Faking It in the Kitchen
  • Recipe Blog
  • Gallery
  • Featured On
  • About Me

All-Green Zucchini Noodle Salad with pan seared Salmon

9/15/2016

2 Comments

 

Ok, so they're not really noodles, but damn they're delicious. 

Picture

Living in Los Angeles can be a magical thing. The weather is always beautiful, you’re a stone’s throw from the beach and when the urge to slalom down snow-kissed mountains strikes, you’re never really more than two hours away from après ski. I mean, skiing. You’re never more than two hours away from skiing. 
But living in Los Angeles can be exhausting, too. It is the birth place of so many trends, fads and philosophies that range from the rational to the downright ridiculous, that, in a place where it’s already hard to keep your head on your shoulders, it’s even harder to keep it on straight. 
This is particularly true when it comes to food and diet. It’s a zoo out here and I swear, the rules change every week. 
If you thought, for example, that the act of separating peas and carrots on a plate was simply the neurotic behavior of the under-10s, and that it eventually just gives way to the realization that everything ends up in the same place anyway, you’re quite mistaken. 
Here we separate, substitute and eliminate according to the latest ‘it’ doctor, hot celebrity or current moon phase. Yup, we take our cues from Bieber and how the moon pulls the tides, in equal measure, because life’s about balance. 
We will happily tell you that a gluten-free noodle ‘tastes so much like the real thing, you’ll never know the difference,’ and that ‘most things actually taste better steamed and unseasoned.’ But believe me, we’ve rehearsed that. We’ve spent many meals forcing down chewy, spongey noodles with flavor akin to cardboard, and a fair few fillets o’ fish you wouldn’t serve to your cat, in the name of health. 
Don’t get me wrong - I subscribe to a fair amount of it. Search my cupboard, and you’ll find a lot of acronyms.  GF, DF and Non-GMO feature prevalently as elements on the periodic table that is my diet. It’s hard not to join in. It’s hard to be the only person ordering a steak in a vast sea of herbivores, staring at you, wishing they’d had a chance to adopt the cow you’re eating, before it made its fateful journey to your plate. 
I won’t go totally 'celebrity' on you and pretend my go-to snack is an In ’n Out burger with a cupcake chaser (they’re lying, by the way), but, dammit, if I'm going to go all California-clean, it has to taste good.
Food and flavor mean a lot to me, and sacrificing them is not an option. No, I won't do a big bowl of noodles on the reg (because, well, my out-of-whack immune system can't handle it), but I will do a big bowl of zucchini noodles mixed with every other green vegetable I can get my hands on, top it with salmon, and tell myself 'it tastes just like the real thing.'
It doesn't
But it's so damn good anyway. 

Ingredients:
  • 1 large zucchini
  • 1 green tomato, thinly sliced
  • 1/2 a Persian cucumber, thinly sliced
  • 1/2 an avocado, thinly sliced
  • Handful baby mustard greens
  • 1/2 a lemon
  • 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, divided
  • 1 single portion salmon fillet*
  • Raw pumpkin seeds, to garnish
  • Salt and pepper, to taste

Using a spiralizer, turn your zucchini into noodles and combine them with the tomato, cucumber, avocado and mustard greens in a large bowl.

Pour over your lemon juice and 1 tablespoon olive oil and toss the ingredients, so that everything is well coated. Season the salad with salt and pepper.

Season your salmon fillet with salt and pepper and heat your pan to medium-high heat, adding the remaining olive oil. Cook the fish 3-4 minutes per side. I like mine a little under, so I keep it to 3, but if you like your fish cooked through, do the full 4 minutes. 

As it's a cold salad, I let the fish come to room temp before placing it on top, but you can certainly eat it warm over the 'noodles' if you prefer. 

Once you've added your salmon, sprinkle on a few pumpkin seeds and voila! You're basically eating a big bowl of pasta with meat sauce. 
No, you're not.
But I'm pretty sure you'll love it anyway. 

*If it's just me, I'll usually ask the fishmonger to cut me a fillet of salmon that weighs in at just over a 1/4 lb, from the thickest part of the fish. Often you'll find precut fillets in the fish department that weigh in at about 5-6oz. 
2 Comments
Anne-Constance link
9/16/2016 09:10:58 am

Love this recipe. Love the honesty. Love the 411 on LA!

Reply
Tess link
9/16/2016 09:22:55 am

So glad you like it, Anne-Constance! It's definitely a favorite of mine!

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Picture


    ​Tess Panzer

    Tess Panzer is a chef, food stylist and blogger in Los Angeles. She spends her time cooking for friends, family and anyone who happens to pass through her kitchen.
    Born in Denmark, she has strong ties to her Scandinavian roots, but after 11 years in California, she's well aware that almost everything tastes better with just a little avocado. 

      let's stay in touch!

    Subscribe


    ​Archives

    September 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016

    Categories

    All
    Breakfast
    Cake
    Dessert
    Dinner
    Drinks
    Eggs
    Fish
    Fruit
    Glutn-free
    Holiday
    Lunch
    Musings
    Pasta
    Pork
    Salads
    Snacks
    Soup
    Vegetables

    RSS Feed

  • Recipe Blog
  • Gallery
  • Featured On
  • About Me