Soy Sauce Poached Salmon with Veggies

I adapted this recipe from Mark Bittman's blog, in which he made soy sauce poached striped bass. His recipe is prettier than mine, and also a little simpler since he only has scallions with his, but I wanted mine to be a bit more substantial, so I added veggies. But I knew that I wanted to try something like what he'd made as soon as I'd seen it because it looked delicious. And it was. And the fact that I changed it to salmon didn't hurt in the least.



Soy Sauce Poached Salmon with veggies

1/2 C dark, high quality soy sauce
2 tsp sugar
2 cloves chopped garlic
2 small shallots, sliced
2 tsp minced ginger
Red pepper flakes to taste
Dash of vinegar (balsamic or rice, preferably, also optional)
3 medium salmon fillets

Mixed Veggies, julienned where appropriate. I used green bell peppers, zucchini, and green beans.

Mix the soy sauce, sugar, garlic, shallots, ginger, and red pepper in a large, flat-bottomed skillet.
Heat on medium until the the mixture is boiling.

Gently add the salmon fillets. Cook for about 5 minutes then VERY GENTLY turn the fish, cook for an additional 5 minutes.



When you turn the fish, add the veggies. The fish will cook much faster than the veggies, but the veggies will also water-down the sauce, so wait until the last minute to put them in. Remove the fish when it is cooked all the way. Taste the sauce at the bottom. If it is too salty or soy saucy for you, add a dash of vinegar and/or an extra teaspoon of sugar. Both of those will help tone down the strong soy sauce flavor.

When the veggies are at your desired tenderness, remove them from the sauce. Cook the sauce a minute or two longer to let some of the additional water boil out, and it will make an excellent sauce to pour over everything. If you like a thicker sauce, you might consider adding some corn starch, though I prefer the thinner, broth-like sauce.

Serve the salmon and veggies with rice.

Delicious.

This has lots of great variations: you could use curry powder or other seasonings, any number of vegetables, and probably most any type of fish, or even other types of meat.