Operation Wedding: Salmon

I wanted a salmon tartare course in the wedding dinner, but the question was how to serve it. I love reading Thomas Keller’s French Laundry because the photography is gorgeous and reading about the man and his inspirations somehow inspires me to become a better person and to strive towards excellence. So much for those self-help chicken soup for the soul rubbish; just give me a book about an imaginative and inspirational chef. In the book, Keller talks about his famous salmon tartare in conets, which have found many memes in the restaurant business, but I decided not to make the conets because I didn’t have that cone shaper equipment at hand, and I wasn’t ready to purchase one because my tiny kitchen drawers are already too full so maybe I’ll consider getting one once I get my kitchen re-done. So I had to search for an alternative and so I decided to go supermarket shopping for some inspiration.

I had a vague idea of what I was looking for, preferably something crispy or maybe something sweet. I then thought of buying some of those inari skins and perhaps frying them for a crispy texture. However, NTUC the supermarket of nothing, didn’t carry my inari skins and so I looked around for alternatives. I ended up picking up a few items, Japanese rice crackers with seaweed shaped as coins, ice cream wafers and tofu puffs to experiment with.

I also went back and forth with what to mix in with the salmon and I went for a simple combination of mango for sweetness (and because I heart mangos), cucumber for crunch, and I decided to leave out the avocado, and toasted sesame seeds. The I also assembled a dressing/marinade for the salmon and I tried two different variations.

Basic Recipe:
Makes about 8-10 amuse bouche portions

Ingredients:
150g sashimi grade salmon
50g cucumber diced
50g mango finely diced
1 spring onion finely minced
Toasted sesame seeds
Spring onions for garnishing

Dressing:
20 ml soy sauce
20 ml rice vinegar
1cm ginger peeled and grated
1/3 tablespoon of sesame oil

Directions:

Combine dressing

Combine salmon, cucumber, mango and spring onions.

Assemble and garnish with spring onions and toasted sesame seeds.

Variation 1:



Dip the tofu puff in the marinade and assemble the salmon tartare on top.

Variation 2:



Dressing the salmon tartare and assembling it on the Japanese rice crackers.

Post Mortem: The tofu puff is a great vehicle to soak up sauces and flavours and its spongy texture was interesting. However I would go with the Japanese rice crackers because the crunchy texture is better against the soft and slightly creamy salmon.