Quick Fish Dinner a.k.a. SALMON RUSHdie

Friday 20 May 2011

Quick Fish Dinner a.k.a. SALMON RUSHdie

Categories: easy, fish, green onions, quick, salmon, soy ginger

I'm not even going to apologize for that pun in the blog title!

Here's a quick way to prepare salmon that is so easy yet yields impressive results. I thought I'd share because I had never prepared salmon before (this is Paisley writing...Ally usually does the cooking and I do the eating) and on my first try I was proud of what I made. This is kind of an anti foodie friendz post in the respect that I made it just for myself but if you have a night off from your buds and just wanna make something easy and delicious...this is the dish to make!

I bought a small filet of salmon fresh from Sprouts, which is basically a cheap version of Whole Foods. I was intimidated by the skin on the fish but with the help of YouTube I learned how to remove the skin fairly easily:

Since I'm a newbie at this, I basically followed eHow's article on "How to Pan Fry Salmon". Here are the steps from the site if you don't feel like reading the entire article:

1. Season both sides of your salmon fillet with salt and pepper. Let it rest 5 minutes.
2. Drizzle olive oil over the top and bottom of the salmon fillet, rubbing it into the meat. Let rest 5 minutes.
3. Preheat your frying pan over high heat until droplets of water "dance" on the metal, then turn the heat down to medium.
4. Place 1 tsp. butter into the frying pan and allow to melt.
5. Add the salmon to the hot butter in center of the pan.
6. Let sizzle for 2 minutes, then use your tongs to loosen the fillet from the pan to avoid the flesh from sticking (unless using a non-stick pan).
7. Cook the salmon for 5 minutes on each side, then check for doneness by inserting a tooth pick or paring knife into the center of the fillet and pulling it out. If it comes out clean, the salmon is ready.
8. Using your tongs, remove the fillet to the serving plate and serve.

To add some extra flavor I cut up a few green onions and heated them with Mama's Best Soy Ginger Marinade while I was cooking the salmon and drizzled over the salmon when it was finished cooking. Mama's Best is a Southern California brand and I was really into their sauce (I met them at Sprouts when they were giving out samples and they basically inspired me to venture out and make salmon). I added a handful of arugula on top of the salmon for some extra greens and it paired perfectly with the marinade and fish.

This dish probably took me about 15-20 minutes total and I'm sure those of you who actually know how to cook will be even quicker. Thanks for letting me share my first venture into preparing salmon....but that's what (foodie) friends are for, right?