I don’t know about you, but whenever I unwrap a salmon fillet these days it seems to have grown to twice the size it looked in the fish shop. So I’ve started cutting them in half after barbecuing – the easiest way to cook salmon, I find – and keeping half in the fridge for lunch.
Ever since I read in this book here that one of the major keys to preventing dementia (both Alzheimer’s & non-A) is to eat oily fish a couple of times a week, our salmon consumption has gone up. I know chefs turn their noses up a bit at salmon – all those early nineties menus full of pan-fried salmon on a lump of mash, I guess – and I’ve heard salmon described as fish for steak eaters (hmm, who could that be…?). And I see their point. I still love it though, and being a bit of a fish-cooking scaredy-cat, I find it durn simple to cook (these days, that is – remind me to tell you one day of the first time I cooked for my Neil-Perry-trained-seafood-restaurant-chef-brother-in law-to-be, chefbro Hamish, using a crap electric stove and oven in my old flat. He was very gracious at the overcooked, soggy pink slab he got – but what was I thinking!??)
Anyhoo, the other day I slung this little salmon nicoise salad together from leftovers and fridge staples. It pretty much only took as long to make as the egg took to hardboil (around eight minutes) – and, I have to say, was very fabulous. I used vino cotto instead of making a dressing, because I can kid myself that it’s got no oil (but I bet the sugariness of it cancels out that benefit…), but any dressing you like would be fine.
This made a big salad for one, but obviously you can mix and match quantities to suit.
Reckon it’s easy enough to stick in lunch for lazy people?
- 1 piece cooked salmon, broken into bite-sized pieces
- 5 kalamata olives
- 5 anchovies, roughly chopped
- 1 hardboiled egg, quartered
- 1-2 tomatoes (I used a few I’d roasted; they shrink a lot so used more)
- lettuce leaves
- a couple of teaspoons of vino cotto (or balsamic & oil dressing)
- next time, I’d add some green beans
- salt & pepper
Method: Chuck it all in.
How to shuck an oyster 