Cookalong with Nigella.com

On the Nigella.com website we have commenced a brand new Cookalong. It's called the Nigella Cookalong where, each month, anyone who wants to, can cook a designated Nigella Lawson recipe which can be found on the website. Good fun! This, the very first recipe, the recipe for June is a delicious one, which I have made before. I did mess a little with the recipe, as I have in the past, but keep it as is, or fiddle with it just a little, and you'll be well pleased with this dish.

If you would like to see the original recipe it's right here.

Seared Salmon with Singapore Noodles

2 teaspoons medium Madras curry powder
1/4 teaspoon table salt
1 teaspoon sugar
4 salmon fillets, approx. 200g each
1 x 15ml tablespoon garlic oil

FOR THE NOODLES:

250g vermicelli rice noodles (I had a 375g packet so used the whole lot)
50g dried shrimp
125ml Chinese cooking wine
1 x 15ml tablespoon garlic oil
100g finely sliced Chinese leaf (I used Chinese lettuce)
125g baby corn*, sliced into thin rounds (I like them cut into four lengths rather than rounds)
2 spring onions, finely sliced (I like 4 spring onions)
2 teaspoons medium Madras curry powder
1 teaspoon finely chopped ginger
250ml chicken stock (from concentrate)
3 x 15ml tablespoons soy sauce
150g beansprouts (I never weight them, but I easily use twice as many here)
4 x 15ml tablespoons chopped fresh coriander
2 eggs are my addition to this recipe


Mix the curry powder, salt and sugar in a wide, shallow dish and dredge the salmon in this, turning the pieces all over in the rub.

Heat the oil in a heavy-based pan and cook the salmon fillets on a high heat for about 2?3 minutes a side, searing the sides of the fillets too if they are very thick.

Put the rice noodles into a bowl and cover with boiling water*. Leave them to soak for 4 minutes and then drain them.

Soak the dried shrimp in the wine, then heat the oil in a wok and fry the Chinese leaf, baby corn and spring onions for a few minutes.

Add the curry powder and finely chopped ginger to the wok, and then the chicken stock and soy sauce. Pour in the shrimps, with their wine, and the drained, soaked noodles, tossing and shaking everything all together in the wok.

Now, it is here, just before the final step that I toss in a couple of eggs. They get tossed through in much the same way you'd do in fried rice. No need to whisk them up first, just crack them right in there.

Finally, stir in the beansprouts and give a final toss, before turning out into a bowl and sprinkling with the coriander.

* I prefer, if I can, to soak the noodles in cold water for a couple of hours before hand. This step ensures the noodles are soft, but still firm, and hold together better when cooked.
I cannot abide tinned baby corn, I prefer the locally-grown fresh corn, otherwise I leave it out.

Nigella does also suggest you can replace the dried prawns with fresh, and this is a lovely and delicious option which I sometimes do. I don't find it to be slumming it to use the dried and somewhat reconstituted prawns though, I quite like their flavour as an ingredient anyway.

Serves 4
For the children I use less spice mix relative to their age. Our youngest only has his plain salmon cooked in the same pan, so just picks up a little of the flavour. I like to cook salmon to what I think is known as warm-raw or at least rare, which is easy when you have a coating containing sugar, it burnishes so beautifully, the skin crisps up like curried crackling. The noodles are not at all spicy, which means all but our youngest can enjoy this.