This is (probably) the Best Salmon Dish I've ever made

This might be the best salmon dish I've ever made at home. And that's coming from someone who, slight confession here, is not a huge seafood person. Like, if I'm on vacation on the coast somewhere, sure, I'm in. But at home, it's just not something I really crave. However, these spicy salmon bites with an umami-packed cucumber salad served over a bed of rice is starting to change that. And the best part is, it's really easy to put together. You can prep the cucumber salad ahead of time and let it hang in the fridge, then get your rice cooker going, and the salmon literally cooks in a few minutes. And for someone who rarely makes seafood, this is my third time making this dish in the past two days. So let me show you how to make this, and then I'll meet you back here for the taste test. So to start with the cucumber salad, I grabbed my cucumbers from the fridge, and these are smaller Persian-style ones that I like to keep on hand for snacking. So I gave those a quick rinse under the sink and then just dumped them onto the cutting board. And I did something a little different here. I didn't fully peel them, but I shaved off three strips around each cucumber. This way, I can keep some of that texture and darker color, but you could always leave these completely unpeeled or fully peel them if you like. Then the nice thing about having a longer knife is that you can line up your cucumbers and cut off the ends in one fell swoop before repeating this on the other side. And from there, to cube these up, I just cut each cucumber in half, then half again into quarters lengthwise, and then just slice across those into the smaller cubes. And roughly, I'm aiming for pieces that are about the same size as the salmon later on, so they mix well on my spoon. So once all those were chopped up, I transferred these to a bowl, and let's start building the dressing. So I grabbed out my spices, then set a bowl over a scale, and this is about 500 grams of cucumbers. So to that, I added 80 grams of rice wine vinegar, 20 grams of soy sauce, and 5 grams of sesame oil. Then for the spices, I went in with a big spoonful of chili flakes and a spoonful of furikake before mixing that up. And while I'm mixing this, let me explain why this spice combination works so well. Now, I don't remember the brand, but these are a fruitier Korean style red chili flakes. So they still have some heat, but it adds warmth without overpowering everything. Then the furikake here is doing a lot of the heavy lifting. This is a Japanese seasoning blend, usually meant to be sprinkled over things like rice, but it's going to work really well in something like our cucumber salad, because at its core, it's a few key components. First, we have dried seaweed, which gives that salty and umami. There are toasted sesame seeds, which bring that nuttiness and crunch. Salt and a little sugar. And then typically, there are some dried fish flakes or bonito, which again directly contributes to that umami. And after mixing up the cucumber salad, you can see all those bits and pieces of the two seasonings on the exterior of our cucumber pieces. And that contrast from the spicy and fruity to the salty and umami with the fresh crunch of the cucumber is going to be the perfect contrast to our salmon. So place a lid on the salad, then just pop that into the fridge. And then before starting the salmon, I added some rice to my rice cooker and topped that up with water before turning it on. Okay, now we're ready to tackle the spicy salmon bites. So I started by grabbing a couple of fillets out of the freezer, then just set them on a tray with some water to defrost them for about five minutes. We don't need them to be fully thawed here, just enough to slice through. And while that's going, I grabbed out the ingredients for the sauce. So I set a bowl over a scale, and this is basically equal parts. So 15 grams of Kewpie mayo, 15 grams of gochujang, and then 10 grams of rice wine vinegar. And that's it. This is actually the same sauce combination that I used for the bulgogi tacos the other week. I liked it so much that I wanted to try it out with some salmon. And if you don't want to use Kewpie here, you could always use something like melted butter instead. Now, once the salmon has softened a bit, I just took a fillet out of the package and cut it into cubes by first slicing into planks, then rotating it and cutting across into these pieces. And that's how you end up with these nice, even pieces. They're still a little bit frozen here, but that's totally fine because every side is going to be exposed for browning, and they're going to cook pretty quickly. So before cooking, I hit them with a little sprinkle of salt, and let's head over to the stove. So to cook, I set a nonstick pan down over high heat, then added a little drizzle of oil before going in with the salmon. And I want to let them cook undisturbed to develop a crust on one side. And this is one of those bigger advantages of cutting them into cubes like this, because you get more surface area to develop that browning and texture. And personally, this is what I feel like is missing a lot of times with fish dishes. Oftentimes, it's just kind of soft all the way through, but this way we can get some texture contrast. So once the salmon pieces are browned up to your liking, we're going to kill the heat and then toss in the sauce. And that residual heat for the pan is more than enough to bring everything together. You do not need to keep cooking it, or else you might risk burning the sauce. And as you can see here, we're going to get these really nice, glossy, well-coated pieces of salmon. And now we're ready to assemble. If you time it right, everything should be done at the same time. So rice just came out of the cooker, the cucumber salad's been chilling in the fridge, and obviously our salmon is hot. So to start, I added a base of rice to the bowl, then a big helping of that cucumber salad on one side, before adding all those spicy salmon pieces on the other side. And just like that, we've got contrast from the spicy, crispy salmon, the bright, crunchy pieces of cucumbers, and it's going to mix and meld with that rice. So let's see how it tastes. Let's get into this. The cucumber salad on its own, just such a nice, fresh component to have in the fridge for a variety of meals. Wow. The contrast from like the hot salmon to the cold salad, as well as kind of the taste and aroma contrast are so nice. And then just on that bed of rice. This is such an incredible dish. And maybe I'll mention this in the intro, but I'm actually not a huge seafood fan in general. I would describe myself kind of as an opportunistic seafood eater. Like if I'm on a vacation near the coast or something, I will typically grab some seafood, but it's not something I tend to crave too often at home. However, this dish I think is just, this might go into my regular rotation. I love the contrast from a variety of perspectives. So first you kind of get the temperature contrast, the hot salmon and the cool, like temperature-wise, the cool cucumber salad, as well as the textures as well. Like the softer salmon bites with a little crispness, but then you get that really crunchy cucumbers in there. And then the flavor profile as they make with the spicy salmon, the cooling salty and umami cucumbers. It's just a lot to be learned too, just from like a pure flavor perspective as well. So that's going to wrap it up for me in this video. Highly recommend making a version of this dish. It'll be up in the CookWell app as well as on our website as always, but I'm excited to have some more salmon fillets and I'll probably make this the next couple of days. This is really, really good. You could obviously do this with chicken or, you know, beef or something like that too, but I think salmon is perfectly suited for this dish. So that's going to wrap it up for me in this one. I will catch you all in the next one. Peace y'all.