Thai Coconut-Curried Salmon with Watercress

/ Tuesday, May 5, 2015



This salmon recipe is a stress-relieving brain food for the sweet tooth. "Sweet tooth?" you say, "that looks way too healthy for my sweet tooth." Wrong! Ask anyone in my family, and they will tell you I have a sweet tooth. This cancer fighting brian food is no doubt healthy, but it also packs a punch in sweetness, flavor, and creaminess! As well as a whole host of other things, Salmon is an excellent choice for brain function, if it's wild caught (farmed Salmon may include residues of veterinary medicines, and other things your body doesn't need). The coconut milk found in the broth also aids the brain by helping to ward off Alzheimer's, as well as being an immunity booster, and watercress (a vegetable I never thought to try until I stumbled across this recipe), is similarly an excellent immunity booster  and helps fight against certain cancers. If you want to know more about specific foods and how they affect certain aspects of your health, the book Healing Foods, published by DK in 2013, is a wonderful resource. 

To preface, I am not a doctor, I am just a girl that has a huge interest and does lots of research on the topic of food to take responsibility for my own health. To read more about my story, feel free to visit My Story page to hear more about how I became so stoked about local farm fresh and organic ingredients vs. genetically modified and processed foods. The exciting thing about this blog is, you will never find food made with ingredients you can't understand, and I will always try to break down the steps for you to make it as easy to follow as possible. Also, because of my love of food and eating, I will only include recipes I have made several times, and each time they have brought both my husband and I immense joy.

Isn't it so exciting looking at, smelling, and tasting real, fresh, organic ingredients?! I mention God a lot, because he is my rock, and because like putting sand in a gas tank, if one introduces foods to the body that were not designed for humans to begin with, I fully believe the body will stop functioning the way it was naturally intended to function. Based on what I have read and personally experienced throughout my life, I have come to the conclusion that  this is why Childhood Obesity, Diabetes, Alzheimer's and many other diseases are on the rise... from weird oils and processed sugars we wouldn't be comfortable scooping up and spreading on our toast. Can I hear an amen? I'm sorry, but I don't fully know everything about genetically modified soybean oil and high fructose corn syrup, but if you handed me a jar of it, there's no way that thing is going anywhere near my toast...so why would I eat it in anything else??  I know many of you are fed up with being fooled by food that isn't actually food, so if you are, this recipe is for you... and here's how you make it:


I know you may be confused as to why there is a can in this pile of ingredients after my super long speech, but It is nothing other than pure Organic Coconut Milk (filled with heart healthy fats, contrary to past popular belief), and the jar is pure Clam Juice. So, to start with, I learned once when I took a culinary arts course during my senior year of high school, that the most important thing in cooking is to gather your "mise en place." The "mis en who?" it's just a french cooking phrase for  "pile of pre-measured ingredients."  Gathering and measuring out your ingredients ahead of time, as well as cleaning as you go (which I have still yet to master :)), makes cooking much easier and much more enjoyable, as you aren't scrambling about while the food is burning, trying to look for utensils or chop produce while your water is bubbling over.


After everything is diced and chopped, heat the coconut oil on medium-high heat. Add the onion and curry powder; saute 4 minutes. Add the next 7 ingredients (coconut milk through clam juice) scraping off the the spices and onion on the bottom of the pan as you stir. Bring to a boil; reduce heat, and simmer 3 minutes.


Add fish evenly spaced throughout; cover and cook 4 minutes.


While the fish is cooking, take your bunch of watercress, holding the top of the bunch, chop off the bottom half with all of the stems. The stems are fine to eat, I am just a major texture person, and too many stems get too stringy for me. 



 After the fish has cooked for 4 minutes, sprinkle the watercress tops with all of the beautiful leaves over the top of the fish; cover and cook 4 more minutes or until the fish flakes easily with a fork.



Voila! The first time I served this, I served it over rice...as it isn't a soup, it's more just fish floating in a flavorful broth, so I thought I should serve it on top of rice as I would a salmon fillet...that was a bad idea. The rice soaked up all the flavor, and it wasn't as sweet and creamy. Serve it in a bowl all together like a soup as you see here, and add a healthy starchy carb on the side, such as organic bread with a dollop of butter, or sweet potato to leave you completely satisfied.

Ingredients

2  teaspoons Organic Coconut Oil (non-organic may be partially hydrogenated; Coconut oil is
    much healthier than vegetable/canola oil, and tastes great with this recipe).
1  cup sliced onion
2  teaspoons curry powder
1  cup organic coconut milk (I used mine from a can, and it needed to be stirred).
2  tablespoons brown cane sugar
1  tablespoon fresh squeezed lime juice
1  tablespoon fresh ginger, minced
1/2 teaspoon chile sauce with garlic
1  (8 oz.) bottle clam juice
1  (1 lb.) salmon fillet, skinned, and cut into 3/4 in. cubes
1  bunch trimmed watercress, about 3 cups worth

Preparation

Heat coconut oil  in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onion and curry powder; saute 4 minutes. Add coconut milk and the next 7 ingredients (coconut milk through clam juice). Bring to a boil; reduce heat, and simmer 3 minutes. Add fish; cover and cook 4 minutes. Arrange watercress evenly over fish; cover and cook 4 minutes or until fish flakes easily with a fork

Recipe adapted from Thai Coconut-Curried Salmon with Greens, found on My Recipes





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