Busy Day Alaska Salmon Salad

This is an easy lunch or light supper.  I made it in minutes with canned Alaskan salmon that my sister-in-law put up a few years ago by the hot water bath method using jars.

 Ingredients:

1, 14.5oz (411g) canned salmon, flaked

1, 14.5oz (411g) canned green beans

1, 5 oz (142g) canned water chestnuts, sliced

1/2 cup halved, black olives

1/4 red onion, chopped

1 celery stalk, chopped

1/4 cup, fennel, chopped

1/4 sweet pepper, any color, chopped

2 Tablespoons olive oil

1 lemon, squeezed of juice

Freshly ground black pepper

Mix all the ingredients in a serving bowl and garnish with chopped parsley.  Serve with toast.

© Judy Labi 2013

Alaskan Halibut with Tomato & Mushroom Sauce

Back home in Alaska, I am inspired with the beautiful wild ocean fish we have readily available to make healthy tasty dishes like this one.  First I baked the halibut, with seasonings, in foil and then topped it with the thick, chunky, red tomato and mushroom sauce.  Thirty minutes start to finish. The brown rice cooked up at the same time in Mom's rice steamer and the broccoli in five minutes in the microwave.





Ingredients:  To Serve four    Preheat Oven:  180C/350F

Two large halibut loins (no bones)
1/2 lemon
2 cloves garlic, sliced
Freshly ground black pepper

Lay the halibut on foil; sprinkle with pepper, garlic, and squeeze of the lemon half.  Place the lemon on top and fold the foil to make a loose envelope around the halibut.  Secure.  Place in a preheated oven to bake for 30 minutes. Serve with the Tomato and Mushroom Sauce given below.

Tomato and Mushroom Sauce Ingredients:

2 Tablespoons olive oil
1/2 medium onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, sliced
1, 14.5 oz (411G) can chopped tomatoes
2 Tablespoons tomato paste
3/4 teaspoon salt
Sprinkle of freshly ground black pepper
1 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano (Or use fresh if you have it.  About two/three chopped springs.)
1/2 teaspoon white sugar
1, 4 oz (113G) can sliced mushrooms (Or use fresh, sliced. About one cup heaping.)

Place all the ingredients in a saucepan and simmer for about 20 minutes.  Serve on top of the halibut as pictured.  A bit of chopped parsley is the perfect garnish.

© Judy Labi 2013

Haraimi Salmon

This is where my Alaskan heritage teams up again with my husband's Libyan one.  I choose the 49th state's famous fish to simmer in this warm spicy North African sauce.  I've adapted the recipe, omitting the flouring/frying the fish before briefly plunging it into the gently just boiling sauce.
The resultant beautiful, even more red coloured salmon is most appetising.  From start to finish it takes less than 30 minutes.  This dish is great served with bread, to soak up the sauce, and salad or steamed vegetables.  Traditionally it was served with coucous.


Ingredients:

6 tablespoons olive oil
one salmon fillet, cut into quarters
salt and ground black pepper
5 large garlic cloves
one red chilli
1 teaspoon caraway seeds (optional)
2 teaspoons paprika
2 teaspoons cumin
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons tomato paste
lemon juice, squeezed from 1/2 lemon
2 teaspoons sugar
Garnish:  chopped flat leaf parsley and lemon wedges

Puree' garlic, chile, caraway, paprika, cumin, cayenne pepper, cinnamon, and 4 Tbsp. olive oil in a food processor or blender.

Heat remaining 2 Tsp. olive oil in heavy pot with lid, over medium heat.  Add pureed paste and simmer for just a few seconds.  Add tomato paste and 1/2 cup water and bring up to simmer.  Stir in lemon juice, sugar, and just a little salt and pepper.

Plunge salmon pieces into simmering sauce and cover.  Cook for 12 minutes or until fish is just cooked through.

Place cooked salmon and sauce onto plates and garnish.  Serve hot.

© Judy Labi 2013

Pandas and Noodles in Szechuan

After touring China for over three weeks, I must say that my husband and I were thoroughly impressed with the country.  We enjoyed so many places but one of the highlights was seeing the pandas up close at the Panda Research Breeding Centre at Chengdu, Szechuan.  You can see from the picture that they like a diet of bamboo.  The babies are only around 100 grams when born but look what the bamboo does for them!  

The people here are just as crazy for noodles.  There are many different kinds and they eat them even for breakfast.  The favourite mixture is putting noodles in a bowl, and then adding stir fried strips of egg, a few greens (like spinach), cooked ground pork, vegetable broth, and last, a small spoon of chilli from the hot pot (shown below).  The hot pot is made from chopped chillies, garlic, peppercorns and oil.  It is always presented in this region separately from other dishes.  Each person seasons their food with as much of the hot spice as desired.  It warms one up with tasty chilli zest.

© Judy Labi 2013

Barbecued Half Leg of Lamb

With inviting warmer temperatures here in London although it is only early May, I decided to delight the family with barbecued lamb tonight.

This is a super easy one.  Start with removing the outer layer of fat and skin from the half leg of lamb.  This is done with a sharp meat knife in a minute.  Next, cut straight through the meat to the bone and then along the bone to free it from the muscle.  Discard the bone.  Massage 2 tablespoons of honey and about the same amount of dark soy sauce into the meat.  Let rest.

Light the charcoals in the barbecue and wait until they are white before cooking.  When ready, place the prepared meat on the side of the barbecue (not over the very hot centre) and cover with the dome lid if your barbecue grill has one.  Turn over about every 5 minutes, replacing the dome lid each time.  Roast in this manner for 20 minutes for rare-medium and 30 minutes for well done.  Remove to serving platter for carving at the table.

Tonight I served this delicious honey barbecued lamb with rice, grilled portobello mushrooms, broccoli, green beans, and asparagus.  What a family treat!  Serves 4.

© Judy Labi 2013

Mexican Tomato Salsa

This is the perfect accompaniment for any grilled white fish.  I usually team it up with sea bass fillets as they cook in minutes under the grill/broiler and the skins are easily lifted off before eating.

The salsa is invitingly hot with the red chilli, and full of flavour with the addition of snipped fresh coriander and chopped red onion.

The tomatoes for the salsa are quartered, deseeded and then chopped.  The seed centres can be saved and used for a tomato sauce as given in the Potato Gnocchi post earlier.

Ingredients:

10 ripe medium tomatoes,  quartered and deseeded, then chopped.
1 medium red onion, peeled and chopped.
1 red chilli, halved, deseeded, and finely sliced
a handful of coriander, snipped with scissors into small pieces
1 Tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
Juice from one lime
1 Tablespoon salt
sprinkling of mixed seeds (optional)

Mix all the ingredients in a large salad bowl.  Cover and allow flavours to permeate throughout all ingredients for about 30 minutes at room temperature.  Serve.

© Judy Labi 2013

Teriyaki Wild Alaskan Salmon

Want something tasty, nutritious, and easy to cook?  Try this recipe.

There are five species of Alaskan salmon:  Kings, Reds, Silvers, Humpies, and Chums.  It is the Red, also known as Sockeye salmon, that we have available on our fish counters here in London.  I buy a whole side fillet of it, often on sale, and prepare this family favourite.  The beautiful red colour, as you see in the picture, comes from the natural diet available in the cold ocean waters.  Each wild salmon is hatched in a fresh water stream and then travels thousands of miles out to sea but eventually returns to the birth stream to lay eggs for more salmon to hatch from and thus perpetuate the species.  The exercise of all this swimming results in the firm, yet flaky meat true fish lovers prefer.

Teriyaki marinade:         (One Teriyaki salmon half, filleted, serves 4)

1/3 cup/5 Tablespoons sake
1/3 cup/5 Tablespoons Mirin
1/3 cup/5 Tablespoons soy sauce

Place the fresh salmon fillet in a large plastic bag; pour half of the above mixture into the bag and close securely.  Refrigerate 2-3 hours or even better, over night.  Turn over once or twice.

Line your grill/broiler pan with aluminium foil.  Remove the salmon from the plastic bag and place skin side down on the lined pan.  In a pre-heated grill/broiler, cook for 6 minutes; turn over and cook for about  4-5 minutes more or until the skin is well blackened.  Cooking times vary with the thickness of fillets.

Place cooked salmon skin side up on serving platter.  Peel off skin and discard.  I then scrape the grey thin fat layer off and also discard it.  Turn the fillet over to the other side (more eye appealing) and garnish with chopped parsley.  Serve hot or cold.

Remaining marinade from the above mixture can be stored, covered, in the refrigerator up to a month.

© Judy Labi 2013