You NEED to Make This Salmon Soba Salad

Hello! So we're back and I'm cooking something very special today. So this is a creamy salmon soba noodle and wasabi pea salad. You know I've got a wonderful audience and it is many, many, many people's favourite dish of mine. So I have a bit of a confession, I'm not a huge fan of salmon and I know that sounds mad because most people love salmon and you know from a nutritionist salmon is wonderfully healthy for you, full of omega-3s and omega-6s and other wonderful vitamins and minerals but it is just not my cup of tea. I find it a little bit rich, a little bit you know, but I can understand how people love it. So this video is for all of you guys that love salmon. For my other mates out there that don't love salmon that much like me, you can substitute this for any white fish but also chicken. So most of the time chicken and salmon are pretty interchangeable so just keep that in mind that if you ever see a dish that you're like, wow that looks really, really beautiful or really, really yummy but I'm not a huge fan of salmon, slot in chicken instead and it generally will work. So what are we working with today? We've got some salmon fillets obviously. We're going to marinate those to get them on the pan and then we've got soba noodles, so our wonderful soba noodles and then a whole lot of fresh yummy goodies. So edamame beans, spring onions, some coriander, fresh lime, avocado, we've got some black sesame seeds, some crushed, so there's a secret, there's actually two little secret ingredients in this dish. Crushed wasabi peas and if you know, you know but if you don't know, you've got to try and these ones are a little bit, usually mine are greener than this so I'm actually a little bit annoyed. I opened the packet this morning and went, oh that's a bit annoying because usually they're really vibrant green and they look beautiful in the dish but then they offer the flavour and the crunch. But anyway, so let's ignore that they're a little bit yellow, they are super fresh and pickled ginger is my other little secret ingredient in this dish. So on the top and then we're making a nice sriracha drizzle mayo and it's just yum according to my audience members who make this all the time. That's it, great for lunch, great for dinner, great for if you're having people over, that kind of thing because you can kind of prep all your like I have here and then just put it together but I think you're really going to love it and let's get going. So I've just popped my pot of water on to boil to get our soba noodles cooked. While that's happening, I'm just going to marinate the salmon. Now it's super easy, it's two ingredients, it's just some soy sauce and some pure maple syrup. If you don't have maple syrup, you can use honey, it's anything, something you know, something sweet to caramelise it. So pour that on, that's my soy and then I've got my pure maple syrup to offer some sweetness and that's really it. Just get it all in there, you can turn it round. I've got skin on these salmon, you can also use skinless salmon fillets, whatever you prefer. Obviously I've already nearly ripped this one in the middle so because I'm so rough, I feel like I'm so used to using chicken that I'm like blah blah blah and obviously salmon is a little bit more delicate so just roll it round in that marinade nice and gently, not like I do it and you know if you can, if you've got the time to leave that for 5, 10, 15, 20 minutes, great but I don't have that time today so I'm just going to get it straight on the pan. So I've just added some olive oil to my pan and I've got my chicken. See, I'm just so used to using it. My salmon ready to go. Now this is going to sizzle but then we're going to turn it straight down, you know, after 20 seconds or so because we want to get a beautiful colour on it but we don't want it to burn and we don't want the honey or the maple syrup to burn which can happen very easily. Sizzle sizzle, here we go. So let it sizzle for a little mini and then I've got my water on for once that's boiling I'll add in my soba noodles as well. Soba noodles only take about, well depending on the brand so make sure you check the packet, but about three minutes and the longer you leave them the more likely they're going to become soggy and break apart and yeah be not very nice to eat. So make sure once your soba noodles go in you really keep an eye, pop on a timer or whatever and drain them pretty quickly and get that cold water through them really quickly as well. So my salmon is finishing up now and salmon is very individual for people so a lot of people like it really, a bit like a steak, lots of people like it really really rare, other people like it fully fully cooked. So you do it to your liking, how I usually cook it for you know the majority of people when I'm serving it is I will sort of start off a bit like chicken, my chicken schnitzel actually, start it quite high so you get a beautiful colour on the skin or one of the sides then turn it way down low and let it cook through the salmon for maybe two to three minutes then flip it and do the same thing, bring it up again while you flip it so it gives a beautiful colour, turn it right down for another two to three minutes. That's generally I like it on the cooked side rather than really really sort of rare and still orangey pink flesh so that's just something to note and we've just had that, that's probably been about nearly 10 minutes all up cooking these salmon fillets. Okay so we're back here, we've got our soba noodles cooked, we've got our salmon fillets cooked and now we basically put it all together so it is quite a straightforward salad which you know we love. Glass bowl, I'm just going to add, so I actually haven't made this salad in a while and I haven't refreshed my memory so I'm sort of making this up as we do but I'm sort of, that was three bundles of soba noodles and I realised that I've only got two salmon fillets so I probably put on a little bit too much soba noodles but that's okay I'll adjust it in the recipe for you below but I'm going to start out with about that much, you can always add more. Then I'm going to go with some edamame so we'll pop our edamame into our salad and then I'll see how I go if I need more. That's a lot of spring onion I actually chopped for another recipe that I'm going to cook later just you know getting ahead you know doing the uh the work early. Then we're going to save remember our black sesame seeds and our ginger for on the top then I'm going to put some coriander, beautiful coriander. If you don't like coriander because lots of people don't, you can use mint, you can use Thai basil, you can use Vietnamese mint, any kind of Asiany kind of herb goes really well. I love the coriander with this but whatever floats your boat. Then we're going to put a little bit of the crushed wasabi peas through it now but this is also for texture mainly on the top so kind of sprinkle that in. If you don't do wasabi peas obviously just think anything crunch with texture that goes with Asian flavours so fried shallots works really beautiful, beautifully crushed roasted peanuts works really beautifully, even roasted chopped cashews works really well and then we've got our avocado. So sorry I didn't get my little knife and this is a nice beautiful firm avocado so it should hold its shape as we add it to the salad. Often if you get really really soft mushy ones and you add it to the salad and then you go to toss it they all just break apart so have a look at your avocado. I'm just going to do once more so we've got nice long beautiful pieces and then scoop it out with your spoon just gently so you're not breaking the outside pieces and then we're basically just going to slot it in in different bits, beautiful nice and green one like so and I actually am, I shouldn't wipe it on my apron because I need to usually I have a knife a stronger knife for this hold on I might just cut myself if I do that and I'm going to add a little bit more because we love avocado and it looks so beautiful in a salad maybe about half of that and if you want to do the whole thing go for it up to you like so and then again just gently pulling them out oh and I'm going to keep that for the top actually now let me just wipe my little hands here now that is pretty much ready to go I just want to make up a really quick little creamy the lime just goes on fresh like wedges at the end so um when we go to make it up you can just have your lime ready to squeeze on when you're going to eat it now there's a quick little creamy dressing component here along with our squeeze of lime juice so kewpie mayo which is a Japanese mayonnaise and I'm obsessed with it most people are I can't remember quantities so I'm just going make this up good squeeze of kewpie mayo maybe two tablespoons that was then I've got some soy here which I measured out and I can't even remember how much I measured I think it's a tablespoon of soy sauce into there probably maybe a little bit more and then sriracha can't remember how much either so I'm just going to guess uh that's about two teaspoons again if you like spice and you don't mind the heat and obviously if this is not going for kids or um then you can add as much as you like so then you're going to stir that up and you're going to break up all your mayo you can use a whisk if you prefer and it's going to come together like a brownie creamy sauce then sorry it's very noisy so that's kind of what you're looking for now that's actually pretty nice and thin but what I usually do I had a little bit of water in the bottom of the jug before I started just from washing it that's actually a pretty good consistency along with the lime juice but what I say in this recipe is if you've got like quite a thick sauce and it's just quite sickly and it's not going to drizzle on the salad well just add literally a drop of water at a time so get your tap turned on first don't shove your jug under there first because then if you put on too much you've you know lost it get your tap going for just little drips and stick your jug under there pull it out give it a stir until you get I'm going to do it just a tiny bit and this is sometimes where I go overboard but I'm just going to add yep just that yeah that's good the reason I do that is because it's quite see that that's what we're looking for just nice and thin it's quite a rich dressing like you think about it soy sauce sriracha and kewpie mayonnaise it can be quite like sickly and heavy if you keep it quite thick so that's why I add the water so that it just like drizzles across the salad and it is delicious we've done them we've done them we've got our lime to put on fresh now our salmon I'm sure it's almost ready to serve up but I'm just trying to think if I want it on a plate or if I want it in a bowl I think I'm going to do a plate we'll see it might look absolutely crap and then we'll move it to a bowl what I might do as well at this stage is probably add a little bit of dressing just to be able to coat the noodles a little bit because as we know soba noodles can stick together especially when we've just cooked them so I'm going to gently toss just to be able to coat the noodles I'm not drenching it in salad at this point sorry salad dressing see even there you can see how they're sticking the other thing you can add to this is a little bit of oil a neutral oil which will help as well but you just want the noodles to glide see how they're starting to yep that's good that's oh yum the smells okay great we're trying not to crush our beautifully cut avocado all right good that's better so see how it's just gliding now that's good that's what you want now I actually think I'm going to go to a bowl I think I feel more comfortable doing it in a bowl so let's lay out you can serve up the noodles however you want if you want to roll them and make it look pretty if you just want to dump them in oh god I nearly just spilled it all and made it look so make sure you get some of the greenery you know you've got your um all your goodies down the bottom so I'm going to get a spoon and get them out so that we're actually putting them in our salad I need a bigger spoon I'm using a teaspoon which is just ridiculous but anyway yummy yummy bits at the bottom smells amazing so get lots of them I'm going to put that aside so we're just focusing on this for the minute I feel like there's a bit going on so I'm feeling a bit all over the shop think our salmon will go next and then we'll put some fresh greenery bits on the top so I'm just going to bring my salmon over I don't know if I'm going to lay it all out or if I'm going to break it like these this piece has come out into it too so maybe I'm like that might be nice just to put separately rather than having a big long piece over the top or you know what even more so I'm just going to put this little bit oh bugger I just broke it that's annoying but still looks beautiful then we're going to put before I put our little toppings on because that's the other thing about giving a little bit and look if you're just making this at home for you and your partner or yourself or whatever you're probably not going to care as much for presentation as I am right now but if you're serving it to people if you dress it like I just dressed it it does take away some of the vibrant greenery and everything that's so beautiful in a salad so if you do care about the presentation which fair enough if you don't you can just save a few little bits and bobs for the end to put them on like I'm doing now a bit of fresh coriander so that you still get that beautiful green same with the avocado remember I saved a little bit because I thought yep it's going to discolour when we put the dressing on it's just such a beautiful dish this one I feel like people love it because it's really really delicious but it's also really healthy and nourishing and wholesome you know so we love that so we're going to finish off now we're going to put a bit of wasabi peas crushed wasabi peas just around yum bit of black sesame seeds which all always look so pretty on like the salmon and the avocado and then a little bunch of our beautiful pickled ginger then we're going to chop some lime looks like a beautiful lime oh check that out what a lime uh pop some lime there and then I just sort of oh I can't get it on the right angle to look pretty bit of avocado a bit of lime and oh and then you just drizzle some dressing over the top to get it extra creamy and there you go there's your just like as I said not a salmon fan but I would come close to being a salmon fan with this dish because it's all my favorite things and maybe it's that that's the main thing that you don't need a massive big fillet of salmon just a nice little piece and that is just a beautiful little dish hey I've got to have a try I've got to have a try even though I say I don't like like salmon I would never not have a try of a dish I've just cooked here we go let's get some of these noodles first let's try them see if they're cooked well some yummy avocado a little bit of the pickled ginger because yum drop my avocado okay so much texture and yummy flavor and creaminess and and you know what I'm even going to go for some salmon guys you guys are going to be in shock I'll get a little piece so we get some noodles let's get it all now oh my god yum I just love this dish even though I'm not a salmon lover like it's just all the flavors all that the ginger is just next level the wasabi peas oh my god I I don't know what the word is gave this recipe probably about it'd be nearly five years ago now and I still get on at least a weekly basis people sending me a photo of this like through my instagram saying major salmon and soba noodles either for the first time and they're like oh my god I'm in shock at how yummy it is or major salmon soba noodles it's on repeat in our household we make it every single week and I just I see why people do because it is so delicious so many beautiful fresh flavors it's just a delicious yummy beautiful dish so if you haven't made it and even if you're not really a salmon fan I um I give you the challenge of giving it a go and letting me know what you think about it because it's pretty bloody delicious