Tonight’s Dinner: Sake Salmon

Everyone’s used to drinking sake, that delicious rice wine, at Japanese restaurants, but what if you used it as a marinade for your salmon fillet? You’d get a delicious piece of fish for dinner.

I love sake. Whenever I go to a Japanese restaurant it’s the first thing I order. While I prefer cold sake to hot, the form doesn’t matter, I just want to taste that delicious elixir on my tongue. It’s a taste unlike any other, a taste that screams Japanese.

Just imagine how thrilled I was when I saw that Nigella Lawson had a recipe for a marinade that was sake based. Now I don’t have to go to a Japanese restaurant to enjoy that delicious sake flavor, I can have it right in my own home. And you can too.

If you’re worried that you won’t be able to find sake anywhere, don’t be. These days, sake is sold in practically every supermarket around. You can usually find it in the same aisle as the wines, and you don’t need to spend a lot of money either. A $10 bottle of sake will do just fine and there will be enough left over so that you can enjoy a glass with dinner.

The only advice I will give is if you don’t know what brand to get, do not get the sake that has a milky white film at the bottom. This tends to be a significanly sweeter sake and won’t work well with the salmon.

Sake Salmon

Ingredients

Marinade

• 1 teaspoon wasabi paste
• 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tablespoon sake
• 2 salmon fillets

Sauce for salmon

• 1/4 cup sake
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1/2 teaspoon rice vinegar
• 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1 teaspoon wasabi paste

Directions

1. In a large ziplock bag, combine the wasabi paste, Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, garlic, and sake; place salmon fillets in marinade and chill in the refrigerator for 20 to 30 minutes.
2. Heat a nonstick griddle or sear pan over medium heat and cook salmon fillets 2 minutes per side; set fillets on plate, cover with aluminium foil and let rest for 10 minutes.
3. While the salmon is resting, make the sauce; bring sake to a boil in a small saucepan; let boil for 1 minute to remove alcohol taste; remove sake from heat; whisk in rest of sauce ingredients.
4. Unwrap salmon and place on plates; ladle sauce over salmon and serve with some freshly steamed white rice.

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