13/03/2012

Warm Salmon & Squid Salad

Eaten warm as prepared or chilled for lunch the following day, this is a fast and easy salad to put together.

Simply put, it's whatever seafood you can find over whatever greens you can find, accompanied by whatever ... erm ... accompaniments you can find.

It's not complicated - follow your nose and simply put good food together.

Here's a few tips about maximising flavours ...

I began by slow poaching some salmon - a kind of ghetto sous-vide method whereby I have my fishmonger seal individual fillets of salmon. Once home, I boil some water, pour into a large pan and drop the vacuum packed fillet in, setting the heat as low as I can. Leave it at least an hour.

All the full flavour of the fish will remain with the fish, none leached out into the water.

Prepare whatever other seafood you have. I had some baby squids, so sliced them up and set them aside for cooking.

For a warm salad, I shredded some spring greens which are smack bang in season at the moment and once lightly steamed, just set aside.

To the overture ...

Warm some beef dripping in a frying pan. Squid seems to work well with beef dripping, so chuck in the tentacles to puff out, then the white calamari. Cook quickly and don't concern yourself too much about the liquid that is released - remove the squid pieces, as we don't want to broil them.

Chuck in a little more beef dripping and toss in the spring greens. The object here is to get this gorgeous vegetable covered in good fats and flavours from the squid. At this point, open the salmon pack and pour in the juices.

Keep tossing the spring greens until they are well dried and pack full of good flavours.

Serve out the greens into a wide-brimmed bowl, flake the fish over, toss over the squid and then load up with whatever accompaniments you have for fun flavours!

I went with hot peppers, olives, capers, pickled chillies, pickled garlic, spring onions, a good splash of olive oil and some Gevrik, a Cornish goat cheese. Top with an egg. Everything is made perfect with an egg. For a real boost, sprinkle over some shredded fried bacon or thin slices of chorizo, fried off.