Baked Salmon with Lemon Grass and Red Onions
1 large salmon, scaled and filleted (will feed 6 people easily)
2 tbsp olive oil
2 lemon grass sticks, finely sliced (optional)*
1 red onion, finely chopped or shallots
1 chilli, seeded and finely chopped
2in piece of ginger, finely chopped
3 tbsp chopped fresh coriander
Rind and juice of 1/2 or 1 lime (or lemon)*
2 tbsp light soy sauce
Salt and pepper
This recipe would be delicious using various fish, such as sea bass, red or grey mullet, red snapper or tilapia.
Prepare the fish by scaling it - I usually do this out in the garden, with a large bucket of water, a sharp knife and a towel wrapped in a turban to cover my hair. I might look very strange, but not half as strange as I would look like with fish scales all over my face and hair! I then take the fish into the kitchen and fillet it. This is quite hard, but you get better at it with practice and a very sharp knife.
Soak a fish brick (clay pot) in cold water for 20 minutes, then drain. Make four to five diagonal slashes on both sides of the fish. Repeat the slashes on the other side in other direction, giving a cross hatched effect. Rub the fish inside and out with salt, pepper and 1 tbsp of olive oil.
Mix together the thai ingredients - lemon grass* (optional), red onion, chilli, ginger, coriander and lime rind*.
Place some of the thai mixture in the base of the clay pot, then lay the fish on top. Sprinkle the remaining mixture over the fish, then sprinkle over the lime juice, soy sauce and remaining olive oil. Cover and place in an unheated oven.
Set the oven to 220 C/200 Fan/ Gas Mark 7 and cook for about 30 - 40 minutes - less if the fish is filleted. It is ready when the fish flakes easily with a knife.
You can cook just one filleted side of the fish by itself - enough for 3 - 4 people, using half the other ingredients above. Or you can cook the 2 fillets together, carefully laying them into the clay pot on the sides.
Get your fish from the market - we get ours from Kingston Market - and it will be fantastic!
* Unfortunately, Charlie is very fussy about anything with lemons in it and I have now found that he doesn't really like limes - and he's not too keen on coriander either! It's a shame but we have come to a compromise - no more lemon grass, no lime rind and only the juice of half a lime - but I get to keep the coriander. The recipe still works though and no sulking afterwards, at the kitchen sink!