Panfried Salmon with Vietnamese Sauce

Cook Time 20 minutes

Servings 4

Ingredients

4 x 180g salmon cutlets or fillets, skin scored a few times
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 clove of garlic
Salt
½ a small red chilli
1 tbsp caster sugar
Juice of ½ lime
¼ cup of fish sauce
¼ cup water
4 spring onions, finely sliced and the place in iced water to curl
1 small handful of Vietnamese mint or regular mint
1 Lebanese cucumber, halved and seeds removed, julienned
3 tbsp crispy fried shallots
Salt
Steamed rice, to serve

Method

Bring the fish fillets out of the fridge 20 minutes before cooking.

For the sauce, place the garlic in a mortar and pestle with a small pinch of salt and pound to form a paste. Add the chilli and pound again. Add the sugar, lime juice, fish sauce and water. Mix together.

For the salad combine the spring the onions, mint and cucumber. Drizzle over 2 tablespoons of the sauce and reserve the rest.

Place the fish on a plate and pat the skin dry with a paper towel. Score the skin (not going through to the flesh) with a really sharp knife, about 3 or 4 times on each piece of fish. Drizzle over oil and season lightly with salt. Heat a pan over a medium heat and cook the fish for 3-4 minutes on each side, starting with skin side down. Remove and rest on a plate for 2 minutes before resting on a bed of rice.

Drizzle over extra sauce and then top with the salad and crispy fried shallots.

PDF of this recipe available here.