hoisin-glazed salmon bundles

Want to make you meals look more professional? It's called plating, and it's all about the way you arrange the food on the plate (obviously... plating). Think about contrasting colours and textures, and your best friend? Height. It's the foolproof way to make any meal look more restaurant-worthy. Here's a recipe I made a friend for lunch last week: Hoisin-glazed salmon rolls, with sautéed pea shoots and a mango salsa. Because, if you're going to work hard in the kitchen, shouldn't your food taste and look good?

This might look fancy, but you'll be done cooking in half an hour. Try a vegan version by replacing the salmon with marinated tofu. Delicious, and gluten-free, with pea shoots from Wychwood Barns, a local greenhouse cucumber, and wild pacific salmon (reasons not to buy atlantic salmon, read this and this).

An item you should get for your pantry? Rice paper wrappers. They're round, cheap, and perfect for all kinds of thai-inspired cold salad rolls in the summer. And they have a starring role in this recipe.


hoisin-glazed salmon with sautéed pea shoots and mango salsa
Serves 2, adapted from this recipe in Canadian Living


2 rice paper wrappers (the round kind)
1 green onion, sliced
1 small carrot, shredded
2 small wild caught, pacific salmon fillets, skin removed
salt and pepper
grapeseed oil (or other vegetable oil)
 a few tbsps of hoisin sauce
       (don't have any? make some! Mix together 4 tbsp soy sauce/tamari, 2 tbsp peanut butter,
       1 tsp honey, 1 tsp sesame oil, minced garlic, and a splash of sriracha sauce)

Handful of pea shoots (or other seasonal greens)
soy sauce or tamari
sesame oil

1 atulfo mango, diced
1/2 cucumber, diced
1 tsp sriracha (the rooster brand chinese hot sauce)
juice and zest of 1 lime
salt and pepper
grapeseed oil

Preheat the oven to 400. Soak rice paper wrappers in cold water for 10-15 seconds. Lay on a work space. Divide green onions and carrots between the two wrappers, piling them in the centre of each wrapper. Season salmon filets with oil, salt and pepper. Place salmon on top of vegetables. Fold one side of the wrapper over the salmon, then both ends, then roll up the rest of the wrapper. (There's a nice how-to  series of photos on this site, but your rolls will be larger and more square.)

Heat a splash of grapeseed oil in an oven-proof skillet. Cook the bundles in the oil, 1 minute each side, until browned and crisp. Turn gently! The rice paper is delicate. Turn off heat, and brush both sides of the bundles with hoisin sauce. Move the skillet to the oven, and bake for 7 minutes.

Meanwhile, rinse off the pea shoots. Heat a pan, and add the pea shoots. The water from washing will help cook the shoots. Sauté for 1-2 minutes, until wilted. Season with sesame oil and soy sauce.

In a bowl, toss together the mango, cucumber, sriracha, lime juice and zest, salt, pepper, and a splash of olive oil.

To plate your delicious meal, start with a bed of pea shoots. Place a salmon bundle on top, then finish with a spoonful of mango salsa.

Potato and Smoked Salmon Gratin

There is a dish at the restaurant where I work: a crispy potato rosti, covered in soft, caramelized onions, peppery baby arugula, thin slices of smoked salmon, and topped off with sour cream and capers. It's deluxe, delicious, and expensive to make at home. It's usually the recipe I turn to for my once or twice a year smoked salmon treat.

Yes, I call myself a vegetarian, but I eat fish a few times a month. Does this make me a liar, or a fake? I don't think so, but others might argue it does. While food choices are highly politically and environmentally charged, they still remain a personal, private choice.

Other people can state this argument for select vegetarianism more eloquently that I, for example Michael Pollan's NYT essay, An Animal's Place, or The Anxiety of Eating, by David E. Cooper. After being a vegetarian for ten (ten!) years, the decisions I've made are to continue eating eggs, cheese and dairy, but buy them from local, organic and ethical farms, for example Organic Medows or Montforte Cheese. Journalists might call me a 'demi-vegetarian,' a moderate and selective consumer of animal products. My friends might laugh at me for buying 7 dollar eggs, but I know that they came from an organic farm where the hens have ten times the space of battery hens, real access to the outdoors and are free from hormones, antibiotics and heavily processed feeds. Is the price difference worth it? That's a personal choice you have to make.

So what about seafood? Any cook who wants to continue eating seafood, while making environmental, ethical choices, should visit the Seafood Watch, run by the Monterey Bay Aquarium. And a great book on the topic is Bottomfeeder, by Taras Grescoe.

For me, giving up eating fresh-shucked oysters in Malpeque Bay on vacation, or stocking up on smoked trout from Akiwenzie's Fish at the market, was not something I was willing to do. Still, seafood is a once-in-a-while treat for me, and when I do buy it, I try and come up with an extra-special recipe, to do it justice.

This topic is quickly turning into an essay, but I swear I'm getting to the recipe. The inspiration was some delicious Wild Pacific Smoked Salmon, a carton of Small Flock's Delight Eggs (from grass fed, free range hens), Koslik's Horseradish Mustard and some Victory Organic Arugula. Here you go! (This is honestly the most delicious meal I've made... since Tuesday's macaroni and cheese with oyster and shitake mushrooms).

Potato and Smoked Salmon Gratin with arugula and poached eggs


1 tbsp butter
2 baking potatoes, sliced very thin with a mandolin
salt and pepper
1/2 cup caramelized onions
2 or 3 tbsp capers, drained
100 gr. smoked salmon
1 1/2 cups milk
1/2 cup sour cream
1 egg
1 tbsp Kozlick's Horseradish mustard

For serving-
1 egg for each serving, to be poached
Handful of arugula for each serving
chives for garnish (yes! there are chives in my garden already!)

Preheat the oven to 375. Grease a baking dish with butter. Make one layer of potatoes to cover the bottom. Layer on top 1/2 of each of the salmon, onions and capers. Season with salt and pepper. Make another layer of potatoes, then the rest of the salmon, onions and capers. Season with salt and pepper again. Add a final layer of potatoes. In a bowl, beat together milk, sour cream, egg and mustard. Pour over potatoes. Bake for 50-60 minutes, until potatoes are soft and top is browned. Let rest for 5-10 minutes, covered.

When ready to serve, poach an egg for each person. (Check out this article on how to poach the perfect egg). Serve a square of gratin, topped with a handful of arugula, finished with a poached egg. Garnish with chives. Voila! (Or, Bon Appetit, as Julia Child would say. I'm in the middle of reading My Life in France.)