Not Just a Man's World

I’ve been subscribed to Nicko’s kitchen on You Tube for a little while now.  I stumbled across his channel by accident and while many of the recipes he cooks up are not paleo-friendly there are also some that are worth tweaking or that are completely free of non-paleo ingredients.

More importantly, I just love watching cooking programmes and videos like this.  I find that it’s really helpful to watch someone else cooking to pick up hints and tips on new techniques, ranging from how to hold the whisk to beat eggs and what sort of cooking equipment is favoured by other people through to how to peel and chop an onion.  I find that everyone has a slightly different technique to do these things and I’ve learned through watching and trying things that the methods I learned as a child aren’t always the ones that work best for me.

It’s also a useful way to learn what spices and herbs mix together well, even if you don’t then cook everything.  I find that reading recipe books provides similar education.

This was a lovely light summer dish – thank you Nicko!  It’s perfect when the weather is really hot and you aren’t so hungry or you want a fancy lunch.  I changed the salad that was with this and I’ll post up my own green vegetable salad recipe next week, but in the meantime enjoy this cajun marinade.  Even Chris thought it was tasty and he’s not usually much of a fish-lover.

We think this marinade would work well on chicken kebab skewers too or oven baked chicken breasts.  I might try it sometime and let you know.

Paleo Cajun salmon

Ingredients (serves 4):
4 salmon fillets
3 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp mustard powder
1 tsp ground turmeric
1 garlic clove, crushed
½ tsp chilli powder
salt & pepper
Juice of 1 large lime (approx 3-4 tbsp)
3 tbsp mayonnaise
2 tsp mustard powder
Juice of ½ lime (1-2 tbsp)

Directions:

1. In a dish for marinating the salmon (I use a small glass baking dish that is just big enough to hold the four salmon fillets alongside each other) place the cumin, mustard powder (2 tsp), turmeric, garlic, chilli powder, a little salt and pepper to season and the juice of a lime.  Stir them together thoroughly, pressing out as many of the lumps as possible until it is well blended.
2. Place each piece of salmon into the dish on the flat skin-side, coating the flesh in the marinade as you put it in so that you finish with all four pieces thoroughly coated in the marinade sauce.  Put the dish into the fridge and leave to marinade for 30 minutes.
3. While the salmon is marinating make the salad that you are going to serve it with then make the mayonnaise by combining the mayonnaise with the additional mustard powder (2 tsp) and juice of half a lime in a small bowl.
4. When the marinating time is up heat a little oil in a pan and put the salmon skin-side down in the pan.  Fry on a high heat for 3-4 minutes and then turn over and fry for a further 2 minutes upside down.
5. Serve by placing a salmon fillet on top of some salad and putting a generous spoonful of the mayonnaise on top of the fillet.

Related posts:

1. Paleo recipes: salmon mousse
2. Paleo recipes: smoked salmon and lemon cream (primal)
3. Paleo recipes: chilli and lime prawns
4. Paleo recipes: chicken with whole spices