sunday spicy leftovers – salmon with coriander dhal

Not a big fan of Indian food … far too hot for me most of the times, otherwise nothing wrong with it – so I have to make dishes that is adapted to us with Nordic souls and taste buds.

This recipe had I for years and totally forgotten about it – picked up from somewhere when I lived in Belfast. If there is anywhere they have great Indian food is’t in United Kingdom, when it’s good – it’s excellent … and when it’s bad – we don’t want to talk about it. This dish have I only made at home.

So on Sunday (a week ago) I felt for salmon and once again – I had everything need for this dish at home. Even the coriander, which is a bit unusual for me. It never last – fresh herbs and me we don’t add up at all. Forgotten that I had to buy the naan bread and I went for a flavored one – sweet chili and lemon, great choice. Just pick whole in the package and put into the micro – 1 min later – soft and nice smelling naan bread.

Salmon with coriander dhal, serves 2
75 g (3/8 cup) red lentils
400ml (14.5 ounce) chicken stock
1 small onion, grated
2 tomatoes, chopped
½ tsp turmeric
1 tsp garma masala, puls extra for the salmon
pinch of chilli flakes
small bunch of fresh coriander, chopped
2 x 150g (2 x 5.3 oz)salmon fillets, skinned
groundnut oil or sunflower oil

1. Mix 7 first ingredients in a pan and bring to a simmer, cover and cook for 20 min until the lentils are tender. Stir in the coriander.
2. Rub the salmon with oil, seasoning and a little garma masala. I  always mix the oil and the garma masala together (thick paste) and brushed on to the fillet. Grill for 6-7 minutes until just cooked, allow it to be pink in the middle.
3. Break the salmon into large chunks and gently stir through the dahl.

Served with basmati rice and naan bread. I used long corn rice here, don’t have cupboard space to stock different kinds of rice.

Now a couple of advice related to this dish:
1. Never cook salmon all way through – leave it a bit pink in the middle, because salmon is an very oily fish and it continues to cook after you have removed it from the heat. Here I put mine in the warm dhal for a couple of minutes to pick up the flavors and it became just perfect and flaky as you can see on the photo above. Nothing worst than overcooked and dry salmon or chicken. Taste like ” The Times” (newspaper).
2. NEVER save boiled rice for the next day. Fluctuation in temperature with boiled rice is a massive hazard and somebody can become violent ill from it. So just dump it and cook fresh the next day.
3. Cooked pasta and rice you can only hold chilled for 24 hours after that any bacterial starts to multiply with rocket speed.
Do know you that most food poisons cases happens in our homes???!!!

So easy and quick, dishes like this has stars in my book. Also nearly no washing up after cooking, event better.  Very tasty spicy without being too over powering. A bit of adopted India in Landskrona on Sunday evening, life is pretty good most days.

“The only thing I like better than talking about food is eating”.
John Walters

This cloud was orignal used in the Oscar winning film ” Slumdog Millionaire”. “Jai Ho” is a song composed by A. R. Rahman. I love Bollywood music, which is so perfect for Zumba dancing.