Do you mind if we start this week (and end this month!) on a kind of casual note? Only, I’d like to share a recipe today that hasn’t got a dozen lovely photographs to go alongside it, it’s not been styled, it’s not fancy, but it’s just too delicious and too seasonal not to share. I did have a different post planned and ready for today, but then I made this salmon dish for dinner last night, and decided straight away that it needed to be a part of this month’s ‘Eating Seasonally’ series. Is that okay? And can we just all make a pact to ignore the fact that the photos aren’t too great? Thanks in advance.

So I made this dish for last night’s dinner, and, not to toot my own horn or anything, but it was kind of the best salmon I’ve ever had. (Did that sound smug? I’m sorry if it did. But it’s God’s honest truth, so…) The marinade for the salmon, and sauce for the entire dish, is based on the simple 50:50 soy sauce/rice wine vinegar proportions as the Teriyaki chicken recipe I’ve shared here before. I’ve been tweaking and adapting that marinade recipe over the past few months, and think I’ve finally settled on the proportions and ingredients that make anything you can dream of cooking in it really sing. It’s the simplest dish to put together, and is my fall-back staple dish for when I’ve run out of ideas for what to cook. Which usually happens each Sunday night, when the fridge is looking pretty bare and all I really want to hear is Jason saying ‘fancy a Chinese takeaway?’ But Sunday nights are not takeaway nights in our house, and so this dish is often what happens instead. Feel free to adapt the recipe as you fancy- replace the salmon with tuna steaks or chicken or steak or tofu, add some chopped chilli and coriander, replace the egg noodles with buckwheat, wholewheat, or udon ones instead, or take them away altogether and serve with sticky rice! The options are endless.

So here’s the recipe, complete with just two barely-styled photographs to go with. I took them about thirty seconds before eating this whole delicious bowlful of noodles last night, with my iPhone that really is on its last legs now. (There’s now a weird blemish on the lens that shows up in every photo I take, that I’ve had to edit out of these pictures.) And you must tell me if you hate this very much off the cuff kind of recipe post. I did consider remaking the recipe today and taking a full set of ‘proper’ photos, but then I thought ‘Hey now! That’s crazy talk! This is real life, after all!’ ;)

Ingredients:
2x salmon fillets
4 tbsp dark soy sauce (dark really is best here, but regular is fine if that’s all you’ve got to hand)
4 tbsp rice wine vinegar
1 garlic clove, minced
1 tbsp light brown sugar
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp sesame oil
1 head Spring greens, chopped into 1cm ribbons
1 400g pack fresh egg noodles
1 lemon
Handful dry roasted peanuts

- In a small roasting dish, combine the soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, minced garlic, brown sugar, and ground ginger. Add in the salmon fillets, turn a couple of times to coat, then leave (skin side up, fleshy side down) to marinade for around 15 minutes. I usually leave the dish on the countertop, so the salmon can lose its fridge-chill whilst it marinades.

- Heat a tbsp sesame oil in a frying pan (you need to use one that has a lid, or that you can cover), and add in the salmon fillets skin side down. Set a 10 minute timer on your phone/oven. Cook the salmon fillets for 5 minutes on a medium/low heat, turning frequently. After a couple of minutes, add in a tbsp of the marinade (it will bubble and get very dark, don’t worry) and swirl the pan a little to allow it to glaze the salmon.

- After 5 minutes cooking, add in another tablespoon of marinade, and then put a lid on the frying pan and turn the heat down low. Cook for a further five minutes, until your timer dings. We’re looking for the salmon fillets to be dark and richly coloured on the outside and beginning to flake, but still be coral inside. Gently part a few of the flakes to check.

- Take the salmon fillets out of the pan, and set aside in a little foil pouch. The foil will allow the salmon to continue to cook right through, whilst retaining its moisture. (n.b. It’s important the foil be sealed tight but that air be able to circulate around the fish, so use way more foil than you’d think you need so as not to wrap it too tightly)

- Tip the rest of the marinade into the pan, and allow to bubble for about a minute until it begins to thicken. Then add in the chopped Spring greens along with the juice of half a lemon, and cook on a medium heat for a minute or two. Then add in the fresh egg noodles (which come pre-cooked) and toss together with the marinade and Spring greens.

- Take a separate pan, and place over a high heat. Add a handful of dry roasted peanuts to the pan, and then toast them gently until they begin to smell really nutty and get a little colour. Keep tossing the pan, so the nuts don’t catch. Set aside once toasted.

- Taste a noodle, to check the seasoning. You might like to add in the juice from the other 1/2 lemon, and/or a little extra dark soy sauce. Turn off the heat, open up the salmon’s foil pouch, and serve up! Noodles & greens first, then a salmon fillet (don’t forget to pour over the juices that will have collected in the foil pouch) and then a sprinkling of toasted peanuts. The salmon will flake easily away from the skin, so don’t worry about chopping it small. Sprinkle over a little chopped coriander if you’re that way inclined (I am *not*!) and enjoy!