Sake Salmon

I know I've mentioned it recently, but I just got to say again, I love the Cooking Channel.  I've been watching mostly Molto Mario, Nigella Feasts and Spice Goddess.  It's made cooking exciting once again.  Sometimes I get in a cooking rut, particularly as it gets later in a season and I tire of the same ingredients, but the Cooking Channel has inspired me to try new things.  I particularly adore Mario Batali's show; his food is so unique and sometimes challenging, although he makes it look easy, making everything from scratch and usually with his hands (no food processor or mixers; I loved when he made Rocco DiSpirito whip egg whites into firm peaks by hand, who does that anymore!), everything looks absolutely delicious, and I really feel like I learn something new from him every show.  He's so much fun to watch and full of all sorts of interesting facts and knowledge.  I wish I could be a guest on his show. I also like some of its non-cooking shows such as Chef(ography) (I enjoyed the Mario Batali and Wolfgang Puck episodes), Food(ography) and Unique Eats.

This sake salmon dish was one of those new dishes that I couldn't wait to try; it looked so good when Nigella made it and also seemed relatively simple and quick to make.  I bought some wild salmon yesterday from Costco that looked nice and fresh so I was eager to use it while very fresh.  I basically followed her recipe with some very minor tweaks.  To serve four, I used the entire 1.7 lb filet of salmon.

For the marinade, I combined in a gallon zip-loc bag with the salmon that I divided into four pieces:

• 2 TB of light soy sauce
• 2 TB of worcestershire sauce
• 1 TB of finely minced garlic
• 1 tsp of dijon mustard
• 1 tsp of wasabi paste
• 1 tsp of sesame oil
• 1 tsp of chili oil
• 2 TB of sake

I let the salmon marinate for 20 minutes.  Over medium heat, I cooked the salmon for 1.5 minutes on one side, and then 1 minute on the other side.  I cooked two filets at one time.  I then wrapped each filet in two sheets of aluminum foil tightly and let it rest for 10 minutes.  While it rested, I made the sauce:

• Bring 1/2 cup of sake up to a boil and then turn off the heat and add:
• 2 TB of light soy sauce
• 1.5 tsp of fish sauce
• 1 tsp of dijon mustard
• 1 tsp of wasabi paste
• 2 tsp of worcestershire

I served the fish on top of rice, cut the salmon into strips (so there's more surface area for the sauce), drizzled some sauce and sprinkled cilantro over it.  I served it next to a simple arugula, grilled pepper and grilled zucchini salad with some balsamic vinaigrette.

The fish was so good; definitely the best salmon that I have ever made, much better than the last time.  The fish was cooked medium, which I think is the best way to enjoy really fresh, wild salmon.  I'll definitely be cooking salmon this way from now on.  The fish was so delicate, silky and not at all fishy and the sauce went great with the fish and the rice.  The sauce wasn't too salty or overpowering; sometimes I have that concern with non-Asian chefs cooking Asian food; I worry that they think that the way to make it taste Asian is to use lots of soy.  Maybe using light soy sauce also helped.  The sauce was actually quite delicate and complemented the natural freshness of the salmon with just a little heat from the mustard and wasabi and umami savoriness from the soy.  Go Nigella! I'll definitely be trying more of her recipes.

To go with the salmon, we had some Otokoyama sake, which was also the sake that I used for marinating the fish as well as in the sauce.  It's a fairly common sake that is found on pretty much all sake lists; I personally prefer Wakatake, Kurasawa, Kubota or Hananomai (all also fairly easy to find), but it was perfectly fine with the salmon.  It's always a safe bet to pair dishes with the same wines that you use to cook the dish with.