Smoked Tea Salmon with Baby Bok Choy

For the times when you can't be bothered to smoke your own salmon but you crave the flavour of cedar smoked salmon and you don't feel like splurging at a restaurant, this is the next best thing. What's great is that it takes little effort to make a fantastic smoky-tasting fish. The secret is the lapsang souchong tea - a Chinese smoked tea that smells like campfire. Without this tea, you don't get the instant smoky flavour. In this recipe the serving is for 1, although you can easily adapt it for more people by increasing the size of the salmon and bok choy.

Ingredients:

1 wild sockeye salmon fillet
2 baby bok choy bundles
1 tbsp canola oil
1 tsp dried chili flakes
1/2 tbsp soy sauce
3 cloves garlic
1 tbsp loose leaf lapsang souchong tea
fine sea salt
fresh ground pepper

Preparation:

Time in total: 20 minutes

Salmon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place salmon fillet skin-side down on aluminum foil. Sprinkle the salmon with the loose leaf tea and salt/pepper to taste. Wrap up salmon with foil and place in oven for 10-15 minutes or until cooked to your liking. For the last 2 minutes of cooking, unwrap the salmon. When it's cooked to your liking, take it out of the oven. You may wish to remove the majority of the tea leaves off the salmon after cooking, although I found it's unnecessary. The tea leaves add depth to the flavour. They can also have the texture of Japanese nori (which is also a nice compliment to salmon).

Bok choy

Break apart the bok choy leaves. Chop the garlic into large chunks. In a frying pan, heat the oil on medium-high. Once hot, add the boy choy and garlic and cook for 2-3 minutes until tender. Turn off heat and add chili flakes and soy sauce to the boy choy. Toss around so bok choy is coated evenly.


Once your bok choy and salmon are ready, place the bok choy on a plate and place the salmon on top, and you're good to go. That's it - a healthy tasty west coast meal in less time than it takes to order a pizza.