This dish can be dressed up or down to suit the occasion – delicately flake the salmon and scatter with micro herbs, as we have for this recipe, or throw casually into hearty bowls for an easy weeknight meal. Drogo serves this up to his family almost every week so we at Fine Food Specialist HQ were eager to try some traditional Montagu fare. Salmon, just like meat, can be cooked rare or medium rare, and for this dish the fish really benefits from the juicy firmness it gets from slightly undercooking it. If you like a bit of heat then add a sliced and deseeded red chilli into the stir-fry vegetables.
We used an Asian marinade that Drogo picked up on a recent trip to Hong Kong but you can easily make your own from a mix of soy sauce and oyster sauce or try our teriyaki sauce. If you’re scaling the recipe up to feed more people, make sure you don’t overcrowd the pan when stir-frying the vegetables by cooking them in batches.
Serves 2
Ingredients
- 200g Vermicelli noodles
- Vegetable or sunflower oil
- 200g mixed stir-fry vegetables, sliced e.g. cabbage, carrot, red pepper, bean sprouts
- Sesame oil
- Asian marinade or teriyaki sauce
- 2 Salmon fillets, skin on
- Sea salt
- 1 head of pak choi
- Soy sauces
- 1 Lime, zest and juice
- Small bunch of fresh coriander
- Micro herbs, to garnish e.g. pea shoots, amaranth
Method
1. Cook the noodles according to pack instructions but remove them from the heat when they’re just al dente. Plunge into cold water to stop them cooking further, then drain and put to one side.
2. Heat a wok or heavy-bottomed pan over a high heat. Pour in a glug of vegetable oil then add the sliced vegetables and a pinch of salt. Toss frequently. After a few minutes the vegetables should have a nice colour. Remove from pan and put to one side.
3. Return the pan to the heat and add a glug of sesame oil to the pan and, using a pair of kitchen scissors, snip in the cooked vermicelli noodles. Toss with a dash of Asian marinade until heated through then add to the cooked vegetables and put to one side.
4. Heat a heavy-bottomed frying pan over medium-high heat and add a glug of oil. Season the salmon fillets generously with sea salt and, when the pan is very hot, place in the fish skin-side down. Leave to crisp the skin then, after about four minutes, briefly sear the sides of the salmon and turn over for 30 seconds. The fish should be pink and slightly rare in the middle. Remove from the pan and leave to rest.
5. Meanwhile, bring a pan of water to a boil. Put in a whole head of pak choi and simmer for three to four minutes until a knife inserted into the heart goes in with little resistance. You want it to have some bite as this will give texture to the dish. Remove from the water and refresh in ice-cold water to stop it from cooking further. Once cool, remove each stem and toss in a glaze of soy sauce and a drizzle of sesame oil.
6. Make a dipping sauce from the Asian marinade, sesame oil, a squeeze of lime juice and a grating of the zest.
7. Dress the noodles with the Asian marinade, a squeeze of lime, lime zest, coriander leaves and toss to coat.
8. Remove the skin from the salmon and crisp in the pan or hot oven if it isn’t quite crisp enough.
9. Serve noodles with the pak choi and flake the salmon on top. Use the micro herbs and crisped salmon skin to garnish the dish. Dress with a final grating of lime zest and squeeze of lime then drizzle with some of the dipping sauce.
