cook it with the fish soon, hold on to it and shake off the excess and lay the fish in the pan away from you (less chance for the oil to jump in your direction) skin side UP! I know most recipes want you to cook the skin crispy first but we ain’t doing that here. So again, skin is facing you like so:

You are cooking these on high heat so keep an eye on them and don’t step away for a minute. No phone calls, texts etc. you get my drift. Any distractions and the fish can burn. After 3-4 minutes peek at the fish by lifting gently with a spatula to make sure it’s a gorgeous deep brown but NOT burning and gently turn over.

Now pour the marinade from the fish – bowl or ziploc bag right into the pan and continue cooking about 2-3 minutes, spooning the marinade over the fish as it cooks like so:

Okay, another note here. I do not care for (nor does DH or any of our kids) rare salmon. Sushi is a different matter but salmon has to be cooked through for all of us, so you can adjust the cook time to your preference, just don’t overcook it. It’s about 4 minutes face down and about 2-3 minutes skin side down- remember this is on high heat, not medium or you will need a few more minutes. Gently press on the fish to see if cooked through as you like it. You’re afraid it’s not done sufficiently? Lightly cover the pan for another minute or two (don’t worry, it keeps crispy) and it should be perfect.

Now put it all together in your bowl. Put 1/2 cup to a cup of rice on the bottom (I used 1/2 a cup for me, 1 cup for the guys), some slices of avocado on the side, a scoop of cucumbers and onion (without the liquid) on another side and put a piece of your fish in the middle. Sprinkle over all sesame seeds and chopped scallions. A truly delectable bite which Dov raved over and said “it’s one of the best things I’ve ever eaten”, high praise indeed! As for DH, who tends not towards superlatives, “You should definitely make this again” and I do, it’s that good.

Salmon Rice Bowl

Cucumber Salad:

2 cucumbers, washed and sliced in rounds

1 tablespoons rice vinegar

1 tablespoons white sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 small red onion sliced thin

1 tablespoon oil

Salmon:

4 fillets of salmon

Salt and pepper

Marinade:

2 tablespoons sugar

2 tablespoons soy sauce

1 tablespoon lemon juice

2 1/4 inch slices peeled ginger, diced

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

1 tablespoon canola or mild olive oil

additional 2 tablespoons oil for frying pan

Bowl garnish:

2 cups cooked rice (brown or white)

2 chopped scallions

1 tablespoon sesame seeds

1 nice avocado , peeled and sliced thinly

Directions:

In a bowl, place sliced cucumbers, rice vinegar, white sugar, salt, sliced red onion, and oil. Stir well together – set aside to marinate. Have your cooked rice ready (doesn’t have to be hot, room temp is fine, or you have time to cook it while you marinate the salmon), and your avocado, as well as the scallions and sesame seeds.

Mix sugar, soy sauce, lemon juice, ginger, garlic, and sesame oil together in a bowl or a ziploc bag either stirring or shaking gently till sugar is dissolved. Place salmon into bowl or bag with marinade. Set aside for about 20 minutes and every so often, flip bag over. If in a bowl, just check it’s more or less submerged in the liquid.

Take a frying pan and coat bottom with the oil (usually needs 2 tablespoons) and bring to high heat. Remove fish from marinade AND SAVE THE MARINADE FOR USE SHORTLY, DO NOT DISCARD!!! shaking excess liquid off fish. Lay the fillets skin side UP, i.e. top down into oil and leave untouched about 3-4 minutes on high heat, watching carefully so it doesn’t burn, till fish is nicely browned and you can see the salmon cooking about midway up the fish. Carefully flip to other side and now pour your marinade over the fish and continue cooking about 2 minutes, spooning marinade over fish until fish is done to your preferred level. It should not need more than 4 minutes total on the flipped side, i.e. 8 minutes to be cooked through. Want it rarer? Cook for less. Now assemble your bowls. Place rice on bottom, avocado on one side, cucumbers and onions on the other (leave liquid behind in bowl) and lay fish in the middle. Sprinkle the lot with the sesame seeds and chopped scallions and dig in.