Baked Spicy Korean Salmon

I must confess, I have a really bad grocery shopping habit – whenever I see an item on sale, I will buy a few of these items and store them in my cupboard. Let’s take canned tomatoes for example. I tend to buy 2 to 4 cans at one go when they are on sale, but after using one or two of them, I will forget about the rest of them. Then I will buy canned tomatoes again, despite still having them in my cupboard. And worse of all, some of these canned tomatoes managed to expire – and canned food are supposed to have a long shelf life! I can’t imagine how long they have been in the cupboard…

My mom lectured me numerous times over this issue because it’s such a huge wastage of food. So nowadays, I try to do a just-in-time shopping technique, to only buy when I want to use it. If a particular item is on sale, I will change what I want to cook so that I will utilise it immediately instead of stocking up unnecessarily. Also, I try cleaning out my cupboard once in a while (usually it’s only once a year) to check if there are any items that are going to expire, so that I can plan to use it immediately.

How do you keep track of the things you buy so that wastage is minimised? Would love to hear some tips from you!

So… what does this have to do with the recipe?

Well, while cleaning out my cupboard a few months back, I found a tub of gochujang and ssamjang – and remembered it was gifted to me by my friend last year (*horrors*). Luckily these sauces have not passed their expiry dates, otherwise it would have been such a waste! So for the next few months, you will probably see Korean/fusion recipes popping up, using these sauces.

Gochujang (고추장)
Gochujang, usually translated as Hot Pepper Paste, is a Korean condiment made from red chili, glutinous rice, fermented soybeans and salt. It is dark red in colour, and tastes spicy and salty. It is heavily used in many Korean dishes – in soups, stir-frys, barbeque and even in dips. It is often packed in red colour tubs.

Ssamjang (쌈장)
Ssamjang is a thick and spicy paste that we always see when eating Korean barbeque. I love spreading a thick layer of ssamjang on my Korean barbeque beef before wrapping it with a piece of lettuce and some garlic slices. It is often packed in green colour tubs. It is rarely used in cooking so I haven’t figured out what to do with it yet…

Back to the salmon! This recipe is very easy to put together as except for gochujang, the rest are common household ingredients. And best of all the salmon is cooked in an oven in less than 20 minutes! If you don’t feel like whipping up a rosti (which was what I served with), you can simply serve it over a bed of salad leaves – a very healthy and simple meal.

And here’s how to make it!

Step-by-step Photos
1) Here are the cast of ingredients!	2) Combine all the marinade ingredients together.
3) Rinse and pat dry the salmon fillets and place in a baking dish.	4) Pour over the marinade, coat well and bake until done - it's that easy!

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Baked Spicy Korean Salmon

Serves 2

By Jasline N.

0.511.523

INGREDIENTS

 

• ▢ 2 tablespoon gochujang
• ▢ 1 tablespoon sugar, omit if you like a spicier kick
• ▢ 1 tablespoon honey
• ▢ 1 tablespoon light soy sauce
• ▢ 1 tablespoon sesame oil
• ▢ 2 salmon fillets

INSTRUCTIONS

• Preheat oven to 200 degrees Celsius.
• Combine gochujang, sugar, honey, soy sauce and sesame oil in a small bowl. Set aside.
• Rinse and pat dry the salmon fillets with kitchen paper. Don't remove the skin as it will help to hold the meat together.
• Place the salmon fillets in a baking tin and pour the gochujang mixture over. Coat the salmon fillets well with the sauce and bake for 15 to 20 minutes until salmon is done.

NOTES

- Adapted from The Cooking Guy

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