Smoked salmon salad with ginger lime dressing

ingredients

• Home-Smoked Salmon

  • 1 cup grated palm sugar or brown sugar
  • 1/4 cup oil
  • 4 centimetre piece ginger, peeled and grated
  • 1 cup tea leaves, i used green tea leaves but any will do
  • 1 smoked salmon around 900g skin on

• Ginger Lime Dressing

  • 4 tablespoon fish sauce
  • 3 tablespoon peanut oil
  • 1 tablespoon sesame oil
  • 4 limes, juice and zest
  • 2 tablespoon grated palm sugar or brown sugar
  • 4 centimetre ginger peeled and grated

• Salad

  • 1 telegraph cucumber
  • 1 tablespoon salt
  • 1/4 cup white vinegar
  • 1 tablespoon sugar
  • 8 good handful salad leaves, i used rocket, mizuna and micro greens
  • 1 pomegranate, seeds only

method

• Smoked salmon salad with ginger lime dressing

  • 1

    Mix sugar, oil and ginger together.

  • 2

    Line a metal roasting dish with foil, cover with tea leaves, top with a wire rack and place the salmon, skin-side down, on top.

  • 3

    Spread sugar mixture over salmon and put on the lid (or cover tightly with tinfoil). Cook on the stovetop or barbecue, over a moderate heat, for 20-30 minutes or until salmon is firm to the touch. Cool, or refrigerate, until required.

  • 4

    Place dressing ingredients in a jar and shake to combine (I grate the ginger over the jar to catch any juice). This makes more dressing than you need for this recipe, but it’s so delicious and a great fridge basic for summer.

  • 5

    Finely slice cucumber and mix with the salt. Let it stand for 30 minutes then drain off any liquid. Mix together vinegar and sugar, add to cucumber and leave for at least 10 minutes before serving (or refrigerate until needed).

  • 6

    Just before serving, wash salad leaves and toss with pomegranate seeds, pickled cucumber (drain off pickling liquid first) and enough dressing to nicely coat the leaves.

  • 7

    Divide salad between plates, tear salmon into bite-sized pieces (be careful to remove any bones) and nestle them in the leaves. Season to taste and serve at once.

notes

Salmon is a breeze to smoke at home and can be done a few days ahead of time. But if you prefer, buy hot-smoked salmon ready to eat. I prefer to smoke the salmon on the barbecue, to avoid a smoky house.