Dukkah, asparagus & hot smoked salmon potato salad – loaded with pomegranate, hazelnut dukkah, fresh parsley and mint, and chunks of avocado. I’ve spent the weekend making layers and layers of tender buttermilk chocolate cake (eleven, to be precise), dressed up in the fudgiest, smoothest, darkest chocolate frosting I’ve ever made, thanks to Thalia (and...
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Dukkah, asparagus & hot smoked salmon potato salad – loaded with pomegranate, hazelnut dukkah, fresh parsley and mint, and chunks of avocado. Jump to Recipe
I’ve spent the weekend making layers and layers of tender buttermilk chocolate cake (eleven, to be precise), dressed up in the fudgiest, smoothest, darkest chocolate frosting I’ve ever made, thanks to Thalia (and yes, it’s worth all those superlatives). So much cake that by Saturday evening I would have been happy not to see any again for a week, with chocolate-coated dishes piling up in the hot kitchen, over-heated by our poorly insulated oven, and that sickly sweet mouth-feel from taste testing for much of the day. But then I woke up this morning – to a clean kitchen – and realised that’s a complete lie. Give me a 24 hour break and I’ll be right back on the chocolate wagon.
I’m lucky my family puts up with the constant clatter and whir of the stand mixer, the lack of available surfaces in the kitchen, and (for my brothers), seeing masses of cake pass through the house without having access to any of it. Though the boys did get to scrape out the bowl a couple of times – it was the least I could do. This week I’m also starting the Christmas mince tarts for the season – packed with sultanas, dried apricots, prunes, mixed peel and chunks of dark chocolate, all laced with spices and a deluge of brandy. If anyone is in Auckland and wants to put in an order for fruit mince tarts or Christmas party cakes, send me a message!
To me, summer in New Zealand is synonymous with outdoor dinners and barbecues. Our Christmas is a lighter affair too, with barbecued lamb and spatchcocked chicken, Ottolenghi-style salads and icy cold desserts and pavlovas having a firm place on the table. I’ve never been a huge potato salad fan: it used to bring to mind flashes of pot-luck offerings of sun-warmed mushy potatoes, coated in heavy store-bought mayonaise and topped with a couple of green-tinged hardboiled eggs. BLEUGH. It was the summer potluck salad option I would always bypass – along with maybe the mayo-coated coleslaw. Instead, this summer I’ll be making this vietnamese green mango slaw, and today’s dukkah, asparagus & hot smoked salmon potato salad.
The counter point to the heights of December decadence, it uses crisp fresh spring asparagus and just-tender new potatoes. It’s studded with bright jewels and bursts of pomegranate and loaded with parsley, mint and zesty lemon. Chunks of creamy avocado meld with the burnished orange streams of egg yolk, and the hazelnut dukkah provides both crunch and extra flavour. It’s worth making your own dukkah – this recipe makes about 1 and a half cups, and you can use it in countless ways. Lately I’ve sprinkled it on eggs of all kinds, smashed butternut & feta toast, homemade hummus, smoky baba ganoush, and every kind of grilled vegetable, to name a few.
Dukkah, Asparagus & Hot Smoked Salmon Potato Salad
Ingredients
- 1 kg new potatoes
- 2-3 bunches asparagus , or a mix of asparagus and beans, halved
- 1/2 a pomegranate
- 1 cup parsley , roughly chopped
- 1 cup mint , roughly chopped
- zest + juice of a large lemon
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 4 tablespoons hazelnut dukkah (see recipe below, or storebought) + extra to top with
- 300 g hot smoked salmon
- 1 avocado
- 1-2 eggs per person , soft boiled - boil in a small pot for 5 minutes, then transfer directly into a cold water bath to prevent further cooking. Shell right before use.
- salt and pepper
Instructions
- Bring a pot of water to boil. Halve the potatoes and boil until fork-tender - this took 15 minutes for mine, but depends on the size of your potatoes.
- When done, rinse under cold water and chop into bite size pieces. Set aside.
- Meanwhile, heat a medium pan with a tablespoon of olive oil. Add the asparagus/beans and a generous grind of salt and pepper. Sautee over a medium-high heat until crisp-tender and charred lightly in spots - about 5 minutes, depending on asparagus thickness.
- Deseed the pomegranate.
- Roughly chop the parsley and mint.
- Chop the avocado into chunks.
- Soft boil the eggs - bring a small pot of water to the boil. Boil the eggs (1-2 per person) for 5 minutes (time this!) then transfer directly to a bowl of cold water to prevent further cooking. Peel just before serving.
- In a large bowl, combine the potatoes, asparagus, pomegranate seeds, chopped parsley and mint, zest and juice of the lemon, olive oil, and hazelnut dukkah.
- Toss to combine.
- Serve with avocado, hot smoked salmon, and soft boiled eggs. Sprinkle extra dukkah on top if desired.
Nigel Slater's Hazelnut Dukkah
Ingredients
- 75 g hazelnuts
- 100 g almonds , preferably blanched
- 2 tablespoons coriander seeds
- 1 tablespoon cumin seeds
- 1 teaspoon sea salt flakes
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 tablespoon dried thyme (optional)
Instructions
- Toast the hazelnuts in a dry pan over a low heat until the skins start flaking off, shaking the pan occasionally to stop them from burning.. Transfer to a clean tea towel and rub together in the tea towel until most of the skins peel off. Return to the pan and toast them until browned. Roughly chop, leaving some of the pieces quite large.
- Toast the almonds in the same pan until as evenly brown as you can get them. Tip on the chopping board and finely chop.
- Toast the coriander and cumin seeds until fragrant (this happens quickly, be careful not to burn them), then transfer to a mortal and pestle or nut grinder and blitz/pound to a coarse powder.
- Combine all the nuts, spices and salt & pepper in a bowl. Leave to cool then transfer to a jar.
- The dukkah will keep for a few weeks.
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A fast, easy weeknight stir-fry – an easy miso ginger marinade is used to coat salmon, roast broccoli and eggplant, then meld it all together with soba noodles and edamame. I have this strange feeling at the moment of simultaneously wanting time to speed up, skip ahead to next weekend already, and wanting it to...
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A fast, easy weeknight stir-fry – an easy miso ginger marinade is used to coat salmon, roast broccoli and eggplant, then meld it all together with soba noodles and edamame. Jump to Recipe
I have this strange feeling at the moment of simultaneously wanting time to speed up, skip ahead to next weekend already, and wanting it to just slooow right on down. It’s that end of semester atmosphere, where it seems like you are suddenly accelerating out of control down a steep hill, desperately trying to gain some control while also conscious that the only way for it to finish is to get the bottom, preferably asap. I guess you could compare it to the rush before Christmas?
Next Saturday a friend and I pack our bags and head to Cambodia and Vietnam – a couple of weeks of exploring Angkor Wat, experiencing the craziness of Phnom Penh, eating our way through the street food of Saigon, taking part in cooking classes in Hoi An, and market shopping like a local in Hanoi. And relaxing, hopefully. I can’t wait for the lack of actually having things scheduled! But also the fresh herbs and zingy fish sauce-lime dressings, the exposure to a multitude of new Vietnamese and Cambodian dishes, the humidity and heat (extremely over 3°C Melbourne mornings), and just generally adventuring through new cities and meeting new people. Be prepared for many photos, and many new South-East Asian inspired recipes.
The to-do list before then is insane, however. Exams are next week and I’m behind on blog posts, so it is a crazy race of keeping up with medicine, keeping up the blog (and trying to think of, make and photograph another successful, quick recipe!), keeping up with life and sleep, and getting things finalised for the trip. Literally a hamster on a treadmill right now. Today was leaving in the dark for 745 wardrounds, in theatre in the morning, then tutorials, editing these photos in the gaps, driving home again in the dark, and finally typing this up before I try to convince myself to go to swim training…but it is an outdoor pool and dark and cold and that is very much up in the air at this stage. This is why exercising in the morning is easiest for me – no chances to talk myself out of it!
This miso salmon, eggplant & soba noodle stirfry is ideal at the moment. It’s on the table in 20-30 minutes, depending on your speediness, and packed with healthy chunks of seared salmon, roasted broccoli and eggplant. Half way between a teriyaki sauce and a miso dressing, the marinade is thrown together in the jar with soy sauce, mirin, white miso, fresh ginger and sesame oil and used for the salmon, broccoli, eggplant and the final stir-fry stage. Pretty it up with spring onions, edamame and toasted sesame seeds at the end, and you are good to go. And it heats up well as next day leftovers – what more could you ask for?,It’s not as elaborate as the apple-walnut tarts with miso butterscotch, or as WOW as these thai brioche fish burgers with green mango & papaya slaw…but I would be seriously impressed if you pulled the latter off on a busy weeknight, put it that way!
Hopefully next week I will sound slightly more put together, and a little less stressed – but in the meantime, if anyone has any tips for Vietnam and Cambodia – an out-of-the-way restaurant to try, a guide to get in touch with, a hotel we should stay at – let me know.
Miso Salmon, Eggplant & Soba Noodle Stir-Fry
Ingredients
- 300 g soba noodles
- 2 tbsp soy sauce
- 2 tbsp mirin
- 4 tbsp white miso (I used “shirin” miso)
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 2 tbsp finely grated fresh ginger
- 1 tbsp sesame oil
- 500 g salmon , skinned and cut into cubes
- 4 japanese eggplants , or 2-3 small italian eggplants
- 1-2 heads broccoli
- 1 bunch spring onions
- 1 cup edamame beans
- 1/4 cup rice wine
- 1/4 cup water
- To serve: extra spring onion , teaspoon of sesame seeds toasted
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 220°C. Line 2 baking trays with baking paper.
- Boil a pot of water for the soba noodles. Cook for 2 minutes less than packet instructions as they will cook more later when you stir fry them, and they turn mushy easily. Rinse and drain thoroughly in cold water. Set aside.
- In a small bowl or jar, mix together the soy sauce, mirin, white miso, sugar, ginger and sesame oil.
- Add 2 tablespoons of the marinade to the salmon chunks and stir to combine. Set aside.
- Cut the eggplant into thin wedges or rounds (rounds is way faster if you are short on time). Toss in 1-2 tablespoons of the marinade and put straight in the oven.
- Cut the broccoli into florets and the stem into 1/2 cm slices and lay on the other baking tray. Drizzle with both with 2-3 tablespoons of the marinade and toss with your fingers to combine. Place in the oven and roast for 10 minutes or until crispy edged and cooked through. Check the eggplant - it might be done or might need a further 5 minutes.
- Heat a wok over high heat. Add a drizzle of sesame oil. Cook the salmon in batches, turning for 2-3 minutes until just cooked. Remove and set aside on a plate.
- Add another teaspoon of oil to the wok. Add the spring onions and cook for a minute, stirring. Add the edamame beans, rice wine and water, and cook for a further 1-2 minutes.
- Add the noodles back into the pan with the remaining marinade (should be about 2 tbsp), and toss to combine with the beans and spring onions. Add the broccoli, eggplant and salmon and toss for a further minute to heat through and combine.
- Serve with extra spring onion and sesame seeds.
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A realisation of the past week: eating well on a budget is not as impossible as I imagined before moving out. The misconception probably stemmed from formerly doing supermarket shopping for a family of six, all armed with large appetites, eating meat every night and not actively trying to cut costs. I was vaguely concerned...
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A realisation of the past week: eating well on a budget is not as impossible as I imagined before moving out. The misconception probably stemmed from formerly doing supermarket shopping for a family of six, all armed with large appetites, eating meat every night and not actively trying to cut costs. I was vaguely concerned that I would move out and have to subsist on slightly more lackluster meals, avoiding herbs, fish, and non-minced red meat and losing ingredients like ground almonds, dark chocolate and cream cheese in my baking. Couldn’t have been more wrong, really.
Stocking up on basics at the start helps: your fish sauce, soy sauce, spices, pomegranate molasses, tahini, pearl barley, rice, ginger, vinegar and oils. Buying what’s on special is huge – for example, in this meal you can use whatever greens you like. Grow your own herbs (our is a work in progress!) and you could save at least $5 a day. Hummus has become a staple in our house- for the price of a $1 can of chickpeas, a squeeze of lemon and a clove of garlic, I have something to go with lunch for the week, or a protein source for a middle-eastern inspired dinner. Judicious use of left-overs is absolutely key – make slightly more dinner and you have covered another meal in lunch the next day. Buy ciabatta when it is on sale at the end of the day and keep it in the freezer, or make your own bagels for an eighth of the price. It also helps that three girls don’t tend to eat quite as much as my three teenage brothers!
So much easier than I originally assumed. Coffee is something I continue to fork out for, however. Getting accustomed to Dad’s home-roasted beans and cafe-worthy espresso machine over summer means I have turned into a bit of a coffee snob, I have to admit.
With university often not finishing up until 6pm, dinners like this are necessities. I made up these teriyaki salmon bowls with sesame greens and avocado after a rare lunch out with Mum over summer at the recently opened &Sushi in Auckland. One of the more unique Japanese fit-outs around, it offers non-traditional takes on sushi and donburi with more of a health-food angle – the menu includes quinoa and sweet potato, purple rice is present in spades, and sushi garnishes include edible flowers and strawberry slices. Restaurant and cafe meals are one of my favourite sources of inspiration – I find it difficult to turn off the side of my brain that is constantly considering the components and ingredients, and how I could recreate them or change them up. The teriyaki salmon bowl we ate was a prime example.
Sticky, sweet teriyaki sauce coats tender seared salmon fillets on a bed of sushi rice and crispy-edged greens sautéed in sesame oil. Extra texture in the form of scattered spring onion, nori, toasted sesame seeds, avocado wedges and a drizzle of extra teriyaki sauce finish it off. AND it is healthy, packed with flavour, fast and budget friendly (if that doesn’t stretch to salmon, chicken thighs are almost as good).
The teriyaki sauce ingredients will last for ages, so after you have made it once, you won’t need to buy them again for a while. The sauce takes 5 minutes – all you do is boil them together in a pot. Buy whatever greens are cheap: use your leftover zucchini and broccoli sitting in the fridge, or if asparagus and snow peas happen to be in season, use them. Go crazy and use a mix of them all if you want. Add cabbage and green beans, and splurge on an avocado (there is a shortage of the latter in Melbourne currently, pushing the price up to about $3 each, so avocados are bought sparingly and used carefully around here!).
Teriyaki Salmon Bowls with Sesame Greens and Avocado
Ingredients
Teriyaki Sauce
- 1/3 cup mirin
- 1/3 cup sake
- 1/3 cup soy sauce
- 2 1/2 tablespoons sugar
- 2 teaspoons corn flour
- 2 tablespoons water
Salmon Bowls
- 2 cups of rice(or however much you normally eat between 3-4 people) OR soba noodles
- A couple of tablespoons of sushi rice vinegar.
- 3-4 x pieces of salmon , skin on (usually allow 150g per person)
- Green vegetables: a mixture of whatever you have on hand , allowing about 1 cup-1 1/2 cups per person. I would normally use cabbage and beans or broccoli, then a mix of whatever else is available. For example: green beans, asparagus, snow peas,cabbage, zucchini, broccoli
- Salt and pepper
- 1-2 teaspoons sesame oil
- 1-2 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 avocado , thinly sliced
- 3-4 spring onions , thinly sliced
- 2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds
- 2 x Nori sheets , cut into squares and toasted
- Extra teriyaki sauce for serving
- Japanese kewpie mayo to serve (if you have it)
Instructions
- For the teriyaki sauce, combine the mirin, sake, soy sauce and sugar in a small pot and bring to the boil, making sure the sugar has dissolved.
- In a separate small bowl, whisk together the corn starch and water. Add to the pot and return to the boil, stirring until thickened (2-4 minutes). Taste and adjust the seasoning if desired. Set aside or keep in the fridge until needed.
- Steam rice in a rice cooker or using your usual method, or cook up soba noodles. Once cooked, stir through a couple of tablespoons of sushi rice vinegar to taste. You can also use soba noodles here.
- Meanwhile, cut up your vegetables - top and tail beans, halve asparagus, thinly slice cabbage, cut zucchini into wedges and/or cut broccoli into small florets. Heat the olive oil & sesame oil (use only a little sesame oil as it is quite strongly flavoured) on a barbecue flat plate or wok over high heat. Stir-fry the vegetables until browned at the edges but still relatively crisp, seasoning with salt and pepper as you go.
- At the same time, heat a tablespoon of olive oil on a barbecue flat plate or in a fry pan. Add the salmon, skin side down, and cook on low until the flesh has gone opaque in about the bottom 1/3 of the fish. Turn over, and when the flesh changes colour the other way for 1/3 (which takes about half as long) so the opacity hasn't quite met in the middle yet, remove and rest for 2 minutes. A ridged pan/plate is ideal as the fat can drain away, but don’t use grill bars as the fish gets too burnt.
- When almost done, coat with teriyaki sauce (I use a pastry brush, but a spoon will do) and cook for a minute or two longer. Reserve the remaining sauce for the bowls.
- Serve the salmon with your green vegetable stirfry, steamed rice or soba noodles, sliced avocado, spring onion, sesame seeds, nori and extra teriyaki sauce and japanese kewpie mayo to drizzle over the top.
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Right now it is hot. Extremely hot. Like, sticky, sweaty, way-too-hot-to-turn-an-oven-on-just-need-water hot. Days like this have been frequent since Christmas – unusual for Auckland, where they ordinarily seem (to me, anyway) to occur only a few times a year. This summer has definitely outdone itself. However, I clearly have not been looking at the forecast...
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Right now it is hot. Extremely hot. Like, sticky, sweaty, way-too-hot-to-turn-an-oven-on-just-need-water hot. Days like this have been frequent since Christmas – unusual for Auckland, where they ordinarily seem (to me, anyway) to occur only a few times a year. This summer has definitely outdone itself. However, I clearly have not been looking at the forecast and taking my own advice: bread dough was made last night, is currently rising in the fridge, and will be made this evening into pizzas. Though I am sure they will be delicious, all I can think about is that I will need to crank up the oven as hot as possible – SO not ideal. Days like today call for these instead – beautiful, cool, no-oven-required, corn, avocado and salmon tortillas.
I got my planning wrong and made these tacos two nights ago, on an evening with wind chill cold enough to force our outdoor dinner inside – perfect pizza weather, in other words. Anyway, you should try these tonight. Or tomorrow. Or any other day, to be perfectly honest. The perfect mix of rich and crispy blackened salmon, creamy avocado and juicy summer corn, all offset by a chilli lime tomato salsa on homemade barbecue tortillas – what is not to love?!
The tomato salsa can be made ahead, as can the corn salad. The tortillas are much easier than they look, and will thoroughly impress with how much better they are than any store bought tortilla ever was, while the salmon is coated with cajun spices and barbecued briefly to crisp the outside while remaining meltingly tender on the inside.
The recipe is inspired from various sources: the tomato salsa adapted from an Anyway, after all these photos and trying desperately to describe its deliciousness (which I think is impossible and I am starting to gush so will stop now), all I can say is MAKE THESE. You will not regret it.
Salmon, Avocado and Corn Tortillas
Ingredients
Tomato Salsa
- 6-8 ripe tomatoes (depending on size and hunger)
- 4 tablespoons coriander , chopped
- 1/2 medium red onion , finely diced
- 1 red chilli , deseeded and finely diced
- 2 tablespoons lime juice
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 tsp sugar
- black pepper to season
Corn and Avocado Salad
- 2 red capsicum
- 5 cobs corn , husks removed
- 2-3 avocados , peeled, stones removed and cut into small chunks
- 3/4 cup coriander , roughly chopped
- 1/2 red onion , finely diced
- zest and juice of 2-3 limes
- 2 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
- salt and pepper to taste
Tortillas
- 675 g plain flour
- 3 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
- 6 tablespoons olive oil
- 450 ml room temperature water
Salmon
- 6 x 150-200g pieces of salmon
- 3 teaspoons cajun seasoning
- 3 tablespoons olive oil to cook
Instructions
Tomato Salsa
- Mix all ingredients together in a bowl at least half an hour before serving to allow flavours to combine. Taste for seasoning.
Corn and Avocado Salad
- Put a large pot of water on to boil for the corn.
- Preheat oven to 200°C. Roast the capsicum on a tray for about 10min or until the skin starts to blacken and blister. Remove from oven - the skin should wrinkle up. Once cool, peel off the skin and dice the capsicum into 1cm pieces.
- Boil the corn in the pot for 5 minutes to cook. Leave to cool slightly, then slice the kernels off the cob.
- In a large bowl, put the capsicum, corn, avocado, coriander, and red onion.
- In a small cup or ramekin, mix together the lime zest and juice and the olive oil. You can make the recipe ahead up to this step (but hold off chopping the avocado until the end to avoid it browning).
- Toss the corn mixture with the lime-olive oil dressing just before serving.
Tortillas
- In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Add the oil and rub in with your fingers until the mixture looks crumbly. Gradually add the water, mixing it together with your fingers until the dough is soft and all the flour is combined. Sometimes I end up with a little bit of water left over.
- Knead the dough for a minute to bring it all together. Add a bit more flour if it seems too sticky.
- Divide the dough into golf ball sized balls (see pictures above).
- When almost ready to cook, roll out the tortillas on a floured board with a rolling pin, turning and flipping the dough to make it as circular as you can.
- Place the tortillas on a plate separated with baking paper/greaseproof paper and dusted with flour to prevent them from sticking together.
Assembly
- Rub the cajun spices into the flesh side of the salmon. On a barbecue plate or a large pan on a low heat, add the olive oil and then cook the salmon flesh side down first for 8-10 minutes or until it is just starting to flake. Flip onto the other side and cook for another 5 minutes, or until the salmon is medium rare. This may take much less time if your barbecue or pan is hotter, so watch it carefully.
- Cook the tortillas on barbecue hot plates or in a heavy based frying pan (but wipe down the barbecue with paper towels if you are cooking it after the salmon!). We cook the salmon first, then rest it on the bars above the barbecue to keep it warm while we cook the tortillas, but you could also cover the salmon in tin foil on a plate to keep warm while you cook the tortillas if using the same surfaces. You do not need any oil for the tortillas - a dry pan is ideal. Cook over a high heat - the tortilla should start to puff up. When browned underneath, flip over to cook the other side. This shouldn't take much more than 1 minute each. Keep the tortillas on a plate covered with a tea towel to stay warm while you cook the rest.
- Just before serving, toss the corn salad and flake the salmon with a fork. Serve the tortillas with the salmon, corn and avocado salad, and tomato salsa. Enjoy!
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