Spicy Ginger Salmon

Ok... I know... It's only been about a week and I already missed several days in this blog. I do have an excuse, I promise!!  It turns out that I really wanted to include at least one picture with each posting, but that is kind of difficult when the memory card of my camera goes kaput, along with several nice pictures I had taken for about three more posts... :(

And if you're reading this, it means I already got my new card, and that it's working!!  :)  Hopefully, it will continue working for a looooong time, because this model (XD-Picture Card) is no longer made...

But let's not think about card-less memories, and get into blogging business with my first Yummy Treat post, ginger salmon.  I must warn you - it's kind of a combination of Mr. Fuzz's and Yiya's culinary Japanese-Mexican fusion cooking... YUM!  :)

What I used:

• 4 salmon fillets
• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
• 3 tsp. rice vinegar
• 2 packets of Splenda (or about 1 Tbsp. sugar)
• 1/2 cup Mr. Yoshida's sauce
• Tajin
• Black pepper
• Ginger to taste

Start with the marinade.  In a bowl, mix all the ingredients.  I used about 1/3 cup of grated ginger, but we like the salmon to be a bit spicy.  You can also add powder ginger to taste.

Add the salmon fillets and let them marinade.  In this particular case, they marinated for about 1/2 hour.  A good idea is to turn them over while they still are in the marinade, just to make sure it's soaking all that yumminess  :)

Spray some oil on a non-stick pan (there's sugar in the marinade... you don't want to be scrubbing a regular pan for hours).  Remember, this is supposed to have an Asian touch, so don't use a type of oil that would completely change the flavor, like olive oil or butter. I used canola, but you can try sesame seed oil for this particular recipe.

Add the salmon, with the marinade, when the pan is hot, but use medium heat for cooking. This will help to get the salmon cooked without burning the sugar in the sauce. Cook the salmon presentation side first; try not to turn it over constantly - this will make the salmon break up.  Also, leave it cooking on this side a bit longer than you would (again, sugar issues).  I shot the next picture right before I turned the fillets. 

  

Notice the bubbling? Once this starts, the color of the sauce changes very fast (sometimes in less than a minute), the sauce thickens and the salmon should be ready by now.  In other words, the sauce can get from a nice, caramel to a smoky burnt in the twinkle of an eye, particularly if you use the real deal - honey or sugar.  So, keep a watchful eye on it all the time!

After I took the first fillet out, I noticed that only one of the fillets left on the pan (the one on the left) had that really nice color I wanted to get.  So, with the heat OFF, I took a spoon and started pouring some of the sauce on top of the other two fillets; I did this for about one minute (remember, you're glazing the salmon).  The sauce continued to darken and thicken, but the sugar didn't get burnt, and the salmon got a beautiful color!!

I hope you try it! 

Tips:

• Use sugar or honey instead of Splenda.
• If you don't have Tajin, try red or Cajun pepper.
• You can also try lime zest and lemon grass for getting the citrus flavor.
• Grill it!  :)  Just remember to marinade the salmon fillets longer, at least three hours or even overnight.