The Irish for the month of May is Bealtaine and it is also the name of a festival that historically was celebrated on 1 May ‘a spring-time festival of optimism.’
More recently in Ireland it has been adopted as a festival to celebrate creativity in older age and it even has its own website http://www.bealtaine.com. As part of this year’s celebrations there is a jam packed festival programme that includes ‘The Moving Image.’ This is a film tour co-ordinated by access>CINEMA and the main film they are showing is ‘Julie & Julia.’ access>CINEMA asked a number of food bloggers to contribute recipes to their website and I’ve reproduced mine here. The theme for the Bealtaine Festival is “Push the boat out, whatever the sea” so I made a Japanese inspired fish dish.
I love the simplicity of this dish and the fact that it manages to be both healthy and tasty.
Serves 2:
You will need:
2 salmon steaks
1 garlic clove
3cm chunk of ginger
3 tbsp Soy sauce (choose low salt version)
2 tbsp runny honey
4 spring onions
1 tbsp sesame seeds
Handful baby leaf salad (lambs lettuce, romaine lettuce, rocket)
Sheet of parchment paper
Method:
Pre-heat the oven to 180(fan)/Gas mark 6.
Place the salmon steaks in a small bowl. Add the crushed garlic, grated ginger, Soy sauce and honey and mix well to coat the salmon and leave to marinate for a minute.
Rinse and chop the white/light-green, firm end of the spring onions and reserve the greener stalk end for later.
Open up a large sheet of parchment paper and place the 2 salmon steaks in the centre.
Spoon the marinade and the chopped spring onion on top of the salmon and scrunch in the edges of the parchment paper to make an enclosed parcel.
Place the salmon parcel on a baking tray and bake in the hot oven for 15 minutes.
Thinly slice the green stalk ends of the spring onion into slivers and place in a bowl of ice-water to curl up.
Dry-fry the sesame seeds in a non-stick pan for a couple of minutes until turning golden and take off the heat.
When the salmon is cooked, carefully open the salmon parcel and place a salmon steak on each plate.
Arrange the cooked spring onions in a pile next to the salmon.
Drain the curled spring onion onto kitchen paper and arrange on top of the salmon.
Dress the baby leaf salad with the warm marinade dressing from the salmon parcel and scatter over the toasted sesame seeds.
Enjoy.
Til next time, Sheila.
Salmon in Soy & Honey with Sesame dressed Salad
