Who out there hasn’t had salmon teriyaki before? I hope everyone reading this has. If you haven’t you are missing out on one of the most delicious and famous Japanese dishes. Don’t worry though if you haven’t tried it. Here is my version of the dish, it’s so delicious I hope you will give it a go.
Teriyaki in general is one of my favourite flavours. I first encountered teriyaki sauce when I was in year 10. The school I went to was a private international school in Cambodia so we studied with many international students. One of my close friends was Cambodian-Japenese and her lunch box was always filled with different Japanese foods. Besides watching Japanese anime and then falling in love with their language, at the time I’d never actually had Japanese food. One day we decided to share our lunch and on that day she had beef tempura with a thick teriyaki dipping sauce. I tried it and it was heaven, the thickness and sweetness of that teriyaki sauce melted in my mouth with any thing so since then she would always offer me the dish and made it my favourite Japanese food.
My story behind this dish today is that I didn’t plan on having it today. I got sick and strangely I have cravings when I’m sick most of the time. I went grocery shopping yesterday to get food that will satisfy my craving after a hospital appointment. I was out of it all day so when I saw salmon and tuna at the fish market window I just craved for sashimi and ended up buying a nice piece of salmon steak. I got home and remembered I can’t use those ones for sashimi and remembered that only the freshly caught salmon is used for sashimi. Despite that I still want to eat it 😀 thanks to my partner who stopped me, I would probably have ended up with food poisoning and a bad cold. So I thought well I can still have Japanese and my favourite one too. So here it is today!
Note: there are many ways of making teriyaki sauce, I often add ginger, garlic and sesame oil to the sauce but since I’m not very well I simplified it. It still tastes very good because the main ingredients are still there.
If you prefer a different way of making this dish with less mess and reduced time it’s best to probably oven bake/grill it, but I like to make it the traditional way.
SALMON TERIYAKI
Prep-Time: 1 hr Serve: 1
Cooking Time: 8 minutes
Ingredients
1 piece salmon steak, without skin
4 asparagus, bottom cut
5 brussel sprouts, washed
5 button mushrooms, quartered
3 tbsp water
oil
teriyaki marinate sauce
4 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp brown sugar
pinch salt and pepper
Method
Mix the marination ingredients together in a mixing bowl and stir until the sugar dissolves. Coat the salmon steak in the marinating sauce and leave it to marinate for 30 minutes – 1 hour.
Heat the oil in a pan on medium high heat, sauté the asparagus and brussel sprouts in the oil. Sprinkle some salt and pepper and cook for 2-3 minutes or until the asparagus changes colour. Remove from the pan and set aside.
In the same pan add in the marinated salmon and mushrooms. Sprinkle the marinating sauce over the mushrooms and salmon. Add some water to prevent the sauce from burning and cook the salmon for 2 minutes. Turn the salmon over and cook for another 2 minutes or until the sauce thickens. Transfer on to a serving plate along with the sautéd mushrooms, asparagus and brussel sprouts. Pour the remaining sauce from the pan onto the salmon. Serve with steamed rice.
