Colm O'Gorman: Baked Salmon with Gochujang and Roast Baby Vegetables

I have another super simple recipe for you this week, something fresh and delicious that you can prepare and cook in about twenty to twenty-five minutes, and which is perfect for a quick lunch or dinner over the holidays. Once you have had your fill of rich and indulgent food over Christmas week, this is exactly the kind of light but delicious and nutritious meal you may find yourself craving. It also proves that light and healthy does not need to be dull. This beautiful salmon dish is packed full of flavour thanks to my favourite chilli sauce, Korean gochujang.

Regular readers will by now be familiar with my gochujang obsession. This beautiful Korean condiment is savoury, sweet, and spicy. Made with fresh garlic, soybean paste, honey, a splash of cider vinegar and red pepper chilli powder, it works beautifully with the salmon and roasted baby vegetables in this dish. You can buy gochujang readymade from most Asian supermarkets, but if you want to make your own, and I highly recommend that you do, home-made gochujang is very easy to make but also much tastier than the premade variety. I shared my recipe for homemade gochujang just a few weeks ago in this column as part of my recipe for Korean Spicy Fried Rice Cakes. You can find that online at ieFood.

This recipe can be easily adapted to use whatever vegetables you have to hand. I used baby carrots, baby corn, baby tomatoes, asparagus, and some red pepper, but you could substitute a few of those for thickly cut slices of courgette, wedges of red onion, sugar snap peas or whatever else is available. I advise that you always include the cherry tomatoes though as they bring a lovely, sweet pop of freshness to the dish. If you want to bulk out the meal a little, some roasted baby potatoes would be lovely to accompany the main salmon dish. Parboil the potatoes until they are tender, then toss them in some olive oil and flaky sea salt and pop them in the oven to roast for fifteen minutes before you put the salmon in to bake. Thirty minutes should be plenty of time to lightly roast the potatoes which you can then serve as a side dish.

This recipe serves four but is very simple to adapt for fewer or more people. I have often made it for just myself, baking a single fillet of salmon with a few handfuls of vegetables tossed in gochujang. It could not be simpler to prepare.

Baked Salmon with Gochujang and Roast Baby Vegetables

recipe by:Colm O'Gorman

A delicious, healthy meal that is packed full of flavour and which looks amazing in just twenty to twenty-five minutes and with very little effort. Just perfect.

Servings

4

Preparation Time

 25 mins

Cooking Time

 15 mins

Total Time

 40 mins

Course

 Main

Cuisine

 Korean

Ingredients

• 4 fillets of salmon

• 125g baby carrots

• 125g cherry tomatoes

• 1 red pepper

• 8 asparagus spears

• 125g baby sweetcorn

• 4 tbsp gochujang

• 2 spring onions

• Small handful fresh coriander

Method

1. Heat your oven to 180 Celsius for a fan oven. Wash the vegetables. Trim the woody ends from the asparagus spears, before cutting them into two- to three-centimetre-long pieces. Clean the baby carrots, trimming the tops to leave a little of the stalk on each on for decoration. Bring a pan of water to the boil and blanch the carrots for three to four minutes, then drain them into a colander and rinse under cold water.

2. Put all the vegetables, apart from the spring onions into a bowl and add two tablespoons of gochujang. Mix well until the vegetables are well coated in the chilli sauce. Trim the spring onions, chop them finely and set them aside until you are ready to serve.

3. Pop the salmon fillets onto a roasting tray and spread the remaining gochujang evenly across the top of each fillet of fish. Arrange the vegetables around the salmon, taking care not to crowd the tray. You want them in a single layer so that they roast evenly and still leave the salmon enough room to bake perfectly. If necessary, use a second tray for some of the vegetables.

4. Now pop the tray into the oven and roast for twelve to fifteen minutes until the salmon is perfectly cooked. By then your vegetables should be lovely, slightly roasted but left with a little crunch and full of flavour. Do take care not to overcook the salmon, you want it just cooked through but still lovely and moist.

5. Once the salmon is done, you are ready to plate up. Place each fillet of salmon onto a warm plate. Add some of the roast vegetables, arranging them around the fish. Scatter some chopped spring onion and some fresh coriander leaves over each plate and serve immediately.