This is a quick and easy recipe for cooking salmon or any other oily fish like Saba fish. The homemade teriyaki sauce is easy to make and quick too. The skin of the salmon is delightfully crispy. Pair it with Japanese steamed rice and some Japanese salad to make it a complete meal.
teriyaki sauce ingredients
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup water
2 tablespoon Mirin (Mirin is a sweet Japanese wine. It can be found in most supermarket)
2 tsp minced ginger
2 tsp minced garlic
1 1/2 tsp brown sugar
3 tbsp regular sugar ( you can increase to 5 tbsp if you prefer a sweeter sauce)
Mix all the ingredients together in a sauce pan and let simmer till all sugar are dissolved. You can sieve out the ginger and garlic bits if you prefer to have a clear sauce. If you prefer a thicker sauce, mix 1/2 tbsp of corn flour with 1 tbsp of water and mix it into the sauce at the end. Stir and simmer until thickens.
To make the crispy salmon
Wash the salmon fillet. Pat dry with a kitchen towel.
Placing the fillet on the chopping board with the skin side up, curl up the salmon fillet and using a knife, make slits on the fillet like the above image. This is to prevent the fish from curling up during cooking and result in uneven cooking.
Sprinkle some salt into the slits of the salmon and rub some all over the fillet.
Heat some oil in a non stick pan. once the oil is heated, place the skin side of the salmon down onto the pan.
As the fish cooks you can see the fillet turning color from the side. Do not touch the fish and just let it cook through 7/10 of the thickness of the salmon.
Once it has reached 7/10 thickness you can flip it over to cook the other side. Do not overcook the salmon.
Once the fish color has turned completely orangey and cooked through, flip the fish once again onto its skin and turn off the heat. Leave in pan for about 2-3 minutes, this will make the skin nice and crisp.
Drizzle the teriyaki sauce over the fish and add in sesame seeds if you’d like to. Serve hot.
With Saba fish
