Fish noodle soup
The search for tasty, quick mid week meals continues and this one is fantastic. It's dead easy to make, tastes incredible and goes from the fridge to the bowl in about 20 minutes. You need a few specialist things in the store cupboard, like mirin and sake, but if you buy them in a big bottle you'll be able to make this a dozen times before you need a refill.
It's a Nigel Slater recipe originally but I've adapted it a little bit and rarely make it the same way twice. As long as you get the marinade sorted then you can do what you want with the rest of it. As with many things I cook there is nothing authentic about it, but I guarantee you can make it quickly and it'll taste great.
- One salmon steak per person - other fish will work too so try what you fancy and see how it goes
- 2 tbsp of dark soy sauce
- 1 tbsp light soy sauce
- 2 tbsp sake
- 2 tbsp mirin
- 2 cloves of garlic, minced
- 1 tsp sugar
- Piece of ginger cut into thin sticks
- 2 spring onions sliced
- Noodles - whatever type you fancy
- 500ml of chicken, fish or veggie stock - cubes/liquid are fine
- couple of handfuls of greens - spinach, bok choy, pak choy etc
- Any other toppings you fancy - snow peas, green beans, corn, beansprouts, bamboo shoots, pickled ginger
Take the skin off the salmon and marinade it in the soy sauce, sake, mirin, garlic and sugar. You can leave this as long as you want, but it still tastes good if you use it straight away. Put the stock on to simmer in a pan and cook, drain and rinse the noodles. I usually steam the greens over the noodles while they are cooking because I like them more just warm as opposed to cooked. Make up a couple of bowls with noodles in the bottom and some of the greens on top.
Now heat some peanut oil in a pan and stir fry the ginger and spring onions for a minute. Then add cook fish and a couple of tablespoons of the marinade. Generally speaking I like my fish pretty rare so, depending on thickness, a minute or two on each side is plenty. You can add as much or as little of the marinade as you like at this stage; leave it at a couple of tablespoons and the final dish is pretty light, add the whole lot in and it's dense and rich.
Add the fish to your bowl, pour over the stock and finish it off with the rest of the toppings. Perfect with a cold beer.
If you are organised enough you can do almost all the prep the night before and throw it together in the time it takes to cook the fish and heat up some stock. It doesn't get much faster than that.
