Teriyaki Salmon

Salmon can be as complicated as Coulibiac with over dozen ingredients and 6 or more different cooking / baking preparations or as simple as sashimi with 2 or 3 ingredients. My favorite is close to the bottom of prep time required. Just salmon fillet, steamed rice, asparagus, teriyaki and wasabi-mayo sauce.

I start the rice first in rice cooker and while rice is steaming I prepare the wasabi sauce by mixing wasabi powder with water to smooth paste consistency and then mix in about 1 portion of wasabi paste to 3 parts of mayonnaise and blend well. Keep at room temperature.

Sprinkle salmon with sea salt on both sides. Heat up frying pan and when hot add peanut or grape oil (veggie oil will do as well). Put salmon fillet skin side down in a pan for about 2 minutes. Flip over and cook for another 3– 4 minutes. We like our salmon closer to rare or medium rare where it just starts to flake, it will keep cooking when out of frying pan.

While salmon is cooking I cook asparagus with a dab of butter and few drops of sesame oil in microwave, uncovered, for 1 minute to retain some crunch.

When salmon is done remove it to heated serving plate. Pour teriyaki sauce into the frying pan to heat through. Pour teriyaki sauce over salmon and then top it with wasabi sauce. Put rice on plate and sprinkle with crumbled seaweed and toasted sesame seeds next to asparagus and salmon. This is truly 30 minutes meal only because rice takes that long to cook.