The Food Site

Salmon is probably one of my favourite fishes. No, wait. It is probably the only fish I don’t tire of cooking! So, when I went and bought a packet of sweet basil (don’t you just love the sweet, sharp scent of it?), I know it will go splendidly with salmon.

So, I did sorta went overboard and used basil and salmon to cook three different dishes within the space of two days.

Fried Noodles with Salmon and Sweet Basil Recipe

Ingredients

200g salmon, cut into squares

1 cup basil

1 large carrot, sliced thinly

1 cup green leafy vegetables, chopped into small pieces

2 tbsp diced garlic

2 tbsp oyster sauce

1 tbsp sea salt (or 1 tbsp light soy sauce)

100g noodles, cooked (boil a pot of water, put the noodles in and let it simmer for about 10 minutes, then drain)

Instructions

1. Season the salmon with the salt.

2. Heat up the wok/ frying pan with about 1 tbsp olive oil. Sautée the garlic till fragrant. Then add in the salmon and the basil. Stir fry for a while before adding the carrots.

3. Stir fry till the salmon is browned on both sides.

4. Add in the noodles.

5. Add in the green vegetables.

6. Add in the sauce and stir to mix it well. You don’t really need much sauces as the salmon, basil, carrots and green vegetables have given the noodles a really great taste. Since I used green tea noodles that absorbs moisture pretty fast, I also added about 1/2 cup water while stir frying the noodles.

Now, the exact same method with the exact same ingredients could be used for…

Fried Rice with Salmon and Basil

Finally, if fried rice or fried noodles aren’t really your thing. You can still make one other dish with salmon and basil, that is:

Simple Stir Fried Salmon and Basil Recipe

Ingredients

200g salmon, cut into squares

1 cup basil

4 tbsp diced garlic

1 tbsp oyster sauce

1 tsp sea salt (or 1 tsp light soy sauce)

Instructions

1. Season the salmon with salt. Heat up the wok with cooking oil.

2. Sautée the garlic till fragrant and then add the salmon, basil and the sauce.

3. Just stir fry till the salmon is cooked through and browned. Remove and serve while hot.

Stir fried salmon and basil

So, how do you like your salmon?

Back when I was younger, I always loved chewing on bits of cut sugar cane (after removing the skin and chopping it into tiny pieces) for its sweet juice before spitting the pulp out. It was like the healthy version of chewing gum. But, of course, at that age, I didn’t know it was healthier than sweets or chewing gum. I only knew it was sweet and fun to chew on.

I think I’ve not chewed on raw sugar cane for years already now. Even recently when we got a few stalks of sugar cane, I forgot all about keeping some to chew. Instead, we had taken it to a sugar cane stall and had the juice extracted.

Now, after reading up about it, I realised that sugar cane do have a few nutrients that I previously didn’t know about. Although it is where sugar came from and processed white sugar aren’t healthy at all, the fresh raw sugar cane is entirely another matter. I’d have to say that we humans intervened and made it unhealthy.

Here are the:

Health benefits of sugar cane

• fresh raw sugar cane has less calories than refined sugar or syrup
• it is pretty good for digestion and can also work as a mild laxative due to its high potassium content.
• It is also high in magnesium, calcium and riboflavin (Vitamin B2).
• Traditionally, drinking sugar cane juice is good to ‘cool’ down the body especially during hot, humid weather like what we have here.
• Best of all is that the fresh sugar cane juice is sweet to drink but it is not as bad / unhealthy as drinking syrup!

Ahh…drinking a glass of sugar cane juice sure do hit the spot every time, especially during extremely hot, airless, windless days.