Under 1 hour – a hearty meal for 2

I was supposed to do my dinner food shopping during lunch, but I didn’t. What can I say a life in an agency does not necessary stick to strict and concrete hours. So I was under pressure. My ban trai already sent me an SMS asking what’s for tea?

Sneaked out of work around 6:15pm, my attempt to hit Ben Thanh market was gone. With the idea in mind, previously I was missing the kind of potatoes/smoke haddock/leek soup I used to make in Scotland, so I went to Veggies to grab last min items, all done in 15min and was back home ready to cook at 7 sharp.

So here is what I bought at the deli:

1. A massive piece of fresh salmon, with skin on (since they dont have removed one)

2. Hand pick some loose tomatoes, ripe ones

3. Potatoes about 4 and 1 leek stalk

5. 2 large white onions, 1 glass bottle of capers small size, a bunch of dill, fish stock from Knorr, cream

For the morning: eggs, mushroom, probably will use some left over tomatoes, rye bread, and butter, Anchor of course.

In a poorly equipped kitchen with minimal help (not from the human kind), I just had to make do with what I have, so no salt today but lucky the fish stock will have some. I used the last few bits of salt to put in the boiling water for potatoes already, which were dice roughly, same with onions and ring cut the leeks.

Method:

Boil the potatoes, then add in the leek and some onions. The rest of the onions quickly fry in butter until it coloured a bit, add into the soup.  Throw in fish stock, lower the heat down.

For the salad type, ring cut the tomatoes, but them back into the fridge to reserve the coldness. Quickly fry off the salmon. Although it was  ‘fresh’ I think they probably just defrost the fish.  Normally I would not even cook raw fresh salmon, in this case,  just cooked and dont leave for too long. Ah I dont like the skin so much so skin is off.

For the salmon pieces, cut them into chunk and also fry them off quickly and put into the pot with roughly chopped dill. Season to taste. Last min, spoon in some cream, stir to mix well and serve straight away with the salad. This is a wonderful evening autumn dish that is so easy to do, max cooking and prep time is 30min. Very light but hearty enough to fill one’s hunger. Especially yummy when food is cooked in the brand new Zwilling pots and pan.

This reminds me much of Scotland and the cold winter nights when you cant be bothered to cook much, the smoke haddock is almost not replaceable but here the light dill fragrant and the tenderness and soft salmon contrast with the harder  texture of the vegie is almost addicted. A glass of white wine would be great if any. In fact you can flambe the salmon in a splash of white wine and drink what’s left in the bottle while eating the soup. This dish you can also find in a corner shop in Dusseldorf (not the idiot village) called Gosch, but the fishes wont be this fresh and quality. A typical northern Germany fish soup but made in Vietnam for 2.

(Photography: Half done by me, largely by the ban trai, with no pro requirement)