Salmon Ceviche

Inspired by Gordon Ramsay and a conversation about cooking with lemon juice, apparently it is called denaturing.

So it can be done. Following Gordon Ramsay's recipe i added a lime juice and instead of coriander i used dill which was awesome. It pretty much to taste so the proportions are not important =) Gordon's tip for slicing salmon by freezing it for 10 minutes really worked as well.

I think I could have stuck to the 10 minute time for soaking, but it was more 30-40 minutes but still the texture was chewy and soft at the same time. It was very interesting to see the salmon change colour as if it was actually cooking probably would have changed less if i kept to the time limit. mmmmm. i wonder.

Fast, yummy and interesting! a new winner.

So i used it to make a salad (a major weakness for me).
Rocket, little tiny tomatoes, crushed macadamia nuts, peach, nectarine, parmeasan cheese and the lemon dill salmon. Good times.

my first congee. looks right? =)

with much more flavoursome condiments. YUM.

Cu Cai Carot Chua (Pickled Carrot Strips Recipe)

This is the 2nd time I've done this after making it very successfully to accompany chinese roast pork. Not having pork rolls much these days I miss the vinegarised carrots so I decided to see if i could make them myself. So drawing from the following sites I kinda made my own combination which seems to work for me.

http://fooddownunder.com/cgi-bin/recipe.cgi?r=45679
http://www.vietnamese-recipes.com/vietnamese-recipes/salad/pickled-carrot-strips.php
http://southeastasianfood.about.com/od/starterss4/r/carradishpickle.htm

Ingredients
2 giant carrots
1 cup of water
1/2 cup of vinegar (apple cider vinegar or something)
4 spoons of sugar
3 spoons of salt
3 cloves of garlic (very finely diced)
2-3 chillis (very finely diced)

This is all combined in a bowl. Combine all the ingredients before dicing / slicing the carrots as they change colour when exposed, so you can bypass this if its the last step.

I really want to add turnips and shallots/onions into the mix for the next batch, but otherwise very happy with this, will try to always keep a bowl of it marinating in the fridge.