Salmon teriyaki

Salmon Teriyaki has and will probably always be one of my favorite things that my mom cooks. This has always been for as long as I can remember one of those iconic Sunday night dinners at home where my mom magically whips the sauce together hours before dinner and lets the salmon steak sit for a couple hours before my dad pops them on the grill. Then she will microwave the rest of the marinade to have as a sauce (mostly because she's got sides cooking on every burner of the stove). My dad and I inevitably end up licking our plates with my mom yelling at one of us. Now my brother eats it too, thankfully. When he was younger this was the recipe that fooled him into thinking we were eating steak, something he had just learned to like. We all heavily insisted that he was wrong but he threw a fit until he got to have some. Immediately his face was all askew in disgust and that was the end of salmon and steak for him for a long long time. I don't marinate my salmon as long as my mom does, nor am I quite content with my sauce, but in the end it is still finger-licking good. I will continue to work on it over the months, but at least I know that I can easily have a little piece of home any night of the week, which is quite a relief when work still gives me it own wonderful sort of knot in my stomach. I didn't even have any ginger tonight or a grill and this dish still turned out amazing.

Ingredients:

1 lb salmon fillet (or salmon steaks)

1/3 c. soy sauce

2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar

2 1/2 tablespoons cider vinegar

2 tablespoons sugar

1 tablespoon minced ginger

1 teaspoon minced garlic

Serve with rice and veggies (that is the simplest, naturally in my mental image of home we always have much more extravagant sides).

Take all of the ingredients except the salmon, and mix them together in a small sauce pan over medium heat. Cook until the sugar dissolves stirring occasionally. Then let the mixture bubble until it is reduced to about a half of a cup. Now I know Lien, you are probably thinking "How in the world do I know what half a cup looks like." So really you just want to let it cook long enough so it your sauce is starting, I repeat, STARTING to get thicker and more like a syrup. You want it to be like this so you know all the flavors have mingled together. Turn off the heat and let this cool until it gets down to room temperature again. You can do that by either sticking the pot in a bowl with ice, sticking it in the fridge, or just letting it cool down. It kind of depends on what kind of a rush you are in. The ice will work the fastest. Once it is cooled pour it over your salmon and make sure it coats all the sides of the fish. Let it stand at room temperature for at least 15 minutes. I did it for about 30-40 minutes tonight and that was great.

Then put about 1 tablespoon of oil in a skillet and let it heat up over medium high heat. You want the oil to start to shimmer. Put your salmon in the pan. Reserve the marinade in the dish you had the salmon in for later. Let the fish cook for 2 and 1/2 minutes on each side. This should be just perfect, but you can check your salmon by cutting it where it is the thickest. If that part of the salmon is just barely translucent or opaque still, then the rest of your salmon should be perfect, so start taking it off with the thinest piece first.

Pour off the oil into a glass jar for proper disposal. Oil should never go down the drain. Then put the marinade in the pan and let it heat up. You will want to reduce it again, so it gets to be more the consistency of maple syrup. Like this all the garlic and ginger pieces will get nice and caramelized and the sauce will be perfect for pouring over your salmon.

Once your sauce is to a consistency of your liking, drizzle it over the salmon steaks. Then enjoy!