Sometimes the simplest meals are the best, and this bowl full of goodness is a perfect example. The recipe is even simpler to prepare when you have cooked your soba noodles in advance. I often cook a larger batch of chickpeas, lentils, or rice over the weekend and then use throughout the week for my meals. I would never consider cooking pasta in advance, because pasta cooked yesterday…. well, it is just not very nice.
Soba noodles, on the other hand, work very well cooled down and in fact, I sometimes deliberately cook soba in advance for chilled salads on hot summer days. It is important not to overcook the soba and mix it with a drop of oil, so the noodles would not stick together. For this recipe, however, you do not need to chill the noodles – they are just as good warm.
The rest of the dish is also as simple as it can be – just some slicing, mixing and searing and you are good to go.
Make sure you do not overcook the salmon. Most of the cooking should be skin side down because you do want this crispiness. After flipping over it takes no more than 2 minutes cooking and the fillet should be ready. The salmon filet should still be moist and dark pink, just starting to flake away.
Simple Soba Bowl with Seared Salmon
Serves: 1
Cooking time: 10 minutes
Ingredients:
½ portions of soba noodles (they usually come tied together with a cute ribbon, but 1 ½ oz in case yours are loose)
1 salmon fillet
Oil for frying
Salt
½ fresh cucumber
1 spring onion
A handful of fresh cilantro leaves
Fresh chili, to taste
½ tsp sesame oil
2 tsp soy sauce
The juice of ½ limes
Black sesame seeds and lime wedges, to serve
Instructions:
Cook the soba noodles following the instructions on the package, but definitely do not overcook! You can also use leftover soba noodles from the previous day.
Heat up a drop of oil on the pan and sear the salmon, seasoned with salt from each side, skin side down, for 4 minutes until the skin is crispy. Then flip it over and fry for 1-2 more minutes. The exact cooking time depends on the size of the fillet and the temperature of the pan, but the goal is crispy skin and nice juicy fish.
Slice the cucumber and chop the spring onion and chili.
Mix the sesame oil, soy and lime juice, have a taste and adjust if needed.
Once everything is cooked, mix the noodles with the sauce, serve in a bowl and add all the other components on top.
By Kadri Raig
Kadri is a food blogger and yoga teacher from Estonia. She loves healthy food and cooking and for her, these two are often the same thing. Cooking meals from scratch, you know exactly what goes in it and even without holding back with sugar or fat we end up using a lot less compared to ready-made frozen stuff from the supermarket.
She does love to spend time in the kitchen, but most of her recipes are simple and don’t take more than 20 minutes of active cooking time. She thinks that everybody can find time to cook healthy food at home, it is just a question of planning. "I work in an office full time, teach yoga 7-8 hours a week and write a blog. So if I manage to cook most of my meals, then so do you!"
Connect with Kadri and enjoy many more of her delicious healthy recipes on her website here: http://www.kahvliga.ee/.
Enjoy some enlivening yoga before your delicious Salmon Soba Bowl meal.