Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Salmon Sashimi


We're taking a break from the forced mushroom march at FOTL to enjoy a stellar lunch of silver salmon sashimi. I caught an immature silver and decided it would be put to better use raw. Normally I toss the younguns back, but this one was bleeding profusely from what looked like a mortal hook-wound, so I added it to the punch-card.

1 cup sushi rice
rice vinegar to taste
1 small salmon fillet, deboned
pinch or two of fresh ginger, minced
pinch or two of toasted sesame seeds
pinch or two of chives, chopped
pinch or two of cilantro, chopped (optional)
1/4 cup soy sauce
ponzu sauce (or make your own: 2 tbsp soy sauce plus 2 tsp fresh lime, lemon, or orange juice, or combination)
1 tbsp vegetable oil
2 tbsp sesame oil

Make the sushi rice. While it's cooking, wrap your salmon fillet and place in freezer for five minutes. Prepare minced ginger, chopped chives and cilantro, and ponzu sauce (if necessary). Remove salmon from freezer and using very sharp fillet knife, slice into sashimi strips, cutting in one direction (no sawing). Season rice with vinegar, wet hands, and form two hockey puck-sized patties, and set aside on plates. Place salmon strips in bowl with soy sauce. In small saucepan, heat oils until smoking. Drain salmon and pile on top of rice patties. Sprinkle with ginger and chives. Spoon a tablespoon or so of hot oil over salmon to sear it. Spoon a tablespoon or so of ponzu sauce over salmon. Garnish with cilantro and sesame seeds. Serves 2, with rice to spare.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

hey Finspot, Love the blog.
Did you freeze the salmon first to
disable parasites? or do you think the immature ones are ok the way they are?

Langdon Cook said...

Chief, I froze the salmon for five minutes for better surgical slicing. Do real sushi chefs freeze their salmon? Should I be worried about parasites? I'll tell you this: It was delicious, worms and all!

Chef said...

Hi finspot... I'm sure you are fine but I'd be careful about eating raw salmon without first freezing it. And, from what I've learned I think it has to be deep-deep frozen to kill the parasites. Got this off the following website:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0854/is_n11_v20/ai_n18607576

Here's the good news: The FDA says freezing fish before eating it eliminates the danger by killing whatever worms and larvae might be present. (You'll still ingest the worms, of course, but at least they'll be dead.) The FDA recommends commercial freezing of fish at - 4 [degrees] F for at least 72 hours. Home freezers, however, rarely reach this low a temperature.

Langdon Cook said...

Thanks for the article, Becky. I may have been a little rash, but oh was that fresh-from-the-ocean silver salmon tasty.

Anonymous said...

i just had dinner with my dad who was a fish pathologist for nmfs. I asked him about raw salmon and he thinks that I could probably go my whole life eating unfrozen raw salmon and be fine.

drfugawe said...

finny,
I once asked a sushi chef if they froze salmon before using it - he said every sushi place he knows of freezes salmon before using, but not because they fear anything from the parasites, but only because they fear customer reaction if they should ever discover a worm in their sushi!

You are doing a great job with this blog - keep it up. Check mine out sometime:
http://drfugawe.wordpress.com/