Thai Salmon Salad with Yam Dressing

I think many people agree when I say that moving out from an apartment can be so nerve-wrecking. Today it’s been (again) so incredibly beautiful day that it would have felt like a waste to spend it indoors. That is because here up North you can never know if the summer lasts for three months, three weeks or three days. That’s why every day of warmth and sun should be embraced like it was the last one.

Another reason to get out of the apartment today was of course to say good-byes for now to all the friends. As I don’t know when will we meet again, even though I know that day is not so far away. I felt slightly sad anyway, those people have been very important during the months here, where me an S don’t practically know more than a handful of people. So now, after a day in the sun with friends our apartment is still a total mess, which means  tomorrow we can only hope it will be cold and rainy! Because tomorrow for me means scrubbing, rubbing, wiping, washing, vacuuming, arranging, and finally, packing.

To the point: Sun usually makes me less hungry, which is great, because I sometimes feel my stomach is bottomless. So tonight our dinner was salad. I love salads and I would like to have more of them, but for some reason S is not completely agreeing in this. I assume for a man a salad for dinner is not quite enough to feel satisfied. And because it doesn’t make much sense to prepare different food for each of us, we rarely have salads. This time the inspiration for the salad came from my dear friend who one day gave me a coconut. So of course I had to prepare something out of it! I have never opened a coconut, but luckily the South American of the house knows how to do the thing. And so beautifully it opened, like an egg, by just using a knife. I’m impressed!

I’m also so happy we decided to use the coconut in exactly this dish, because I think we found a new favorite again! Underlining the word we, as S loved it too. I might have told he’s a big fan of Thai food, after I introduced him to the wonders of this intriguing cuisine. This salad was a nice change for our weekly red/green/yellow/massaman/panang curry tradition.

The recipe I took from the newest edition of a Finnish magazine Olivia, and as it’s not online (at least yet), here it comes for you to take and save in your archives! The original recipe calls for fresh mint, but as our market had run out of it, I substituted it with a same amount of fresh coriander.

Thai Salmon Salad with Yam Dressing (serves 3, or 2 very hungry ones)

400g fresh salmon fillet

0,5 teaspoon salt

1 shallot onion

1dl grated coconut

1 English cucumber

100g long green beans

big bunch of lettuce of your choice (NOT iceberg), roughly torn

1dl fresh mint, chopped

For the dressing:

1-3 small, very hot chillies, thinly sliced

3 kaffir lime leaves (frozen or fresh, I used frozen), cut into thin strips

1 teaspoon fresh chili paste, like sambal oelek or alike (use more if your chillies are not hot)

5 tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice

4 tablespoons Thai fish sauce

4 tablespoons coconut cream

2 tablespoons palm sugar

Whisk together the ingredients of the dressing and refrigerate.

Open the coconut. Now I did not do this, like I told, so I cannot really tell how to do it. But I googled and found many tutorials which show the proper way to open your coconut, so you might wanna take a look in case you’re not already a pro in this :-) Grate the coconut.

Thinly slice the shallot and cut the cucumber into 0,5cm strips. Boil the beans in a saucepan for 3 minutes, drain, let cool and cut in 2-3 pieces.

Spread the lettuce on the serving plate and top with cucumbers, green beans, shallots, grated coconut and chopped mint. 

Cut the salmon fillet into strips (about 2cm x 4cm) and sprinkle with salt. Heat up a teflon coated skillet over a medium-high heat and cook the salmon pieces quickly, about half to one minute on each side without oil or butter.

Pour the dressing on the salad base and place the salmon pieces on top. Garnish with some fresh coriander.