Le saumon qui voulait être une aiguillette – Aiguillettes de saumon au sésame marinées au gingembre et soja, salade mixte à la vinaigrette de citron et coriandre

sesamesalmonweb

After coming back from New Orleans, I stuffed my fridge with fish and seafood, and it’s almost reaching to an end…I feel so much better when I have light lunches like this one, I get extra energy for the rest of the day.

San Francisco has been quite gloomy lately, the fog has a tough time disappearing and the wind makes you feel like you are in winter. We all know that San Francisco weather is what it is in summer, so I will stop complaining…but still I do enjoy the hot summer nights where you can wear tank tops and can sip a anything you want in a restaurant patio without worrying about the wind blowing your napkin away.

I used sockeye wild salmon for this salad, after reading that farm raised salmon has been injected with artificial color to get that orangey-pinky color, I got a little reluctant to get farm raised salmon. My dilemma is that by fishing in the oceans, wild species, we contribute to its extinction, and maybe one day there will be no more fishes in the oceans. Obviously wild salmon tastes much better and sockeye salmon has such a beautiful deep red color, but at what cost do we want to contribute to destruction the of the environment?

It’s something that has been bothering me and I will have to do more research on the subject. 

Anyway, if you are anti-wild salmon for environmental reasons and feel comfortable consuming farm raised salmon, it’s up to you, I don’t want to eat artificial coloring if no need to.

Ingredients for 2

For the salmon and marinade

  • 1/2 lb of salmon fillet
  • 1 tbs shoyu or soy sauce
  • 1 tbs balsamic vinegar
  • 1 small piece ginger, grated
  • 1 tsp garlic powder
  • 1 tbs sesame seeds
  • sichuan pepper

For the salad

  • 1 carrot, cut in strips
  • 1/2 lb cherry medley tomatoes
  • 6 radishes
  • 1/4 red onion, finely chopped

For the vinaigrette

  • 2 tbs extra virgin olive oil
  • Juice of one lemon
  • 1 tbs cilantro, finely chopped
  • salt and pepper

Preparation

Marinate salmon in marinade ingredients for about 4 hours. Cut in thin strips, add sesame seeds and broil in oven for a few minutes.

For the carrots, you can use a potato peeler to get those thin strips, if the strips are too wide, cut them in half lengthwise. Slice radishes in thin slices. Mix the rest of the ingredients all together. Add vinaigrette and toss. Keep some vinaigrette to sprinkle on top of the salmon.

When salmon is cooked, plate with some salad in the middle of the plate and salmon strips on top. Sprinkle with remaining vinaigrette.