All posts tagged: salmon

Miso Glazed Salmon Tray Bake

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If you know me, you’ll know that I’m a bit obsessed with salmon. This beautiful Miso Glazed Salmon Tray Bake is an easy salmon recipe for spring. My recipe serves 4 but is easy to adapt to 1 or 6 portions if needed. Miso Glazed Salmon Tray Bake 15 mins prep | 45 mins cookDifficulty: Easy | Serves 4 INGREDIENTS2 Tbsp white miso paste2 Tbsp sake1 Tbsp brown sugar1 Tbsp soy sauce4 salmon fillets (120g to 180g each)500 grams new potatoes, halved2 red onions, cut into wedges1 large capsicum, deseeded and cut into thick strips1 Tbsp dried thyme3 Tbsp extra virgin olive oilSalt and pepper3 courgettes, cut into thick rounds1 bunch asparagus, woody ends removed1 Tbsp sesame seeds1 spring onion, thinly sliced PREPARATION This recipe was created for Borges.

Poké face

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Poké (pronounced “po–kay”) landed in Auckland last September in the tired underground IMAX food court on Queen Street. My fork buddy and I hit up Poke Time on opening day: bright and little tacky, as Hawaiian-themed things can be, the experience has a Subway vibe and is essentially a build-your-own raw fish salad bowl. You pick whatever you want, although it can be too many decisions for the uninitiated. If you’ve never tried poké before, it can be overwhelming but if you know what you are doing, Poke Time is great value. With heaps of options including salmon, two types of tuna, and trevally, they also have token vegetarian options, but that’s probably not what most will come here for. Tip: go for the seasoned fish, the non-marinated options are essentially sashimi bowls, rather than poké bowls. Poké means “chop” and is a Hawaiian dish influenced by Japanese cuisine. Poké is raw fish (such as tuna, salmon or octopus) is cubed and seasoned with soy sauce, sesame oil, seaweed. Poké is often served served with fresh vegetables and rice …

Freestyler in the Kitchen: Throw-together recipe #1

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Hey guys, I have a confession… Even though this blog is FULL of recipes, I am NOT a good recipe follower. I use recipes as inspiration – a starting point to leap from and aside from recipe testing, I seldom stick to the script. I like to make things up as I go along, eyeballing quantities, changing it up with whatever ingredients I happen to have. I season to taste or mood. I am not the kind of girl to cook an exact dish twice. What’s your cooking style? So, when I took Fisher & Paykel’s online quiz WHAT’S YOUR COOKING STYLE? I wasn’t surprised that I was branded the Freestyler. Freestylers have mastered the basics and enjoy pushing the boundaries, putting together flavours and textures that complement each other. They also enjoy going “off-piste”. I shall wear the Freestyler badge with honour. The quiz was designed to help you get the most out of your time in the kitchen and results in eight distinct personalities. Understanding your style can help you to choose ingredients, …

Auckland Seafood Festival 2016

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If you enjoy sensational, succulent seafood, then make sure you visit Auckland Seafood Festival this long weekend. My sister and I hit Auckland Seafood Festival on opening night and we had a truly delightful time.  We both love seafood so we shared a bunch of things we both enjoy. Arriving shortly after opening, there were no queues so we didn’t have to apply any strategy based on length of the queues. Last year I gave crayfish a miss because the lines were horrendous. Nothing like that this time around. We started with oysters and the Bluff farmed oysters at Sanford Oysters looked good to us. These were freshly shucked and served with malt vinegar and lemon (6 for $22). We had a little browse and then hit up Besos Latinos for some Peruvian ceviche ($14) and seafood empanadas ($10). The ceviche really hit the spot and the empanada (fried fresh to order) reminded us of a seafood pie.   Always popular at Auckland Seafood Festival are Auckland Fish Markets’ crayfish tails. This year they had grilled half cray tails …

Smoked Salmon and Cucumber Ribbons

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This simple recipe makes a light lunch or summery starter. I used the Peri Peri flavoured hot smoked salmon because the yogurt sauce is nice contrast for the chili kick but you can use regular hot smoked salmon if chili flavoured salmon is unavailable. The chili salmon was actually milder than I anticipated. Smoked Salmon and Cucumber Ribbons Serves two Ingredients 150 grams hot smoked salmon (peri peri flavour) Half a cucumber A handful of fresh mint 1/2 cup Greek yogurt 1 clove garlic 1 tablespoon capers 1 tablespoon black olives, sliced Preparation Using a vegetable peeler, peel the cucumber into ribbons. Aim for a small strip of skin on each piece (for aesthetic purposes). Arrange the ribbons on two plates. Finely grate the garlic (I use a Microplane zester), chop the mint and mix into the yogurt. Dot the yogurt sauce on top of the cucumber ribbons. Break up the smoked salmon into smaller pieces and add to the plate followed by capers and black olives. Season with salt and pepper to your liking. Enjoy! …

Smoked salmon sushi bowl

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A bowl of yum For those who don’t know what a sushi bowl is, it’s just a bunch of chopped sushi and salad ingredients served on a bowl of rice. You have a mouthful of this, a mouthful of that and in the end, it pretty much tastes like sushi in your mouth. This recipe is great for either lunch and dinner. I should know, I’ve eaten this for lunch and dinner this week. Thanks to Sealord, I’ve got a summer prize pack to give away. The pack includes a Sealord chilly bag, a stainless steel lunch box, a picnic blanket and Sealord’s Manuka Hot Smoked Salmon vouchers. To enter, fill in the form at the bottom of the giveaway post here. Sealord recently won the Supreme Award at the New Zealand Food Awards for their Manuka Hot Smoked Salmon. The flavours in their Manuka Hot Smoked Salmon range: Natural, Peri Peri (bird’s eye chili) and Tuscan. Au Natural I usually buy unflavoured smoked salmon. I find it to be more versatile and I enjoy adding my own flavourings …

Sealord Hot Smoked Salmon: Summer Prize Pack Giveaway – COMPETITION CLOSED

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I love a giveaway and this one coincides with Bunny Eats Design reaching 300,000 hits. Yikes! I remember how excited I was when this blog reached 1000 visits, then 10,000 visits. Thanks to Sealord, I have got a summer prize pack to give away. The pack includes a Sealord chilly bag, a stainless steel lunch box, a picnic blanket and vouchers for Sealord’s Manuka Hot Smoked Salmon. Thinking back on the wonderful pre-summer weather we had last weekend, I’m envious of the winner of this prize pack.

Heads and wings

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Dear reader, I have fallen in love with some weird fish bits. Creamy, fatty, sweet, savoury and undeniably moreish. They are wings. Salmon wings. Salmon wings (also known as salmon collars) are one of those budget cuts that will probably become too popular (like pork belly, beef brisket and lamb shanks) and see a price increase. Get them while they are still cheap! If you have never had salmon wings before, think of them as ribs or buffalo wings of the sea. You may get your hands dirty but it’s worth it. One day I was just ambling through my local supermarket, minding my own business when I spied a tray with 2 large salmon heads. I didn’t expect to see salmon wings at the supermarket. I’ve never cooked with salmon wings but I’d seen a few blogs mention them before so I grabbed them instantly. The salmon heads cost about $2.22NZ ($1.84US) each and had plenty of eating on them. If you are not confident with fish bones or are serving less adventurous eaters, …

King Salmon

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“The only reason I travel, is for an excuse to eat more than usual”.  – A Homemade Life, Molly Wizenberg It is hard for me to pass up any chance to eat salmon. I am a salmon eating MACHINE. We saw signs for glacial water fed salmon and I was licking my chops in anticipation. When we passed by the Mt Cook Alpine Salmon shop early on Monday morning, we had to stop. No matter that we hadn’t had breakfast yet. On the edge of Lake Pukaki, mesmerised by the view of Mt Cook, The Koala and I enjoyed fresh salmon sashimi for breakfast. The Koala noted how firm and dense the salmon was and a little research into the farm pleased me very much. This isn’t just any farmed salmon. It is quite possibly the best farmed salmon money can buy. Why Mt Cook Alpine Salmon is so awesome: Eco-sustainably farmed Pure fast-flowing glacier and snow fed water from the Southern Alps of New Zealand. 1,969 feet above sea level, it is the world’s highest …

Mackenzie Country

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The Koala and I went to a wedding at Lake Hawea in the South Island of New Zealand. A great excuse for a little road trip on the other end of the country, we also visited Lakes Tekapo, Pukaki and Wanaka. The area is stunning, rich with photo ops and export quality food production. This is a countryside of milk and honey, lamb, wool, venison and very, very good salmon. The middle of the South Island around the Southern Alps is known as Mackenzie Country. The area has a colourful history and you can read a short summary about James Mackenzie and his sheep stealing escapades here. Driving through Mackenzie Country, it was hard not to fall in love with the alpine pasture and tussock, turquoise lakes, snow-capped mountains and millions of sheep. I squealed every time I saw a particularly adorable lamb. Being spring, there were more sweet faced lambs than you could shake a stick at. We stopped to converse with the livestock and while the sheep were vocal, they did not express …

Hannibal Buress got me into pickle juice

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The Koala and I laugh about pickle juice. Probably too much. To find out why, watch this bit from funny man Hannibal Buress. It’s gold. The Koala is addicted to pickles so we also have an abundance of pickle juice in this house. We usually throw it out. Cooking with pickle juice wouldn’t be part of my radar but the seed was sown. Hannibal Buress made me experiment with pickle juice. I hope he likes this recipe! It ain’t swordfish but the salmon market is pretty stable. 😉 Note: recipe may vary as pickle juice is a man-made product and comes in all manners of strengths. I found ours  mild  with a little sweetness and delicately flavoured the fish. I felt that could have done with a little more oomph but The Koala thought the flavour was just right. I served this with pumpkin mash and some rainbow silverbeet (rainbow chard) for colour. There’s something fun about a widly colourful all-natural plate of food. But if you want to be a bit more subdued, rice …

Make Risotto

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I go weak in the knees for smoked salmon risotto. If it’s on the menu at a restaurant, it is what I’m going to order. Still, I always did feel a little naive paying $20 for a rice dish. After I ordered some Aoraki Hot Smoked Salmon from Naturally Organic, I figured it was finally time to attempt risotto. I used the stainless steel sauté pan that Mum gave me and it was perfect for the job. You need something with decent sides but also plenty room for the rice to absorb liquid in. While it might be possible to use a skillet, you would have to be extra careful while stirring. In hindsight, I could have added a little more stock at the end. While the rice was cooked, it absorbed even more liquid on standing. Some sources say to stop just before the rice is cooked. Once upon a time, you could only get cold smoked salmon but now you can find both in equal abundance. I prefer hot smoked salmon but I …

Make A Chowder (Salmon Head and Mussel Chowder)

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Salmon. I love it raw. I love it cooked. I love it smoked. I love it poached. I love it pan fried. I love it baked. I love it steamed. It is creamy, fishy and super rich. Everything I’ve read says that salmon makes too strong a stock. I’m not afraid of a strong fish stock, but if a strong stock makes you queasy, this recipe is not for you. I’ve wanted to make a chowder for the longest time and a quiet, Autumn weekend at home last month was a good time for it. You can easily spend too much on seafood for a chowder. Sure, it will be delicious, but what about making a delicious chowder using cheaper ingredients? I picked up 2 salmon heads for cheap at my local asian market. Fish heads are usually cheap and I’ve been eyeing these up for a while now, wondering what to do with them. To prepare, make sure the gills are removed – they usually are. Cut the fins off with a pair of …

Experience a degustation

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Celebrate The Koala and I have been together for 10 years, and we recently celebrated our third wedding anniversary. As with any good relationship, good eating has been and will probably always a part of our relationship. To mark 3 years, we treated ourselves to a degustation dinner at Kermadec in the Viaduct. Two years ago, our first official anniversary dinner was unplanned. It ended up being at KFC in Hamilton. It was scoffed down, on the way home from a wonderful weekend in the Bay of Plenty, but we can’t help thinking of how far away a degustation in the Viaduct is from “Kaccas in The Tron”. Degustation A degustation is a tasting menu, designed by the chef. You get to sample a range of delights over many courses, and the number of dishes usually ranges from 6 courses up to 12. It’s considered the best way to sample a chef’s skill. Instead of choosing what you want to eat, you completely surrender your choice to the chef. Degustation can be matched with wine …

Salad for Super Skin

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With my skin still in the wars and a list of things NOT to eat, I decided to eat foods I should include. Most of the stuff I read about eczema is about stuff to avoid, but finding foods to eat is much more fun. I really enjoy cooking from a list of superfoods that I keep stored in my memory and more so when they’re delicious superfoods. There are a few foods out there that are good for your skin. These include salmon, avocado, olive oil and pinenuts (in pesto) which are all in this recipe. With half a bag left of orzo, I made this delicious salad for super skin. For those not on a restricted diet, some halved cherry tomatoes would be a lovely addition. Add some parsley too and hey look! You got yourself a red and green festive looking dish just in time for Christmas. Is this health food? Maybe. Does it work on eczema and other skin problems? I don’t know. Would I eat it regardless? Yes. Orzo Salad with smoked …

Prepare a raw meal

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One of my “To Do” activities this spring was to prepare a raw meal. Don’t worry, I’m not giving up hot meals just yet, I just thought it would be interesting and a challenge this spring to make something that was raw, good looking and edible. So I gave it a go. It was harder than I thought even without cooking involved. I picked ingredients based on flavour and colour. I used a few questionable ingredients that have been processed/fermented/pasturised like oil, soy sauce and milk. You can get raw versions of these things apparently. I didn’t for this experiment, but you could. I used gurnard and salmon and squeezed fresh orange and fresh lemon onto the lot. A happy ending via a strawberry smoothie.

Special Salmon

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I love when salmon fillets are on special at Nosh. I buy salmon when it is on special so it’s good that it seems to happen fairly regularly. To keep each fillet in one piece, I fry it on the skin side only. It gets a little steam session so that the top and inside gets cooked too. Teriyaki Salmon Fillet Ingredients (for one portion) 1 salmon fillet 1 tablespoon teriyaki sauce A tiny bit if oil for the pan Salt (optional) Preparation Brush the fillet with the teriyaki sauce and marinade for an hour or so. Add oil to a hot pan, carefully lay the fillet skin side down and sprinkle with sault. Fry for several minutes. You should see the cooked colour (less bright) of the fish rise up the side. When it reaches the top, Add up to half a cup of water to the pan and cover. Allow steam to cook fish through (about 10 minutes depending the thickness of your fish). Remove lid and continue cooking until all the water is …

Salmon and an easy guacamole

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I had a ripe avocado and I figured it was time I used my mortar and pestle for something other than grinding salt and spices. I’m glad I did. Himalayan rock salt, peppercorns and 2 cloves of garlic were ground down to form a paste… …then I added a whole avocado followed by half a pot of sour cream and a sprinkling of chili seasoning. A big dollop of guac went well with our salmon dinner. Salmon makes my world rosy.