Pan fried salmon with mixed herb potato

Seldom cook fish at home because I can't handle fish very well. And if the fish is pan fried, the whole kitchen usually becomes oily with a lingering fishy smell.

Have been trying to eat more fish, especially cod and salmon since my pregnancy, and hubby and I were going places looking for eateries selling quality fish, from restaurants like Greenwood Fish Market to western stalls at neighbourhood coffee shops.

The other day, we saw this lovely slabs of fresh salmon at Cold Storage and we thought, why don't we try cooking salmon, ain't gonna be too tough. So we bought the salmon, some greens and potatoes for our weekend dinner.

Searched online for recipes to cook salmon - some options are grill salmon or pan fried salmon. Didn't feel like using my oven (hope to keep it grease free for my dessert baking) so the choice is pan fried salmon. In fact, recipes shown (foodnetwork.com, cooks.com) were all very simple, some salt and pepper, and pan fried with olive oil that's all. I guess fresh salmon doesn't really need much preparation or seasoning. So I just used whatever I have in my kitchen.


Salmon preparation and cooking steps (I pan fried the potatoes before salmon)

I have 4 slabs of salmon (I know that's a lot! We over-estimated). Marinated for about 1/2 hour - 2 slabs with lemon pepper seasoning and coriander leaves (MasterFoods) and the other 2 with normal salt (sea salt or Kosher salt would be better but I ran out of sea salt) and ground black pepper (McCormick).

• Heat a frying pan or skillet with olive oil.
• Coat the marinated salmon with a thin layer of corn starch and pat off excess starch.
• Once oil is heated, gently place the salmon into the pan.
• Once one side of the salmon turns slightly brown, flip to the opposite side. Same goes for the other 2 sides.
• Cooking time is based on estimation, depending on how thick the salmon slice is.

Potatoes preparation and steps

For potatoes, didn't feel like mashed potatoes or baked potatoes so opted for pan fried potatoes as well. Took reference from http://thelittleteochew.blogspot.com/2009/11/panfried-potatoes-with-rosemary.html and modify a little.

• Instead of cutting into cubes, I sliced the potatoes into about 1cm slices. (I use US Russet Potatoes)
• In a frying pan, heat some olive oil.
• Once oil is heated, add the slices of potatoes.
• Sprinkle some mixed herbs (MasterFoods - there's thyme, rosemary, marjoram, oregano, basil and sage in the mix) and salt sparingly onto the potatoes.
• Fry till the potatoes look crisp and golden brown on surface and edges, turn to other side. Same process.

Greens
For greens, I just blanched some broccoli and baby carrots.
Pan fried salmon with mixed herb potato.

Not bad at all! This slab was marinated with salt and ground black pepper. I think we preferred this to the other lemon pepper and coriander leaves seasoning. In fact, the seasoning tasted quite subtle for both, probably due to the strong taste of salmon itself.
We also managed to cook this slab just right, with a thin crispy crust and meat still very tender and juicy, almost melt in the mouth! For the other slab (not shown in photo, overcooked a little. Although the crust was more crisp, the meat became a little dry and tougher).

As for the potatoes, we like!!! The mixed herb complemented the potatoes really well. The potato slices were slightly crisp on the outside and fluffy on the inside. Yum!

The veggies were, just like veggies. We dipped with some thousand island sauce otherwise too bland.

We managed 3 slabs of salmon between us (barely able to finish!) and I packed the remaining slab with some leftover veggies and potatoes for lunch the next day. Next time, just 2 slabs would do.

Overall, it was a satisfying, hearty and healthy meal! We could do this again, though the kitchen was a tad oily and fishy for a night.