Sesame Salmon & Vegetables with Creamy Tikka Sauce

 

 

The other night I was so tired, and really didn't feel like cooking dinner. I was very tempted to just give in and buy fish and chips. But I pulled myself together and dug a couple of salmon steaks out of the freezer, popped them into some salty water to thaw out, and began chopping veges. In thirty minutes (yes, 30 minutes!) we sat down to this absolutely delicious meal. Thank goodness for my Thermomix. There's hardly ever an excuse to have takeaway when you have a Thermomix... you can have a restaurant quality meal in half an hour.

I thought I'd better write the recipe down so I remember what I did for next time. So here it is - try it next time you don't feel like cooking!

 

[Note: I had leftover cooked quinoa in the fridge, so I served the salmon and veges on that. You could even leave that out and just serve it on salad greens; or you could cook the quinoa in the rice basket while the sauce, fish and veges are cooking. An all-in-one meal!]

1. Cube salmon, drizzle with tamari and sesame oil, set aside.

- 2 or 3 salmon steaks, cut into 2 cm cubes

- tamari & sesame oil, to taste

2. Chop up some veges and place in Varoma dish:

- carrots, sliced

- broccoli, in small florets

- orange sweet potato, cubed (optional)

3. Place cubed salmon on top of veges. Drizzle a little more sesame oil and tamari over the veges if you like. Sprinkle with sesame seeds.

4. Pour into bowl of Thermomix:

- 400g coconut cream or milk

- 400g water

5. If you're cooking quinoa at the same time, weigh the dry quinoa into the rice basket, rinse well, then place in bowl:

- 350g quinoa

   Place lid on bowl, set Varoma dish on top, and cook at Varoma temp for 20 minutes, speed 4.

6. Check that everything's cooked, set Varoma dish onto its' lid (to catch drips), and tip quinoa into a serving dish. Add the following to the juices left in the bowl and whiz up on speed 9 for a minute:

- a handful or two of raw cashews (depending how thick you want the sauce)

- 2 cloves of garlic

- about a cm of raw ginger (optional)

- a teaspoon of vege stock paste

- a large tablespoon (or two) of tikka paste (homemade, from the *Thermomix Indian cookbook.)

- a teaspoon of Rapadura (or honey)

- a dash of tamari

*This is the best tikka paste EVER - you need the Indian cookbook even if it's just for this recipe!! Oh, and also for the awesome Butter Chicken recipe. :)

7. Serve quinoa onto the plates, top with some raw baby spinach, then the salmon and veges, then the sauce.