Ken’s mouthwatering Japanese recipes for you to try at home
This teriyaki salmon with cucumber salad is really easy to make, and will quickly become a firm family favourite.
Our co-founder, Ken Yamada, has opened up his recipe book and is sharing a few of his favourite dishes with us.
“Everyone says this, but a lot of my recipes are taught by or influenced by my grandmother and my mother. When I was little I loved hanging out with them as we all lived together; and especially at dinner time we’d all cook together, and they used to give me a running commentary whilst preparing all the dishes.
What I love about Japanese home cooking is that there’ll be many plates of ippinryouri – you’d have some sashimi, seasonal pickles, ohitashi (a simple dish of seasonal greens quickly blanched topped with bonito flakes with a splash of soy sauce), maybe a meat dish like ginger pork. The table would usually be full and we’d all sit around and share these plates”.
INGREDIENTS
Scottish farmed salmon: 2x 150g
Teriyaki sauce: 50ml
Rapeseed oil: 1tsp
Cucumber: ½
Sea salt: 2g
Goma sauce: 20ml
Goma dressing ingredients:
White neri goma or tahini: 100g
White sesame toasted: 50g
Soy sauce: 100ml
Sugar: 50g
Mirin: 50g
METHOD
Let’s start with the goma sauce. If you can’t find neri goma, tahini is perfectly fine for this recipe. If the white sesame seeds aren’t toasted, toast in a dry frying pan until golden colour and the room smells of fabulous roasted sesame.
Put the toasted sesame seeds in a fine blitzer until most seeds have been ground into fine powder, but you still want to see some seeds intact.
Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well until sugar is all dissolved.
Make sure the salmon’s scale has been removed before being cut into steaks.
Heat a frying pan and wipe on the rapeseed oil and put the fish on, skin side down.
Put a lid and leave for 3 mins. Carefully lift the fish with the skin intact, but hopefully beautifully crisp. Turn over and pour the teriyaki sauce. Coat the fish with the sauce as it bubbles and thickens.
When the consistency is perfect, plate the fish with the skin side up, and spoon the remaining teriyaki sauce over. The salmon should be just pink inside. The reason why I prefer farmed salmon for teriyaki is because it’s fattier than most wild salmon being caught which for me works better. Although for curing, wild salmon all the way!
Cut cumumbers in to 6/7cm lengths then into 8mm battons. Put them into a bowl and sprinkle the sea salt. Toss and leave for 5 mins until the salt start to draw out some moisture. Lightly squeeze the cucumbers to drain off the salty water, then toss them with the goma sauce in a bowl and serve along side the salmon.
Oishii!
We’d love to see how your teriyaki salmon goes down in your house. Don’t forget to snap a pic and share with us on Instagram, tagging us with @TonkotsuLondon