Ingredient 30 - Pickled Ginger

Pickled ginger or Gari as the Japanese would say is a sweet, thinly sliced young ginger, pickled in a sugar and vinegar solution.

Homemade pickled ginger resembles a pale yellow to slightly pink colour, whereas the commercially bought ginger at the supermarket is often psychedelic pink from artificial coloring.

It is most commonly served with sushi to help enhance the flavours, but can be eaten between different servings of sushi to help cleanse and neutralize the palate before the next flavour injection.

So for the fellow sushi lovers out there – enjoy this delicious salad!

Salmon and Pickled Ginger Sushi Salad

1 salmon fillet – skin off

1 medium sweet potato

2 tbsp olive oil

1 cup sushi rice

2 cups cold water

3 spring onions

½ continental cucumber

1 large handful snowpeas

½ avocado

½ red onion

1 handful of baby spinach leaves

¼ cup pickled ginger, drained

Dressing: (optional – can just use soy sauce)

½ lime

4 tbsp rice seasoning

1 tbsp fish sauce

1 tbsp sweet chilli sauce

• Preheat oven to 180.
• Remove skin of sweet potato and slice across width into 1cm thick pieces, then half again forming semicircles.
• Arrange sweet potato on baking tray, drizzle with olive oil and roast in oven for 20min or until tender.
• Rinse the sushi rice under tap water at least 3 times until water is clear to remove extra starch. Place in a rice cooker with 2 cups of tap water and cook according to machine. Once finished remove immediately, spread across a tray and sprinkle with 3tbsp rice seasoning. Stir well and place in freezer for 20min or until cool.
• Heat a frypan over medium heat. Sear the salmon steak on each side for a minute until crisp. Place in the oven for a further 10min until cooked. Allow to stand for 10min to cool, before flaking the fillet into small pieces with a fork.
• Slice the shallots thinly in white and thicker in dark green sections. Chop the cucumber thinly into circles. Top and tail the snow peas and half lengthways.  Roughly chop the spinach leaves. Slice the avocado into long thick pieces and drizzle with a little lime juice to prevent browning prior to serving.
• Drain the pickled ginger and roughly chop.
• To make the dressing, which is optional, combine remaining rice seasoning, fish sauce, sweet chilli sauce and lime juice in a jar and shake well.
• To arrange the salad lay the rice on a large serving platter. Mix in the salad ingredients, lay the salmon on top, sprinkle with pickled ginger and drizzle over some dressing.
• Serve with extra soy sauce, lime and chopped chillis.