Thai-ish Salmon

Last week, I made a brilliant discovery. A website called Dinner, A Love Story. This woman not only believes in the importance of family meals together, but also loves cooking healthy things and trying to find innovative ways to keep great ingredients in family dinners - that kids will actually eat. You can tell she loves the challenge of it, and feels good when her family likes it. But she's not crazy and doesn't make you feel guilty at all - which I appreciate!

If you know anything about me, you'll know my favorite things when it comes to food are: fresh fish, shrimp and seafood of any sort, avocados, mangoes, papayas, plantains, very dark chocolate, chilis or any spicy peppers, red wine, limes and good tequila. Not necessarily in that order. Knowing this, you would not be alone in wondering why I'm overweight!

Despite my love of pretty much all fish, salmon has always been one I have struggled to find a good relationship with. It's hit or miss for me. Growing up in Florida, and now living in Singapore, there is so much fresh ocean fish, that I rarely eat salmon. However, I try to have it once a month as it is simply so good for you, and I would like my little one to learn to like it too.

So I made this recipe on Saturday, originally adopted from that great blog - although of course, I can't follow directions and had to change almost everything about it. It was still delicious, and even better, is my 3 year old ate all her salmon. I'm still patting myself on the back.

Note - I removed my daughter's salmon before adding the curry paste, as she doesn't like anything spicy yet.

Thai-ish Salmon

• Salt and pepper a 1 1/2-pound salmon filet.
  
• Heat skillet to medium-high heat and add a little canola oil. Place salmon in skillet flesh side down and cook for about 3 or 4 minutes until nicely browned. Remove from skillet.
  
• Reduce heat to medium-low. Add 1 tablespoon finely minced lemongrass (from the white part of the stalk) and 1 tablespoon chopped scallions and stir around for one minute. Then add 1 can of light coconut milk a generous squeeze of lime, and 1 to 1 1/2 teaspoons Thai red curry paste (to taste). Whisk together and let simmer for five minutes.
  
• Add salmon back in, skin-side down, nestle into the sauce. Bring to a simmer, then add a handful of each of the following: chopped green peas, chopped broccoli, chopped white button mushrooms, 1 chopped tomato. Simmer another 7 to 8 minutes. Stir in 1/4 cup chopped cilantro, 1/4 cup chopped basil. (I think you can use whatever vegies you like, she used green beans, yellow peppers and shitake mushrooms).
  
• Serve with jasmine or long grain rice, more cilantro, scallions, and a squeeze of lime.

(one word of advice, was when making Thai-inspired dishes, include a dash or two of brown sugar. I didn't have any, but I think it would have improved the flavor slightly)

Image via Dinner, A Love Story. Mine was so delicious, I forgot to photograph it! Oops.