Recipe XLIII - Salmon with Stir-Fry Noodles

Can you believe it? It's been about 10 months since I started these recipes, and in that time, no fish. So I'm putting this right with this post. To be frank, I am not a fan of fish, but fresh river salmon I can handle.
The Japanese are probably the best in the world for their imagination with fish dishes, and this one is like a bad detective novel - it starts off pretty slowly and remains rather uneventful until the very last part, when everything happens at the same time.

Ingredients:
500g fresh river salmon
1 long red pepper
2 onions
7 button mushrooms
4cm ginger
7 cloves of garlic
4 tablespoons of brown sugar
4 tablespoons of sake or white wine
4 tablespoons of soy sauce
400g egg noodles




Instructions:
Slice the salmon into appropriate pieces. To cut it, you need an incredibly sharp knife. Slice the fish with the skin facing upwards.
Slice half the ginger and 4 cloves of garlic, and put them in a bowl along with the sugar and wine. Stir it until the sugar has dissolved and then pour it over the salmon.



Marinate it for about an hour.



In the meantime, cut up the vegetables.



Take the salmon out of the marinade and fry it in butter. Keep the marinade for later. In another frying pan, fry the vegetables. Cut up the rest of the ginger and garlic and fry it too.
Put the noodles in boiling water, take it off the boil and let it rest for 5 to 7 minutes. Taste it to be sure the noodles are ready, then pour them into the vegetable mix.



Take the salmon out of the frying pan and cover it to keep it warm for a few minutes while you finish the rest off. Pour the remaining soy sauce from the marinade into the frying pan. Once it thickens, pour it into the pan with the noodles and vegetables, giving the whole thing a good toss.



Finally, serve up the noodles and put the salmon on top.



Enjoy!

Recipe XIV - Chick Pea and Sweet Potato Soup

Many of the ingredients in this particular dish were served to me at a very kind friend's house last week. They were in a German diet recipe book (which is the equivalent of a Spanish safe-driving scheme or a Swedish joke shop) but it had potential. I adapted it slightly with a few other things, where you see the (*) next to the ingredient. There are quite a few, considering it was a diet book...

Most of the ingredients before cooking

Ingredients:
2 sweet potatoes
4-5 carrots
1 onion (I used about 5 onions from my garden as they were tiny)
8 or more cloves of garlic
1 leek (*)
1 yellow pepper (*)
A tin of chick peas
3 chicken breasts, cubed (*)
A tin of coconut milk (*) or 250ml yoghurt
A handful of dried coriander (*)
A large helping of ground cinnamon (*)
Some raisins and sultanas (*)
Two spoonfuls of sugar (*)
A spoonful of chili powder (*)
A litre of chicken or vegetable stock (bouillon)
Olive oil
Salt and pepper

Instructions:
Turn on the oven and roast the garlic for half an hour to 45 minutes.
Cut up the sweet potatoes, carrots, leek, yellow pepper and onion into easily manageable pieces.
Lightly salt the chicken and gently fry it with the onion, pepper and leek in a high-sided pan, adding pepper and some chili powder.

A view into the pan

Remove them and put them in your largest saucepan. Get the sweet potatoes, carrots and chick peas and put them in there too, along with the stock.

After the rest of the ingredients have gone in

Put more coriander in, as well as some more chili powder if you wish. Not forgetting the coconut milk or yoghurt.
Once the garlic is nicely roasted, remove it from the oven and crush it with your pestle and mortar. A fork will do if you're out of pestles! Spoon it into the saucepan and mix it in well.

The ingredients before mashing

Cook on a low heat for as long as you like - the longer the better. As an option, feel free to crush all the ingredients to make a really flavoursome mixture.
Serve with Asian noodles or rice.

 

Ready!