Broiled Salmon Teriyaki

Last night I made my quick and easy salmon teriyaki. This is part "from the store" and part "home-made" teriyaki. The home-made part is a soy-kaffir lime syrup from Ming Tsai's Simply Ming cookbook. I make up a batch of the soy-kaffir lime syrup and keep it in the fridge for this recipe.

Soy-Kaffir Lime Syrup

2 cups brown sugar

2 cups low sodium soy sauce

2 cups kecap manis (a thick soy sauce)

1 cup fresh lime juice

8 kaffir lime leaves, crushed

Ming Tsai says you can use 2 cups soy sauce plus 2 cups brown sugar to replace kecap manis if you can't find that, and the zest of a large lime to replace the kaffir lime leaves. If you have an Asian market near you or an international section in your supermarket you should be able to at least find the kecap manis.

In a non-reactive saucepan, combine the sugar, soy sauce, kecap manis, lime juice and kaffir lime leaves. Bring to a gentle simmer over medium heat, uncovered, being careful not to boil. Reduce the liquid by about half or until syrupy, 30-45 minutes. Strain syrup and let cool.

The "from the store" part of the recipe is two Kikkoman sauces from their Takumi Collection: Spicy Miso and Original. I love these sauces.

Broiled Salmon Teriyaki (serves 4)

4-6 ounce salmon fillets

1T soy-kaffir lime syrup

1T Kikkoman Takumi Spicy Miso Teriyaki Sauce

1T Kikkoman Takumi Original Teriyaki Sauce

Salt/Pepper

Olive Oil

In small bowl, mix together the soy-kaffir lime syrup, spicy miso teriyaki and original teriyaki.

Preheat broiler. Salt and pepper both sides of salmon fillets and lightly brush with olive oil. This will help prevent sticking. I broil bottom side (skin side if your fillet has skin) of salmon first, so place fillet with bottom side facing up. Broil for 3 minutes. Remove from oven and flip fillets over. Return to oven and broil for 4 minutes. Remove from oven and spoon sauce evenly over the fillets. Return to oven and broil for an 2 minutes. If you like your salmon less done, you can reduce broiling time number 2. We like a nice crunchy layer on the top of our salmon, so I find these timings work for me. Serving idea: brown rice and garlic broccoli.

What I'm Eating...

I'm toying with the idea of jumping on the "take a picture of everything I eat" bandwagon. We can blame the influx of new food bloggers on Mary!


Breakfast sandwich: 1 "everything" bagel thin, 1 1/2 hard boiled eggs (the doggies got the other 1/2), 1 slice of fat free cheese and 1 t butter; Iced decaf coffee with unsweetened vanilla almond breeze; water.

Wordless Wednesday

Blueberry Muffins

My fridge is full of all sorts of fruit, including 2 big containers of blueberries. What better thing to do than make muffins. This is my adaptation of the "Best Blueberry Muffins" recipe in the book Muffins by Elizabeth Alston.

Blueberriest Muffins (makes 12 muffins)

1/4 c butter, softened
1/4 c unsweetened applesauce
1/2 c Splenda
1/2 c egg beaters (or 2 eggs)
1 t vanilla
2 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
2 1/2 blueberries (1/2 c mashed with a fork)
1 c all purpose flour
1 c white whole wheat flour
1/2 c milk

Heat oven to 375 F. Spray muffin tin, including area between cups, with cooking spray.

In a medium sized bowl, beat butter until creamy.

Add in applesauce and continue to beat for 30 seconds.

Add in Splenda and beat until creamy. Since I used apple sauce for half of the butter, it won't be that creamy.

Beat in eggbeaters, or eggs if you're using them.

Beat in vanilla, baking powder, and salt.

Mix in the half cup of mashed blueberries.

With a spatula, fold in half of the flour...

And half of the milk...

And the second half of the flour...

And the rest of the milk

And then fold in the 2 cups of whole blueberries

These are seriously full of blueberries

Spoon into the muffin tins

And bake for 25-30 minutes, or until golden on top. Let cool before removing from tin.

I was out of white whole wheat flour, so I used regular whole wheat flour. It's like I added wheat germ to the recipe and it has extra crunch. They're totally delicious!

This is the face of a bunny killer

When Puppygirl needs to go out at night, invariably I'm the one who gets woken up to let her out. Around 3am last night was one of those occasions. Bleary-eyed, I turned off the alarm and let her and Shortstuff out to go potty. Shortstuff came back fairly quickly. Puppygirl did not. When she did show up to the back door, there she sat. Proudly. Next to her was a recently deceased bunny. My dog. The bunny killer.

This, unfortunately, is likely the now deceased bunny. I held a brief service for bunny this morning and buried her in the non-flower bed. Rest in peace little bunny, knowing that Puppygirl is in trouble today.

Chicken Tikka Masala

It's been a while since I did a recipe post, so without further ado, Chicken Tikka Masala. This is a quick and easy style recipe.

1 package of boneless, skinless chicken thighs
lowfat plain yogurt
ginger paste
minced garlic
Patak Tikka Masala paste
1 can diced tomatoes
1 medium onion, diced
1 glug of olive oil

Mix together 1 cup of yogurt, 1 T minced garlic, 1 T ginger paste and 4 T of the tikka masala paste.

Add in cubed boneless skinless chicken thighs. This is about 1 pound of chicken.

Mix together. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

After an hour, heat up a large, heavy pan on medium high. Add your glug of olive oil. Cook the diced onion about 10 minutes, until soft and golden. Sorry, I didn't get the picture of this step.

Stir in the chicken mixture. Turn the heat down to medium low. Cover pan and cook for about 20 minutes.

Add in the can of diced tomatoes. Stir well and cook for another 15-20 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked through.

Before serving, spoon in about half a cup of the yogurt. Many recipes call for heavy cream, but I used yogurt. One, because I had it, and two, because low fat yogurt is a lot healthier than heavy cream.

Serve on rice with peas. You can also serve with yogurt cucumber sauce.

Two of the Bestest Doggies Ever

Last Friday evening I got to spend a little time with two of the bestest doggies ever. Aside from my own furry children that is. Tueser and The Boy have moved to Arkansas ahead of Dog and God and The Alpha moving there. I will miss their furry faces.

Me and Tueser

Me and The Boy - with his going away present

Pretty Tueser

The Boy - actually sitting still! (Tueser "killed" the toy!)

Cohen

A day of blogging silence for Cohen