Miso Salmon – 30 Minutes or less

Miso Salmon – 30 Minutes or less

by | Mar 11, 2019 | Fish and Seafood, Quick Meals, Recipes

This week on 30 minutes or less we make one of my top five favourite salmon dishes, miso salmon.

What is miso?

The key ingredient here is the miso paste which is made of fermented soy beans. Because of the nature of how it’s made, miso on it’s own is really salty. Tamari, also known as gluten-free soy sauce, is the liquid extruded from miso during the fermentation process.

Miso is a fairly common ingredient these days and most large grocery stores carry it. If you can’t find it, check out an Asian grocery store as they will absolutely have it.

Because of the strong flavour of miso, we combine it with honey and mayonnaise to make the glaze for the salmon. The miso on it’s own would just be way to over powering. This glaze goes very well on other seafood as well from haddock, to scallops, to oysters.

As we aren’t using much of the miso paste you may be reluctant to buy it. I understand that. Luckily, miso paste lasts almost indefinitely in the fridge and can be used for a number of different things including soups, and other sauces even for beef. The point is, it’s likely a new ingredient to you and I understand any reluctance. However, I suggest spending the $3 or $4 or whatever it is if only so you can try this dish.

The Dish

This dish we are making today consists of the salmon baked with the miso glaze, brown rice and quinoa with spinach, and steamed carrots. This is a really delicious and fairly straight-forward meal. And honestly, for the the first time in 30 minute or less history almost half the 30 minutes was spent waiting for the food to cook.

Let’s get into it.

6:35 pm

I started cooking fairly late this evening so I was really happy to be cooking a meal that was going to take less than half an hour. Here’s what I did.

At 6:35 pm I turned the oven on to 400°F, rinsed my brown rice, covered it by 2 inches with hot water, salted the water, and put it on a burner on high.

I am cooking the rice with the pasta method which I’m not sure if we have covered or not. Essentially, the pasta method is exactly what it sounds like. Rather than worrying about exact measurements, we just cover the rice with water and boil it until it’s cooked. I find this works much better for brown rice than it does for white rice which has a more fine line between cooked and over cooked. We know the rice is cooked by tasting it for texture.

6:36 pm

At 6:36 I started making the miso glaze for the salmon.

For the glaze I used about 2 tbsp of miso paste along with about 2 tbsp of mayo, and 2 tbsp of honey. I also added a few drops of fish sauce and a squeeze of lime juice. This all got mixed together and set aside.

6:39 pm

At 6:39 I was done making the glaze and jumped into peeling carrots. Once the carrots were peeled I sliced them thinly on a bias (angle). Once they were cut, I put them in a small pot, covered them with hot salted water, and set them aside.

This took about 3 minutes.

6:42 pm

Once the carrots were done and set aside, I took the salmon out of it’s package, and put in on a parchment lined baking sheet. I should note that this salmon was skin on, and was a half of one whole salmon fillet. So, about one quarter of a salmon. Not a small piece.

I glazed the salmon with a generous amount of the miso paste and put it in the top third of my oven and set a 12 minute timer.

The oven wasn’t fully up to temperature yet, but that’s okay. It actually worked out really well.

6:45 pm

The salmon is in the oven. The rice is boiling so I add 1/4 c of quinoa to it. I should say that I used about 1 cup of brown rice as well. I also turned the carrots on high at this point.

6:47 pm – 6:55 pm

At this point, I actually had a bunch of time to wait so I tidied up, I drank some water. I just kind of hung out for a few minutes.

I should say the carrots started to boil at 6:51 pm.

6:55 pm

At 6:55 the carrots were cooked so I drained the water off of them, put them back in the pot and seasoned them with salt, pepper, and a bit of olive oil.

6:57 pm

At 6:57 the timer went off for my salmon. I took it out of the oven and checked it for doneness by gently poking it to check firmness. It was firm, and done.

Because of the honey in the miso paste there were dark edges around the salmon. This is perfectly fine and had no effect of the taste of the salmon.

7:00 pm

At 7:00 the rice and quinoa was done so I drained it in a mesh sieve. While the rice and the quinoa were draining I put the empty pot back on the stove and let any residual water dry out over the burner. I then added 1 tsp butter and 1 tsp olive oil along with 2 cups of raw baby spinach. I cooked the spinach for about 45 seconds, stirring, and then added the rice and quinoa back in along with some salt and pepper.

7:03 pm

At 7:03 I was done plating, pictures were taken, and we were eating.

Conclusion

This meal was really quick to come together and was really tasty. I highly recommend giving this one a go. Feel free to change up the vegetables or even the starches but keep the miso salmon.

It was nice it make something in less than 30 minutes that actually gave me time to just kind of chill out. That was a nice change of pace.

I hope that you enjoyed this post and if you have any questions about the recipe feel free to leave it in the comments or hit me up on social media.

Have a great Monday everyone.

Pork Chops – 30 Minutes Or Less

Pork Chops – 30 Minutes Or Less

by | Feb 18, 2019 | meat, Quick Meals, Recipes

Today, on this lovely Monday morning, I am launching a new segment here on HTNBS. From here on out, every Monday’s post will be based around a meal that can be cooked from start to finish in 30 minutes or less.

The idea here is to demonstrate that quick food can still be good food. And, even with limited time you can have a healthy and delicious home cooked meal.

These meals are based around a family of four. However, they can be scaled up or down to adjust to your family size, and still remain with the 30 minute cooking window.

Without further ado, I present…

30 Minutes Or Less – Pork Chops with Smashed Potatoes

Okay, I started this meal at 5:45 pm and was eating by 6:12 pm. Before you say, “Yeah, but your a chef…” I had to stop to take pictures every few minutes. The time I lost taking pictures should make up for any speed advantages I have.

Ingredients

Here’s what you’ll need;

  • 4 pork chops (any cut will do)
  • 20 or so baby potatoes ( I used red and white potatoes) \
  • 2 cloves of garlic
  • 1/2 a baseball sized onion
  • frozen peas and carrots (or any other vegetables you would prefer)
  • salt and pepper
  • 2 sprigs of rosemary (or thyme)
  • 2 tbsp butter
  • 2 tbsp milk
  • 1/2 cup white wine or chicken stock
  • 1 tbsp olive oil

Here’s how this is going to work. Because the whole idea is to do this in under 30 minutes I am going to write the recipe based on time. Don’t get too caught up in it. The point is just to show you exactly how I did this so you understand how it can be done.

Let’s do it.

Directions:

5:45 pm

Turn the oven on to 400°f and start preheating a large oven safe skillet over medium high heat.

5:47 pm

Potatoes rinsed, topped with hot, salted water, and put on the burner on high.

5:51 pm

Pork chops are seasoned with salt and pepper. Olive oil is added to the skillet and the pork chops are placed in to sear.

5:54 pm

Onion is sliced and garlic is crushed and peeled. Pork is flipped and onion and garlic are added into the pan.

5:56 pm

Wine or stock is added to the pork chops along with 1 tbsp of butter, and 2 sprigs of rosemary or thyme. Once the wine starts to boil the pan goes in the oven.

5:59 pm

Frozen vegetables go in a pot, get covered with hot water and are put on a burner on high.

6:00 – 6:08 pm

Take a few minutes and tidy up any mess you’ve made.

6:09 pm

Pork is checked for doneness and removed from the oven. It is set aside to rest.

6:10 pm

The potatoes are drained, and lightly mashed (only enough to break up them up) with the remaining butter, milk, and some salt and pepper.

6:13 pm

The vegetables are drained.

6:14 pm

Dinner is served!

Explantation

There are a few important things to note about this meal. Things that can be applied to a lot of meals.

Number 1

Because the pork chops (which were about 1 inch thick) were seared on both sides in a hot pan before going in the oven, their over all cooking time was reduced by half when compared to baked pork chops.

The fact that the pork chops went into the oven in the hot pan, with hot wine or stock, also sped up the cooking process. The wine or stock also adds flavour to the pork chops.

Number 2

The flavours in this dish are simple. The pork is seasoned with salt and pepper, and then the brunt of the flavour comes from the few additional ingredients. The herbs, the liquid, the onion, and the garlic.

The liquid left in the bottom of the pan after the pork is cooked can be spooned over the pork as a light sauce.

Number 3

Baby potatoes have thin skins that can be easily eaten and are delicious. I used these to save time peeling, cutting, and mashing larger russet potatoes. They’re called “smashed” potatoes because the intention isn’t to mash them into a smooth texture. We want to just hit them once to break them apart.

Seasoning the potatoes with the salt, pepper, butter, and milk adds flavour and makes them a little more than just a broken potato.

Number 4

You can use any kind of vegetables you want for this. Peas and carrots are what I had on hand. I do recommend frozen vegetables for quick meals, especially in the winter. This is because there is no prep time and often in the winter frozen vegetables are more nutritious than anything you can buy fresh.

Conclusion

I want to make it very clear that this meal can be prepared by anyone in under 30 minutes not just me.

I hope that you enjoyed this post. I’m excited to write more of these 30 minutes or less as I think they’re going to be fun to put together. I think and hope that the information provided is valuable. If it is, or even if it isn’t I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

Thanks, Chef Ben

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