Salmon with colourful veggie rice and a spicy chive sauce

I fancied fish today, but as we splashed out on a take away a couple of days ago, it had to be something really healthy. No rice or creamy sauce, although I wanted it to look like rice and creamy sauce. Time to call in the magician, in other words... fetch the food processor from the shed and get the yogurt out from the fridge.

Rice is something I absolutely love, but I tend to over-eat, so I try to avoid it if it isn't strictly necessary. In this case the salmon was the star of the show and the rice was only something to serve with. That meant I could safely swap it for blitzed vegetables. Even so, I wanted a tasty rice to go with the tasty fish. A snoop in the fridge drawer resulted in a few parsnips, carrots and a chunk of cabbage. That would do nicely. To make it even more interesting, I decided to add some leek and a red pepper. As much colour as possible to make it tempting looking meal.

As for the sauce, I half cheated today. No, it wasn't a shop bought sauce, but I had leftovers of yesterday's homemade harissa sauce. Today I added more Greek yogurt, more parsley, some dill and a squirt of lemon juice, alongside a big bunch of finely chopped chives. It came out nice.

This was a make it-it-up-as-you-go meal, not a recipe in sight. With a simple dinner like this, a recipe isn't needed. Scan your fridge and spice rack for seasoning options and follow your heart. Yesterday the yogurt sauce was really hot, but as I added more yogurt today, I was able to add a bit of heat to the rice without risking an exploding head. I decided on chilli paste (sambal oelek) and horseradish sauce.

Finally, for the salmon I used an unknown seasoning that I was given as a gift. It was called 'fishing luck' so I figured it would go with fish. There was no list of ingredients, but I spotted dill in the mixture. Apart from that, your guess is as good as mine.

To replicate this meal, you need:

fresh salmon fillets

fish seasoning of some sort

2 medium carrots

3 medium parsnips

a small chunk of cabbage

1 red pepper

1/2 small leek

1 tsp chilli paste

1 tsp horseradish sauce

lemon juice

salt & pepper

1. Season the salmon fillets, place them onto a baking tray covered with tin foil. Roast in the oven for 15-20 minutes at 200 degrees.

2. Cut the carrots, parsnips and cabbage into chunks.

3. Blitz the chunk to rice in a food processor.

4. Roughly chop the leek and pepper.

5. Soften the leek and pepper in a little oil in a frying pan.

6. Add the chilli paste and horseradish sauce and mix well.

7. Once the leek and pepper have softened, add the vegetable rice and stir well.

8. Season with salt and pepper and add the lemon juice. 

9. Stir and cook for a couple of minutes, until the vegetable rice is done. 

10. By now the salmon should be ready.

11. Serve and devour.

I really enjoyed this meal and practically inhaled it. I will definitely make it again. No, I didn't miss proper rice this time. The trick with using vegetable rice is to leave it with a crunch and don't over-cook it to a sloppy mess. Adding the extra vegetables helped with the crunch and can be recommended. They also made it look a lot tastier.