Salmon with Summer vegetables and cauliflower couscous is the main dish for my fancy 3-course menu on a budget. You can find the main article here. See also the starter and the dessert.
Delhaize
This article has been published in a collaboration with Delhaize. They sponsored the bigger part of the used ingredients. They set-up a challenge every month, outlining a few guidelines. For the June 2016 challenge, the guidelines are “Summer”. Furthermore, they ask to mainly use products of their home brand and set a budget. In this case, I had a maximum of EUR 25,–. Besides those guidelines Delhaize only asked to publish what I did with the budget.
Salmon with Summer Vegetables and Cauliflower Couscous
There’s a lot happening on the plate of our main course. The salmon with Summer vegetables and cauliflower couscous is nonetheless easy to make. I recommend preparing the vegetables and the couscous in advance. This saves you precious time on the stove, as you only need to add everything into your frying pan and then proceed to the plating and serving the dish.
What makes this dish fit into my menu, is that it is really light. This is mainly caused by the voluntary absence of carbohydrates and heavy sauces. The Summer vegetables have a light soy sauce and the lemon butter can be adjusted to personal preferences. A little of it is nonetheless recommended, as it gives the salmon an extra fresh taste. The butter also goes well with the cauliflower couscous.
Fancy 3-course Menu on a Budget
When you work on a menu, you have to have several things in your mind. Of course, you need to carefully plan every dish itself, but also find a way to link them in one way or another. In my menu all the dishes have a fruit incorporated and all dishes have an item that makes the individual plate light in taste.
I didn’t stop here, though. As my intention of this menu was to make it for two people who are on a date night, it also had to be fancy and simple to cook. You don’t want to have your date waiting for ages for the food, while you stress yourself in the kitchen.
The salmon with Summer vegetables and cauliflower couscous can in most parts be prepared in advance. Alle the vegetables can be cut and prepared well in advance. Same goes with the lemon butter for the salmon. This leaves you to fry all of it just in time (vegetables, couscous and the salmon), once you are done with your starter. The trick here is that the salmon only takes a few minutes, the Summer vegetables are cut in a way that they are quickly done too. The couscous can be fried to personal taste, thus also being easily ready for plating.
Salmon with Summer vegetables and cauliflower couscous
- 1 bunch radishes
- 100 g Winter peas
- 4 medium carrots
- 4 tbsp soy sauce
- pepper
- 1/2 medium cauliflower
- 1 tsp granulated onion
- 1 tsp granulated garlic
- salt
- pepper
- Make sure that the salmon is cleaned up, that the skin is free of the scales and the fish bones.
- Salt the skin side.
- Fry, with some oil, on medium heat for around 3 minutes in a pre-heated pan. It depends on how thick the piece of salmon is though. Once the skin gets brown and crispy, you can carefully flip it. Fry for another minute.
- Flip back to the skin side, add some salt an pepper and put the salmon on your plate.
- Let the butter get room temperature. Either cut or grate the skin from the lemon. Make sure the zests are very small. Avoid the white part of the lemon, as it's bitter.
- Mix zests and butter. You can either serve the butter on the side or add it on the plated salmon.
- Clean all the vegetables, peal the carrots, cut of the greens and roots of the radishes too.
- Quarter the radishes, finely slice the carrots and cut the peas in half or thirds.
- In a pre-heated pan on medium to high heat with some oil add the carrots and fry for a minute. Then add the peas and stir everything. Now add the radishes.
- Once everything gets some colour, deglaze with the soy sauce and season with pepper.
- Plate the vegetables.
- Clean the cauliflower and cut in half.
- Grate the cauliflower. The pieces should have the size of couscous or rice grains.
- In a pre-heated pan on medium heat fry the cauliflower with some oil.
- After a few minutes it should start to brown lightly. Add salt, pepper and granulated onions and garlic. Stir and put on the plate.
Read all the instructions in it's entirety before you start with the recipe. I grouped the tasks not necessarily in order, but rather by subject. Ultimately a lot is happening simultaneously.