La petite biscotte Now in Munich…

Maple Glazed Salmon on Vegetable Pasta

When my mother in law returned from Canada she brought back the most amazing maple syrup. You could literally drink it with a straw the whole day and you wouldn’t get tired of it. Apparently there is a great difference between store-bought maple syrup that we can find in local supermarkets and real maple syrup which is produced traditionally in smaller quantities. The difference is as striking as comparing Blue Nun to an expensive Cabernet Sauvignon (I was told).

Well this maple syrup does taste amazing and I’m actually trying to use it in savory dishes because I’d very much like to get away from the habit of drowning pancakes in maple syrup and only using it for desserts. I was actually inspired by a cookbook from Canada which describes how to marinate fish or any other type of meat with maple syrup before cooking it.

When I tried those recipes I wasn’t all that satisfied because you couldn’t really taste the maple syrup (there were other flavours in the marinade which were simply too strong, like Dijon mustard). So I decided to use the syrup with a neutral soy sauce to create a glaze on the fish. My husband was amazed by the subtle taste of maple syrup on the salmon. The combination with soy sauce made this quite a yummy take on teriyaki. And the best is: the whole dish, whilst looking quite sophisticated etc, was done in less than 25 minutes!

Ingredients

• 2 pieces of salmon (can be frozen)
• 3 Tbsp of soy sauce
• 1 1/2 Tbsp maple syrup
• 1 zucchini
• 2 carrots
• 5-6 cherry tomatoes
• salt, pepper
• vegetable oil

Preparation

1. Wash the carrots, zucchini and the tomatoes. Peel the carrots. Using a vegetable peeler, slice the carrots and the zucchini in thin stripes (like large pasta). Cut the cherry tomatoes in a half.
2. Mix the soy sauce and the maple syrup in a bowl. Stir to dissolve the syrup completely.
3. In a pan, heat up a Tbsp of vegetable oil. Once the oil is hot, turn the heat to medium and put the salmon in the pan. When the fish is about half cooked, turn it.
4. Heat up another Tbsp of vegetable oil in a second pan. Put the vegetables (beside the tomatoes) in there and let them cook on medium-low heat.
5. When the salmon is just about cooked, add the soy/maple mixture and turn up the heat a little. Let the fish cook in the liquid (tilt the pan a little if needed) and using a spoon keep pouring the liquid over the fish. Towards the end, when the liquid has almost evaporated, turn the fish another time and continue cooking it until it has that golden brown/glazed look on both sides (be careful though, the sugar from the syrup burns really fast if there is no liquid left anymore). Remove from heat.
6. Toss the vegetables a little and finish cooking them. Add the cherry tomatoes. Season to taste and remove from heat.
7. Serve the salmon pieces on a little pile of the vegetable pasta.

Serves 2. Enjoy