Asian Inspired Dinner

 Almost everyone I know has a fondness for Asian cuisine in some form or fashion. When I was a kid nearly every familyI knew went to Joy Young's Chinese restaurant on at least one special occasion, and it was one of, if not the only Asian restaurant in town then. Much has changed, and as the restaurant scene locally has grown our palettes have also matured. 

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Thankful I have been able to try some of these "weird" foods

Now don't get me wrong, I still enjoy Chinese food (especially the dishes with a lot of heat in them) but I also have also become enamored with Thai, Filipino, Indonesian, Japanese, and Vietnamese foods*. Rather than going out to eat to have it  I decided to start cooking some of the latter meals at home.

Dinner Tuesday night was kind of a Thai/Vietnamese fusion dish I had kind of planned.Then as I generally do, I sorta disregarded any real recipe and free lanced our meal.

Imagine eating a gigantic spring roll, filled with salmon, veggies, herbs, with dipping sauce and you can understand what we ate for dinner.

About mid afternoon I made a little marinade, put it in a zip lock bag and added 2 small salmon filets. They stayed in the refrigerator until I was ready to cook them.

Measurements are approximate because I do not usually measure things but I have a reasonably good "eye" for amounts.

Marinade

2 tablespoons miso paste (I used yellow miso)

1 tablespoon soy sauce**

1 1/2 teaspoons brown sugar

2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar

1/2 teaspoon sesame oil 

Mix it all together (Squish it around in the zip lock bag and save messing up a bowl. put the salmon in the bag, squeeze the air out of the bag and let it hang out for about 3 hours in the fridge.

Peanut sauce

I used this as a guideline, but did add a little fresh lime juice, and a tiny bit of red pepper paste

The next step was to prepare the fixings  

Use whatever you like, this is just what I did.

1 small cucumber, sliced in strips

1 shaved carrot

radishes thinly sliced

scallion slices

shredded lettuce

cooked rice noodles

chopped basil

chopped mint

chopped cilantro

Right before dinner I pan seared the salmon filets. They were very thin so it did not take but a few minutes on each side to be cooked through***. Before I plated them while they were still sizzling I lightly sprinkled them with sesame seed.

Now comes the assembly part which we did at the table.

You need a pie plate with about 3/4 inch of water

Large rice paper rounds (Ours were about the size of a dinner plate)

Take the rice paper and put it in the pie plate and submerge it. Leave it in until it is totally wet but not totally softened. Immediately put it on a dinner  plate and begin filling it in the middle of the paper, starting with the salmon, then add everything else in any order  you chose.

 

You can tell how pliable the rice paper has already gotten

Fold one side to the middle, fold in the top and bottom  like a burrito (the rice paper will be sticky and very pliable by now) then bring the remaining side over the center compressing the filling as tight as possible. Basically what you have is your protein and side veggies as a self contained meal ready for dipping. So make good use of that sauce.

It will be messy and delicious****

I should have taken a photo from the side so you could see how thick the roll was

We used a lot of vegetables in our rolls and each ate one, then we shared one more. It was more than enough for us. What is my only regret, you ask? I did not have enough salmon to have any leftover for lunch tomorrow. Bummer!

Next time, and there will be a next time because I have a lot of rice papers left. We might try it with tuna. I always have tuna steaks in the freezer.

* I am not neglecting foods from the sub-continent. I just have them in an entirely different food category.

**Next time I will use tamari as I am not a huge salt fan, and it has much less salt than traditional soy sauce

*** If I had thicker salmon filets I would have baked them until almost done then finished them under the broiler for a minute or two

****Honesty is the best policy and halfway through we both opted to use a knife and fork and just drizzle the dipping sauce over the top of the second half.