Make restaurant-worthy, crispy skin salmon at home with a few easy techniques. Serve it with a Japanese-style potato salad, a chunky potato mash with wasabi and kewpie mayonnaise, and pan-fried asparagus. Voila! Dinner in under 30 minutes.
4 x 200g (7 oz) salmon fillets, skin on
1 tbsp vegetable oil
200g (7 oz) asparagus
sea salt
Japanese pickled ginger, to serve
Wasabi potato salad:
4 potatoes (about 800g/1.7lb), peeled and cut into small chunks
1 tsp rice vinegar
½ cup Japanese ‘Kewpie’ mayonnaise*
1 tsp wasabi paste
½ cup finely sliced spring onions (scallions)
For the potato salad, cook the potatoes in boiling salted water for 10 minutes or until tender but still slightly firm in the centre. Drain the potatoes and transfer to a large bowl. While the potatoes are warm, add ½ tsp salt, rice vinegar, mayonnaise and wasabi. Mix and mash the potatoes until well combined but still ‘chunky. Stir through the spring onions. Set aside in the fridge until ready to serve.
Pat salmon fillets dry with paper towel. Season the skin side with salt.
Heat a large non-stick frying pan over high heat. When the pan is hot, add the oil and swirl to coat the bottom of the pan. Add the salmon fillets skin-side down and press down on each fillet with a spatula to help keep them flat. Season with sea salt and use a saucepan lid to press down on the fillets. Keeping the skin flat against the bottom of the pan will help to make every inch super crispy! Cook for about 3 minutes or until the skin is brown and crisp. Then turn the fillets over and cook for a further 1-2 minutes or until cooked through to your liking. Remove from the heat and serve with potato salad and pickled ginger.
NOTES:
– Kewpie mayonnaise is a type of Japanese mayonnaise available in the Asian aisle of most supermarkets. Substitute any mayonnaise you like.
