Asian Style Salmon with Noodle Soup and Steamed Sugar Snap Peas

After a bit of chopping and prep, this was ready in less than 10 minutes. Delicious and not too heavy.

Serves 1

Ingredients

1 Salmon fillet, washed
2 Spring onions, sliced finely
1 Red chilli - seeds in, chopped
3 Cloves of Garlic, peeled
1 tsp of freshly grated ginger
1 tbsp light soy sauce
1 1\2 tsp of Miso Paste
1 tsp fish sauce
Juice of one lime
Portion of egg noodles
Handful of sugar snap peas, washed

Line a steamer with tin foil. This stops the cooking juices being lost. They are added to the soup at the end.
Put the salmon into the foil lined one.
In a mortar and pestle crush the garlic, together with the chilli and ginger until you have a rough paste.
Pile this paste on top of the salmon and press it down so it does not fall off during cooking.
Sprinkle the spring onions over the top and pour over the soy and lime juice. Put this on to steam.
After about 3 minutes put the sugar snap peas on to steam.
Then start cooking the noodles in plenty of boiling water. Make up the miso soup in a big mug. I added some dried wakame seaweed at this stage. Test it for saltiness and add the fish sauce if you need to.
After 10 minutes the salmon and sugar snaps will be cooked. Drain the noodles and put them in the serving bowl. Pour over the miso soup. Gently lift the salmon out of the steamer and place it on top of the noodles. Pour the cooking liquids from the steamer (soy, lime etc.) into the soup. Make sure you get all the spring onions out of the steamer and pile them on to the salmon.

Preserved Lemons in Ireland

I was making a Jamie Oliver recipe for White fish tagine recently and it needed preserved lemons. I looked around for these a bit, but could not find any. I hunted down a recipe on the web and gave it a try myself.
I was sceptical at first. Where was the bitter taste going to go with a bit of added salt and time? Would it really be nice to eat the skin of a lemon in a savoury dish?

I used a bunch of lemons - there are about 6 in the jar preserved, but I used the same again for extra juice.

Method:

Wash the lemons. Unwaxed are best, but I could not get any, so I gave the waxed ones a good scrub.
Cut them into about 8 segments each. Drop these into a layer in the bottom of something like a kilner jar. Sprinkle plenty of salt on top of them. Repeat in layers until all the lemons for preserving are gone, or you run out of jar. Then juice the rest of the lemons - or as many as you need to roughly cover the lemons in the jar. Squish the whole lot down to get them as submerged as possible. Close the jar and wait a month. Leave it at room temperature for this period. Now and again give it a shake to distribute the salty juice. Take a peek whenever you like, they smell great from the start with the lemony tang reducing over time.

The lemons are ready. Take out what you need rinse well and make sure you get any seeds out. I leave teh pulp in, but some people throw that away. They go great in Moroccan style food. The bitterness is gone and they smell and taste great. They are also a talking point for people who come into your kitchen. Making this sort of stuff is way weirder than just cooking :)