The perils of shopping online. Most of the time I don’t mind giving control to my “personal shopper” and I’m happy to get what I’m given instead of wrestling wonky shopping trolleys in the supermarket with a scowl on my face. Today though, bit annoyed. I purchased two pieces of salmon. Clearly my “personal shopper” had a bit of a dilemma in the deli. “Does Sally want mid section or tail? Not sure. I’ll hedge my bets and give her one of each.” Dinner tonight is going to be two flavoursome pieces of salmon, one over and one under cooked. Oh well.. at least I didn’t have to go to the supermarket on a public holiday (or be one of those people stuck in an 18km traffic jam trying to re-enter Sydney post long weekend. Forget it!)
Using the paper bag method of cooking fish is almost fool proof, if you’re someone who is usually a bit scared of fish then I really encourage you to try it. Cooking the fish this way keeps the flavour in and also minimises washing up, bonus! If you’re super clever and gauge your cooking times right, you can put all your vegies into the parcel so it is a really easy dinner. I served the salmon with roasted asparagus (hooray it’s in season) so I could save on dishes and Stu’s not so favourite (but very delicious) brown rice. Dinner prep took about 10 minutes (with distractions) and it was on the table after about 25 minutes of cooking. Can’t beat that!
Ingredients
- 2 pieces of salmon, room temperature
- 2 tsp chilli sambal (or any delicious savoury chilli paste/jam that you like really)
- couple of slices of lemon (save the rest for drizzling after)
- 2 tsp ketjap manis (or make your own with soy sauce and a pinch of brown sugar, the salt/sweet contrast is important)
- few kaffir lime leaves (optional, but good)
- asparagus
- brown rice
Method
- Preheat oven to 200C. Prepare your brown rice in the saucepan per packet directions, however I’m working on the assumption your rice needs to cook for 25 minutes too. Bring to the boil.
- Lay one large piece of aluminium foil followed by a smaller piece of baking paper on top in your baking dish.
- In the centre, lay the kaffir lime leaves and place the salmon on top. Smear the sambal over the salmon fillets, add the lemon slices and drizzle over the ketjap manis.
- Fold over the baking paper and then seal the aluminium foil tightly.
- If you have worked quickly, your rice should be boiling about now, so turn it down to low and put your fish in the oven (for a total cooking time of about 25 minutes).
- When the rice has 15 minutes to go, put your asparagus in the tray beside the fish and drizzle with olive oil and whack it back in the oven.
- The rice should be done by about now, so turn the heat off and leave it covered. Check your salmon, it should be cooked but still moist. If not, cook for a few minutes more or until done to your liking. No harm done.
- Serve with a squeeze of lemon or lime and extra chilli or ketjap manis if you so wish!
Post dinner update: we inhaled this – so yum!
