Weeknight Dinner: Salmon Teriyaki
Did you know that one of the most common internet search terms is "weeknight dinner" or a variation thereof? It certainly is understandable: we are a busy society, all too often ending the day (or, more likely, pausing for sustenance before launching into the final third of it) with a cereal bowl, a take-out carton, a freezer box. As a busy person myself, I have learned that it is always helpful to have a reservoir of accessible ideas for simple, good meals that are easily prepared and served.
When I first began keeping house, I was working a job with odd hours and juggling that with time-off activities while living with a partner on a school schedule. Like everyone, we had to develop ways to balance our obligations with the need to keep ourselves fed. It meant a lot of breakfasts for dinner (still one of my favorites), a lot of trips to the local diner, and a lot of mishaps in the kitchen.
But, increasingly, it meant some successes in the kitchen. During the last twenty years, I've developed a repertoire of recipes and meal plans that I call Weeknight Dinner, and I am planning to share my favorites. Here is the first one, which I am publishing on a Friday so that, if you're so inspired, you can pick up the ingredients during your weekend shopping.
The necessity to feed oneself presents a great learning opportunity, for to learn to cook a dish is almost automatically to learn about the culture from which it arose. Teriyaki tells almost as much about mid-century America as it does about the culture from which it originated. There is much more to Japanese cooking than sushi. In Japanese cuisine, teriyaki refers to the technique of grilling food -- typically, fish -- in a sweet soy marinade to produce a glaze. The three key ingredients for the marinade are soy sauce, mirin or sake, and sugar or honey. Sometimes the finished broil is brightened with ginger or scallion.
Years ago, this traditional preparation was virtually unheard of in American cooking because Japanese food itself was not present in our cultural landscape as it is now. Whereas today every locale from restaurant district to mall to grocery store offers Japanese food, as recently as fifty years ago, Japanese cuisine was, at best, labeled "exotic" -- something you had to travel for, very likely to a pocket of the population itself. Through such cultural machinations as mass food production (including restaurants) and marketing, teriyaki became a dish familiar to our national palate. Through this process, teriyaki moved from a technique to produce a finished dish to something that's somewhere between a glaze and a sauce, but that also produces a finished dish.
Below is my original recipe for a simple, good weeknight salmon teriyaki. I wouldn't presume to present it as Japanese teriyaki, as there are too many talented Japanese cooks who can do so more authentically than I. But this preparation offers a lovely sweet/hot glaze that perfectly compliments the rich flesh of the salmon. I serve salmon teriyaki with steamed brown rice, and either miso soup with scallion or hijiki.
Salmon Teriyaki
This recipe serves two; it can be doubled.
2 six-ounce fillets of salmon, skin on
1 lime
1 small white onion
2 medium cloves garlic
1 bunch fresh cilantro
2 teaspoons ground ginger
3 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
1/3 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup canola oil
3 teaspoons sesame oil
1. Roll the lime along the counter beneath your palm to express the juice. Halve the lime and juice the halves into a glass or ceramic dish (a dinner plate works well).
2. Use a sharp paring knife to hatch a criss-cross of X's across the top of the fillets. There is no need to cut deeply; just running the knife across the top of the flesh will suffice. Place both fillets hatched-side down on the lime juice. Marinate 15 minutes.
3. While the salmon is marinating, rinse the leaf ends of the cilantro under cool water and set upside down in a colander or flat on paper towels to drain.
3. Peel the onion and remove the root and stem ends. Halve the onion from root to stem; halve each half. Cut each quarter into crescents and then cut across the crescents to dice. Measure 3/4 cup diced onion and place in a medium mixing bowl.
4. Chop the leaf ends of the cleaned cilantro to equal about 1/2 cup packed tightly. Add to the bowl with the onion.
5. Peel the garlic and remove the root end. Half each clove; remove and discard any sprouting from the center. Slice each half longways into slivers and then each sliver longways into matchsticks. Cut across the matchsticks to mince. Scrape the garlic into the bowl.
5. Add the ginger, vinegar, soy sauce, canola oil and 2 teaspoons of the sesame oil to the cilantro-onion mixture; stir to combine.
6. After 15 minutes, check the fish: the top of the flesh where it contacted the lime juice should be pale in color. Once the fish is ready, discard the lime juice.
7. Heat the remaining teaspoon of oil in a non-stick skillet over medium-high heat. The oil will heat very quickly. Add the fillets, flesh side down, and cook for about one minute. Use a silicon spatula to gently turn the fish so that they are now skin-side down. Gently ladle 1/4 cup of sauce over each fillet, and place a lid over the skillet. Lower the heat to medium and cook without peeking for 10 minutes.
8. After 10 minutes, check the fish: the flesh should be opaque pink and flake easily to the touch while pulling easily from the skin, and the top should be a medium to deep glazed brown.
9. Use your spatula to transfer the fillets to a serving dish or plates. Drizzle with fresh sauce; serve the remaining sauce with the meal.
When I first began keeping house, I was working a job with odd hours and juggling that with time-off activities while living with a partner on a school schedule. Like everyone, we had to develop ways to balance our obligations with the need to keep ourselves fed. It meant a lot of breakfasts for dinner (still one of my favorites), a lot of trips to the local diner, and a lot of mishaps in the kitchen.
But, increasingly, it meant some successes in the kitchen. During the last twenty years, I've developed a repertoire of recipes and meal plans that I call Weeknight Dinner, and I am planning to share my favorites. Here is the first one, which I am publishing on a Friday so that, if you're so inspired, you can pick up the ingredients during your weekend shopping.
The necessity to feed oneself presents a great learning opportunity, for to learn to cook a dish is almost automatically to learn about the culture from which it arose. Teriyaki tells almost as much about mid-century America as it does about the culture from which it originated. There is much more to Japanese cooking than sushi. In Japanese cuisine, teriyaki refers to the technique of grilling food -- typically, fish -- in a sweet soy marinade to produce a glaze. The three key ingredients for the marinade are soy sauce, mirin or sake, and sugar or honey. Sometimes the finished broil is brightened with ginger or scallion.
Years ago, this traditional preparation was virtually unheard of in American cooking because Japanese food itself was not present in our cultural landscape as it is now. Whereas today every locale from restaurant district to mall to grocery store offers Japanese food, as recently as fifty years ago, Japanese cuisine was, at best, labeled "exotic" -- something you had to travel for, very likely to a pocket of the population itself. Through such cultural machinations as mass food production (including restaurants) and marketing, teriyaki became a dish familiar to our national palate. Through this process, teriyaki moved from a technique to produce a finished dish to something that's somewhere between a glaze and a sauce, but that also produces a finished dish.
Below is my original recipe for a simple, good weeknight salmon teriyaki. I wouldn't presume to present it as Japanese teriyaki, as there are too many talented Japanese cooks who can do so more authentically than I. But this preparation offers a lovely sweet/hot glaze that perfectly compliments the rich flesh of the salmon. I serve salmon teriyaki with steamed brown rice, and either miso soup with scallion or hijiki.
Salmon Teriyaki
This recipe serves two; it can be doubled.
2 six-ounce fillets of salmon, skin on
1 lime
1 small white onion
2 medium cloves garlic
1 bunch fresh cilantro
2 teaspoons ground ginger
3 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
1/3 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup canola oil
3 teaspoons sesame oil
1. Roll the lime along the counter beneath your palm to express the juice. Halve the lime and juice the halves into a glass or ceramic dish (a dinner plate works well).
2. Use a sharp paring knife to hatch a criss-cross of X's across the top of the fillets. There is no need to cut deeply; just running the knife across the top of the flesh will suffice. Place both fillets hatched-side down on the lime juice. Marinate 15 minutes.
3. While the salmon is marinating, rinse the leaf ends of the cilantro under cool water and set upside down in a colander or flat on paper towels to drain.
3. Peel the onion and remove the root and stem ends. Halve the onion from root to stem; halve each half. Cut each quarter into crescents and then cut across the crescents to dice. Measure 3/4 cup diced onion and place in a medium mixing bowl.
4. Chop the leaf ends of the cleaned cilantro to equal about 1/2 cup packed tightly. Add to the bowl with the onion.
5. Peel the garlic and remove the root end. Half each clove; remove and discard any sprouting from the center. Slice each half longways into slivers and then each sliver longways into matchsticks. Cut across the matchsticks to mince. Scrape the garlic into the bowl.
5. Add the ginger, vinegar, soy sauce, canola oil and 2 teaspoons of the sesame oil to the cilantro-onion mixture; stir to combine.
6. After 15 minutes, check the fish: the top of the flesh where it contacted the lime juice should be pale in color. Once the fish is ready, discard the lime juice.
7. Heat the remaining teaspoon of oil in a non-stick skillet over medium-high heat. The oil will heat very quickly. Add the fillets, flesh side down, and cook for about one minute. Use a silicon spatula to gently turn the fish so that they are now skin-side down. Gently ladle 1/4 cup of sauce over each fillet, and place a lid over the skillet. Lower the heat to medium and cook without peeking for 10 minutes.
8. After 10 minutes, check the fish: the flesh should be opaque pink and flake easily to the touch while pulling easily from the skin, and the top should be a medium to deep glazed brown.
9. Use your spatula to transfer the fillets to a serving dish or plates. Drizzle with fresh sauce; serve the remaining sauce with the meal.
I will absolutely try this. Yummy!
ReplyDeleteThanks Eric, I will try this recipe with Kurtis.
ReplyDelete