Mirin-Glazed Salmon

This is another simple and lovely recipe from Nigella, well, I did tweaked it a little. When you are short for time and the easiest and fastest dish to cook, is fish, as they cook really fast.

The salmon pieces are marinated with some mirin, sugar and soy sauce. The recipe says that the pieces are then pan-fried in a little oil on one side, turn it over and the marinade are added in to the pan and let it come to a bubble for two minutes (sounds like braised to me), the salmon is then taken out and place on a plate, add some vinegar to the pan, let it come to a bubble and pour over the salmon. 

I tweaked the steps, well just because I do not like to eat "braised salmon", I think salmon tastes the best either pan-fried, or baked. So for this dish, after marinating the salmon, I pan-fried it with a little canola oil on both sides until some dark spots (because of the marinating ingredients) can be seen, about 2-3 minutes, place them on a serving plate. In the same pan, add in the marinade liquid, let it come to a boil, add the rice vinegar, let it sizzle for a minute, then pour over the salmon. Garnish with some shredded spring onions, serve at once.

With some simple marinating ingredients, this dish is so easy and very quick to make. My son like this dish very much, we had it with some plain rice for dinner.

Mirin-Glazed Salmon
(adapted from "Nigella Express", Nigella Lawson)
Serves 4
1/4 cup mirin (Japanese sweet rice wine)
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup soy sauce
4 (4-oz) pieces of salmon, cut from the thick part of the fillet so that they are narrow but tall rather than wide and flat (mine was wide and flat, cut into two)
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
1-2 scallions, halved and shredded into fine strips

1. Mix the mirin, sugar, and soy in a shallow dish that will hold all 4 pieces of salmon, and marinate the salmon in it for 3 minutes on the first side and 2 minutes on the second. Meanwhile, heat a large skillet on the stove.
2. Cook the salmon in the hot, dry pan for 2 minutes and then turn it over, add the marinade, and cook for another 2 minutes. (Heat 1-2 tablespoons oil, fry salmon on both sides until brown with dark spots, on both sides. Remove to a serving plate).
3. Remove the salmon to whatever plate you're serving it on, and add the rice vinegar to the hot pan. (Pour out all the oil from the pan, stir in the marinade, add the rice vinegar and let mixture boil and sizzle for a minute).
4. Pour the dark, sweet, salty glaze over the salmon and top with the scallion strips. Serve with rice or noodles as you wish, and consider putting some sushi ginger on the table, too.

#76/100

I'm linking this post to Cook Like A Star, where the featured chef for this month is NIGELLA LAWSON. Cook Like A Star is an event organized by Zoe from Bake For Happy Kids, and the co-hosts for this month are Anuja from Simple Baking and me, Joyce from Kitchen Flavours. Cook or bake any of Nigella Lawson's recipes and link your posts to any of the hosts' linky which will stay open for the whole month of August. All submissions to this event must be current posts, published within the current month of this event, any older posts will be deleted. Please mention and link Cook Like A Star somewhere in your post. Do join us, everyone is welcome!

Cook Like A Star featuring Nigella Lawson, from 1st August to 31st August 2013

And I'm sharing this with Cook-Your-Books #3 hosted by Kitchen Flavours