Japanese style Teriyaki Salmon Fillet

Over the year, I have really nailed down cooking salmon to perfection, where the fish is just pink on the inside and still tender. No kidding! I never thought it would happen..but I have arrived. The Queen of Salmon:)

There are various ways to cook my salmon. Commonly I would do the Teriyaki version. During summer with abundance of fresh sweet fruits, I would accompany it with fresh fruit salad of Mango-lychee with fresh greens drizzled in Japanese Sesame with Yuzu ponzu sauce. The  sweetness of the fruit was to balance the citrus ponzu sauce.

The trick to cooking salmon is really catching the exact moment where it starts cooking on the inside. Once you missed it, it is a road of no return with a slap of harden fish.

While the teriyaki sauce version normally wont do this, however I would rub my salmon fillet with garlic salt or seasalt as well. (Otherwise pink salt is fine as well) Otherwise, i tend to find the teriyaki sauce alone is too sweet. .

I didnt have time to take more pictures being in a hurry to serve dinner, but the cooking steps are as below.

Time to Cook: 15mins
Marinate time: 2 hours min.

Ingredients

- Fresh salmon fillets skin on (of about equal thickness if you are cooking more than one)
- Dash of Garlic salt or other salt for all the fillets

- Black pepper grated

- 3tbsp of Mirin. Currently am using mizikan mirin. Frankly this is not my fav mirin but the organic version I was used to is no longer carried in Hong Kong supermart...sigh.

- dash of oil

- 3 tbsp of good quality Sake (Japanese rice wine). Usually I would use "Junmai-shu" (純米酒), which is pure rice wine with no addition of distilled alcohol.  

- 1tbsp of sugar
- 3 tbsp of Japanese bottled  bonito soup base.
- 1 tbsp of corn flour or potato flour (this is used only to coat the skin to make it crispy)

I am still tasting out the various Japanese Bonito Soup base sold in Hong Kong supwemart.

Currently I am using "Hirokoshi Soup Base" that includes kelp and bonito flavor. However we had a recent Japanese food fair and as I was chatting with the Oji san at the fair, he introduced me to the bottle on the left which is fast becoming popular in Japan. I tried it and I like it.

Cooking Steps:

1. Rinse salmon and pat dry. Rub some garlic salt onto the fillet. leave to stand for 10mins.
2. Add Mirin, Soup base, sake, and sugar into a saucepan. I would add 1 tbsp of water. Stir to blend well. 
3. Heat up the saucepan over medium low heat. As soon as the teriyaki sauce bubbles and thickens, remove it from heat and allow the sauce to cool. 
4. Next is to marinate the salmon with some of the Teriyaki Sauce (the fish is fully coated) in a sealed zipped locked bag for at least 2 hours. Unlike pork or other meat, it doesnt really need to be marinated overnight from personal experience. The absorb the flavors really quickly and plus, if you have a a good of fish, you dont really want to ruin the original sweetness of salmon.
5. Pre-heat the oven to 200 degree Cel..
6. Remove the salmon from fridge and rub a little oil on the skin.
7. Using a siever, lightly sprinkle a thin layer the corn flour over the skin. This step is to prevent the skin from burning on contact with hot pan and to add that extra crisp. (Learned this from chef TV program)
8. Heat up a non-stick pan over medium heat. Add a dash of oil and slide the fish skin side down and pan-sear the marinated salmon until the skin is nicely brown, about 2 minutes. Flip the salmon all round to the sides and top to give it a nice brown searing for the next few mins on each sides.
9. Transfer the salmon to a oven tray prelined with baking paper. Brush the remaining Teriyaki Sauce on the seared salmon. I would grate some black pepper over the top. Bake for 10 minutes. (Generally this is the right time for any standard fillet)

Tip: For novice cook, in order to be sure you wont be serving semi raw salmon, you may like to stick a butter knife down the middle (where the vertical line is) about slightly under 1 inch to check the inside. It should be a very nice mild pink shade. You might still see there is a gradual change in colour from the outer cook side to the inside which is slightly a tinge of rose pink. That means your fish is ready. Your fish will continue to cook on the inside while you are plating.

Generally you can also tell by pressing lightly on the top of salmon on the thickest part and if the fillet feels very bouncy and wobbly within, its still raw. A cook salmon should not be overly bouncy and a overcook salmon will be firm and wont bounced. Keep trying each time you will soon get the sense and wont even need to cut the fish to check the inside. However, 10mins is normally the right time to cook salmon to a pink moist inside.