Seared Salmon and Napa Cabbage With Warm Lemon-Soy Dressing

A Savory Mix

Seared Salmon and Napa Cabbage With Warm Lemon-Soy Dressing | Dara O’Brien

By Dara O’Brien
Creative Director, Lake Isle Press

The chance that I will have a salad for my main meal, especially when I am dining out, is I would say, nil. Lunch, maybe. But for dinner? Nope.

Despite my ongoing tilt toward a more plant-based diet, when I want something substantial, cold or room temperature food feels inadequate. Even when I thoroughly enjoy a salad, like Couscous Confetti with Tuna or Black Bean and Corn, it stays in lunch territory—and I don’t put that recipe on repeat as often as I do, say rice and beans, a quick veggie pasta, or daal. 

But since cutting down on carbs is another goal of mine, I decided to try to replace whatever starch I might be having with leafy greens for at least one meal a week. Seemed simple enough. But my track record has been spotty.

I wondered if a warm green salad could feel substantive enough to serve as an evening meal. When I had a small dinner party a few days ago I had a chance to test-drive the idea.

I checked out my salad bible, “Raising the Salad Bar” by Catherine Walthers, published by Lake Isle Press, for the right recipe. The Seared Scallop Salad, which I have made and absolutely loved, would have been perfect, but one of my guests was scallop-averse. So I decided on another dish in the same vein: Seared Salmon and Napa Cabbage With Warm Lemon-Soy Dressing.

It’s an appealing mix of flavors, textures, even temperatures: salmon fresh from the oven, ultra-crisp cabbage and veggies, with a warm, savory dressing drizzled over all. It’s also very easy to prepare—about the only thing that took any time at all was cutting the carrot and radishes into matchsticks, which wasn’t necessary but gave a lift to the look and feel of the meal. The salmon is ready in less than fifteen minutes, there are only four kinds of veggies to prep, and the dressing is a breeze to make.

While this salad doesn’t meet my plant-based quotient, it’s a main course salad with no carbs, so it checked off some boxes for me. It was also my first time using Napa cabbage or a soy-based dressing in a salad; both welcome additions to my usual salad suspects that make leafy greens for dinner a much more likely option.

Seared Salmon and Napa Cabbage With Warm Lemon-Soy Dressing

Click here for printable recipe.

Serves 4

INGREDIENTS

SALAD

4 cups very thinly sliced Napa cabbage (about ¼ head) or baby spinach
4 scallions, thinly sliced
½ thick carrot, peeled and cut into matchsticks
2 radishes, trimmed and cut into matchsticks or ½ cucumber, peeled, seeded, and thinly sliced
4 salmon fillets (about 6 ounces each, with skin)
Salt and pepper
1 tablespoon canola or vegetable oil

LEMON-SOY DRESSING

3 tablespoons canola or vegetable oil
1 ½ teaspoons finely minced fresh ginger
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

PREPARATION

  1. In a serving bowl, combine the cabbage, scallions, carrot, and radishes or cucumber.

  2. Preheat the oven to 375 ̊. Heat a heavy ovenproof skillet, preferably cast iron, over medium-high heat. Season the salmon with salt and pepper. Add 1 tablespoon oil to the pan, then add the fish fillets, flesh side down. Cook undisturbed until salmon is lightly browned, about 3 to 5 minutes. Carefully slide a spatula under each fillet and turn over. Transfer the skillet to the oven to finish cooking, approximately 6 to 8 minutes, or until the fish is almost opaque throughout, but still moist.

  3. While fish is cooking, make the dressing. In a small skillet, heat 3 tablespoons oil and add the ginger. Let ginger sizzle for about 1 minute. Stir in the soy sauce and lemon juice, then turn off the heat.

  4. Divide the salad among 4 individual plates and drizzle each serving with a little dressing. Remove fish from the skillet, discarding the skin that remains in the pan. Arrange a salmon fillet in the center of each salad and spoon the remaining dressing over all.

VARIATIONS

Use baby spinach, watercress, mixed greens or arugula, if Napa cabbage is unavailable.

Include delicate-tasting arame seaweed if desired. Arame is a little hard to measure in its dried form, but soak about ¼ to ⅓ cup of it in boiling water. Drain and add to the salad. You’ll usually find arame in the Asian section of the supermarket, alongside other types of seaweed like nori. Sprinkle on some toasted sesame seeds as a finishing touch.

Recipe from “Raising the Salad Bar” by Catherine Walthers, Lake Isle Press, 2007

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