So on my low carb diet I’ve started eating lots more fish, you know I have always eaten fish but I’m finding it easier cooking creatively with fish than I am with meat… why, who knows 😆
You’ll notice the ingredients are basic, I’ve got tinned tomatoes, garlic, olives, capers, ginger and tomato purée to accompany the salmon. I also used dried oregano in this sauce which isn’t seen in the picture. The equipment is straightforward, knife, wooden spoon, frying pan and a wok.
Firstly spray some oil in the wok and heat it, I’ve used the light spray. I’m not overly convinced by it but I’m prepared to give it a go.
Chop the onion into half moon shapes, try and keep them thin so they’ll cook quicker.
Fry the onions until they start to soften, don’t stir them too much, keeping them moving will mean they’ll take longer to cook.
After a few minutes add the ginger, I’d use a small knob of ginger if you’re using fresh or a few strands of the lazy ginger. Again stir them through and allow them flavours to get to know each other. I’ve started chopping the strands of lazy ginger up now, but for this recipe I forgot lol.
Add the Tomato Purée and stir through, you should give this time to cook through, here’s an interesting article on cooking with Tomato Purée
Next add a tin of chopped tomatoes, and then add 200ml of water to the can of tomatoes and swish it about, picking up any tomatoes left behind, then pour that in to the pan. Stir thoroughly so all the ingredients have combined, allow that to cook through for five minutes.
Turn the heat down and let it sit on its own, stirring occasionally to allow it to thicken.
Take out a handful of olives and a teaspoon of capers, rinse them and set them aside.
Add the olives, capers and a couple of teaspoons of Oregano/Basil to the sauce and stir thoroughly, you’ll notice I’ve changed pans above. I’ve kept the olives whole, but you can chop them up if you’d prefer.
Sprinkle the Cajun powder on the salmon steaks. Cajun seasoning is one of my favourite seasonings, I really like the deep spicy taste, its warming and comforting and I try and use it in many dishes.
Season the fish with salt and pepper and spray with oil, put the oil on the fish not in the pan because it smokes less.
Make sure the pan is very hot, then add the fish, don’t play with them, just leave them cook.
Cook the salmon for a few minutes, don’t overcook fish you can see the fish cooking as the colour changes. Cook for the majority on the back and then turn over for the last part, you’ll know when the fish is cooked because it’ll come away the pan.
Turn over when you’re happy with how cooked the salmon is and cook for the last part on the other side, no more than a couple of minutes on a high heat.
Spoon the sauce on to the plate, the sauce freezes quite well and can be used to accompany rice, pasta or mashed potatoes without the salmon.
When the fish is cooked, peel the skin off, you can eat the skin, my mother likes it, but I’m not so keen.
Serve the salmon on top of the sauce, if you are eating carbs you can have something like rice with this but I had it as it was.
I really enjoyed making this and even more so eating it 😆 the sauce was deep and flavourful and the spice of the salmon was just right. I liked the addition of the olives and the capers, they gave the sauce a different dimension.
As I said earlier I really enjoyed this, it was deep and flavoursome with a mild level of spice, you can ramp up the spice if you want to, that’s totally up to you. If you enjoy Salmon you could also try one of 2015’s Strictly Suppers recipes, it was the first in the series, Salsa Steamed Salmon. If you’re not on a carb ban you could try my Quickstep Leftover Fishcakes or if you’re looking for something more substantial than the fishcakes you can try my Quick and easy mid week pan fried salmon with Ainsley Harriet’s Creamy, you can find the recipe here.
Well that’s three posts this week… I know I’m making up for lost time but it’s all good! Hope you have a good weekend, Greg my mother and I are off to Caradog’s tonight, looking forward to that a lot. As always you can get in touch on social media, I’m hopefully going to be working on my youtube channel soon and going to try and work on some videos, as soon as we have one ready you’ll be the first to know.
Take care, enjoy the weekend!
Rich
