Sweet Ceylon Crusted Salmon with a Garlic shoot Salad.

I was looking for Kaffir lime leaves, however, it would appear that the main smuggler of said leaves into Europe has been busted or somesuch. As they were nowhere to be found in the UK or on my first two forays in Paris.

However in my local Chinese Superstore I did find long shoots of garlic, a form of the allium I’d never encountered before. So, obviously, I bought some, then sat down for a coffee to decide what to do with them.

Sweet Ceylon Crusted Salmon with a Garlic shoot Salad.

Served me:

Small Salmon filet

2 good quality Ceylon tea bags

Salt

Sugar

Pepper

Some brown liquor

Half an onion

Some garlic shoots (I used 2 as they were quite long)

Bit of lemongrass (this makes it well Asian)

Salad

Dressing (I made a basic cider vinegar vinaigrette as it seemed to match the flavours and the slight sweetness of the fish)

Cut open the tea bags and mix the tea with equal amounts of salt and sugar. Pour in a splash of liquor, I used a bit of cognac as that’s what I had handy, but I guess bourbon or rum would probably also work, it’ll smell a bit pungent to start with but you won’t notice after cooking it. Smear the resultant mixture on your bit of Salmon and leave for a while.

Cut your garlic shoots into 1cm ish length pieces, chop the half onion into suitably sized pieces and pop both in a pan with some finely chopped white bit of a lemongrass and oil. Cook, slowly, you do not want to burn your onions.

Brush most of the wet tea rub off the salmon piece, then pop it skin down in a hot heavy bottomed pan. Leave it until it looks cooked about half way up the side, flip it over (it doesn’t matter if the skin comes off at this point, it’ll have protected the flesh from burning). Turn off the heat and let the rest of the filet cook slowishly.

Make your dressing, toss the cooked garlic and onion bits with some mixed salad leaves, pop on a plate.

When the Salmon is cooked whip it out of the pan ( you may want to roll it on each side first to make it look pretty with bits of caremalised tea and stuff). Flake the Salmon (it should come apart quite easily) then make it look all pretty on top of your salad.

If you’re feeling really posh, you can finely chop a spring onion to use as garnish.


(oh and I did find the Lime leaves in the end, they were in a tiny little Asian grocery store round the back hidden in a freezer cabinet)

this is what winning looks like