More salmon, more salad

A favorite dish of mine. Easy peasy and nothing to it.

Cooking time 5 minutes (+ possibly 1 hour, but not necessarily)

1/2 red onion

1 cucumber

300 g salmon

1 dl Kikkoman japanese soy

2 teaspoons sesame oil

1 tablespoon aged balsamic vinegar or Mirin Rice vinegar

1/2 tablespoon of sugar

possibly: 1/2 lime + 1/2 tablespoon of sugar

Finely chop cucumber, and red onions (or chalottes, or in this instance I got a hold of very small organic onions that I used). Dice salmon. Mix together. Mix soy, sesame oil, vinegar and sugar. Pour over the salad. Let marinade in the fridge for an hour. Or just eat directly.

If you like your salmon a bit more cured/cooked, you can slice lime or lemon and put the slices directly on top of the salmon (then you don't mix everything together, but mix cucumber and onion and place the salmon on top). If you do this, you need to marinade it. Once marinated, remove lime. As this will make the dish more acidic, you will probably have to balance it with more sugar (to taste really).

Recommended together with an Asahi Super Dry.

Swedish salad

Here comes a tip for lazy days: a Swedish pasta sallad.

For 2 adults and 1 2-year old with big appetite (the constellation of our household),

very approximately:

1 Clove of garlic

1 Carrot

1 small bunch of Dill

1 small cucumber

250 g cherry tomatoes

250 g Gnocchi (the pasta variety called gnocchi, not the potato-based version)

200 g Gravlax

50 g mixed sallad leafs, green lettuce or baby leaf spinach

1 dl Creme Fraiche or Gräddfil

1 table spoon Olive oil

Fresh ground black pepper

50 g Parmiggiano Reggiano

Boil the pasta. Meanwhile, peel the garlic and boil it for to soften the bitterness in taste. You can dry roast garlic in a hot pan instead, if you prefer the nuttiness this gives. If you feel like you don't have time for this, then you can use a garlic crusher - a very manly tool in the kitchen (I love bringing out the hammers and whatnots for cooking, but this tool is oh so sweetly designed for the specific end of bashing the shit out of garlic cloves). This makes it easier to remove the green stem which is a source of extra bitterness and strength. Whatever you do - don't use a garlic press: it saves time by compromising the taste, enhancing the bitterness. Remove from pan. Chop finely. Enough about garlic already.

THE GARLIC CRUSHER

Chop cucumber, half tomatoes, grate carrots coarsely, chop dill finely. Grate parmesan. Cut the gravlax into good bite-sized chunks. Rinse the lettuce/leafs. Mix some of the dill and all of the garlic into the gräddfil/creme fraiche (that's sour cream for you americans). Once the pasta is finished, drain it and add gräddfil as it cools. Then, using a bowl, fold the rest of the dill together with cucumber, tomatoe, lettuce/leafs, carrot, gravlax together. Once the pasta is somewhat cooler, fold this in as well. Add a little olive oil. Serve on individual plates, sprinkle over parmesan and grind some black pepper.

If you have some favorite vege that you love, you can add this to your salad - or replace some of the ingredients - as long as you keep the garlic, dill, gräddfil, gravlax (and I'd suggest pasta). I just try to think about having different textures in an salad, so its not a matter of eating squishy things, merely in different colors.