My fridge is odd, or rather the collection of edible things in my fridge is odd.
Dinner tonight, for instance. We were hungry so I went to the fridge. Inside it I found expired milk, one beer, about three slices short of a decent ham sammich, an empty jar of mustard...
and a frozen side of salmon. A big one.
The problem was, we had no oils. None. No olive oil, no corn oil, not even anything left in my emergency stash of crisco (it's a bad habit. I'm tryin' to quit, I swear). Nothing greasy at all.
This was a problem. I wanted something filling and something fast. I wanted...pasta. So I improvised - threw in some spices and canned veggies and this is what I came up with. Oh, and that 'fast' thing flew right out the window - if I had found a thawed salmon, this would've been much quicker.
What you'll need:
- 8 oz. salmon filet, thawed
- a handful of pasta - Linguine or spaghetti seems to work well
- a cup or so of water
- sweet baby corn
- One onion, chopped
- a splash of soy sauce (you won't really taste it, it's for sodium and body)
- oregano and thyme
- Garlic powder (or adobo, the uberspice)
- salt and pepper
The gist:
Thaw your Salmon and thaw it well - its outer layers will be destroyed by the time the middle is done if you throw a frozen brick of it onto a pan. Thawing fish is a sinch - just leave it in a container of cold water for fifteen to twenty minutes. Once the salmon has thawed, rub the skinless side of the filet with all the listed spices. Sear it it, skinless side down, until it's cooked about 3/4 through, then remove the skin, rub down the other side with spices, and flip it. Cook it just slightly - you don't want it thoroughly done just yet. Put some water on for the pasta with a heavy dose of salt added.
Find a stir-fry pan. Add the chopped onion, the corn and the water and heat the sucker up. When the fish is mostly done and the stir-fry pan is hot, add the fish to the onions and corn. Use a spatula to ease the salmon apart along its grain. If you nudge it in the right direction you'll preserve the texture of the fish while finishing the cooking process.
Once 3/4 of the water has been cooked off and absorbed, add a largish splash of soy sauce, reduce the heat to low and wait for the pasta to finish. Add the pasta to the stir-fry pan once it's done, crank the heat up to high and toss it around a bit. If you do this juuuuuust right, the remaining water/fish essence will absorb into the pasta, leaving you with a surprisingly tasty salmon...thing. The dryness of the sauce is a bit of a shock, but the fish keeps the whole thing moist and tender.
The downside to this dryness is that it doesn't keep well, at all - it's useless as a leftovers-type dish but it's extremely lighter than one would expect.