Midweek meals can often be a bit of a nightmare.
There’s nothing worse than getting home after a long day at work and having to slave over the oven to create something flavourful and nutritious.
While the ease and convenience of ultra-processed, ready-made and pre-packaged meals may be appealing when you’re feeling too tired, they often leave you feeling much worse after.
Luckily for tired homecooks looking for something quick and easy that won’t hurt your waistline, celebrity chef Rick Stein has created a dreamy mid-week dish that only needs a handful of ingredients and is perfect on a hot summer’s day.
His poached salmon with new potatoes and fresh cucumber salad comes from the chef’s classic 1997 book Fruits of the Sea.
He likes to serve the salmon still slightly pink, so it stays nice and moist, which his method of poaching is perfect for – and it avoids all the mess.
His website adds: “Try it at home for your fish-loving family – we’re sure they’ll be very keen indeed.”
For the recipe, you’ll need to create a court-bouillon, the fancy name for broth used to poach other foods in. Rick suggests adding six bay leaves, one teaspoon of pepper corns, one sliced carrot, one sliced onion, two tablespoons of salt, four tablespoons of white wine vinegar and three litres of water into a saucepan and bringing to a boil.
Leave to simmer away for 20 minutes to let the flavours fully release before gently adding in four salmon fillets.
Poach the fish in the water for around five to six minutes until perfectly tender and just starting to flake, and the fish is completely opaque – it is important to keep the water at a gentle simmer and not a boil.
Once done, take the fish out and leave it to rest. In the meantime, boil around 750g of new potatoes in salted water with a couple of sprigs of mint.
Cook until fork-tender, then drain and keep warm. Optionally, for richer potatoes, toss through a knob of butter along with a good pinch of salt and some freshly cracked pepper.
Next, peel a whole cucumber and slice it as thin as you can into discs; a mandolin works perfectly for this, but if not, a knife will work too. Finely chop two sprigs of mint and mix along with a tablespoon of white wine vinegar, and stir into the cucumber.
Finally, give everything another pinch of salt and pepper to taste and serve up alongside a good squeeze of lemon and a dollop of good-quality mayonnaise.
The dish is perhaps best served outside along with a glass of a full-bodied white wine such as a Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc or Pinot Noir.
