Sesame Crusted New Zealand King Salmon with Jasmine Rice Cakes & Citrus Shoyu
(Serves 4 – 6)
Ingredients
- 12 cm piece fresh ginger
- 6 spring onions
- 2 cloves garlic
- 2 or 3 oranges
- 1 C lite soy sauce
- ¼ C each of sesame seeds, black and white
- 4 - 6 King salmon fillets, skin off
- olive oil
- 1 C jasmine rice
- 2 C chicken stock
- salt and pepper
- 1 tsp arrowroot
- Garnish: coriander sprigs or orange slices
Method
Finely chop half the ginger, then coarsely chop the remainder. Coarsely chop four spring onions and finely chop the other two and the garlic. Squeeze the juice from the oranges and retain half a cup. Cut the squeezed oranges into quarters. Put the coarsely chopped ginger and spring onions, orange juice and quarters and soy sauce into a saucepan. Steep for at least three hours. Carefully spread the white sesame seeds on to one side of a small plate. Spread the black seeds on the other half, ensuring that there is a clean meeting of black and white. Pat the salmon fillets dry with a paper towel and carefully press what was the skin-side into the sesame seeds so they stick evenly, creating a line between the black and white that runs up the middle of the fillet. Put each fillet aside seed-side up.
Preheat the oven to 220°C. Sauté all the finely chopped ingredients in a little olive oil for two or three minutes. Add the rice and stock. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer until all the liquid is absorbed. Season with pepper and salt and, when cool enough to handle, form into rice cakes about 8 cm in diameter and 3 cm thick. Heat a little olive oil in a pan and gently fry until golden brown on both sides. Remove and put aside.
Heat the saucepan containing the orange mixture on a medium heat and gently bring to a boil. Boil for 10 minutes. Make a slurry with the arrowroot and a little soy sauce and stir in. Once the sauce thickens strain and keep warm.
To cook the salmon, put a little olive oil in a hot pan and cook the fillets seed-side down until the white seeds just turn golden brown. Turn and place in an ovenproof dish in the oven for four to five minutes. Warm the rice cakes at the same time. Remove and place a warm rice cake in the middle of each serving plate. Rest a salmon fillet, seed-side up, on the side of each cake. Pour over a little citrus shoyu and garnish with coriander or an orange slice.