Mirin Glazed Salmon & Leftover Salmon Salad

I have made this mirin glazed salmon before. The recipe comes from Nigella Lawson's Nigella Express book, and it is exceptionally quick, easy and delicious. In the recipe she recommends saving some of the salmon to eat cold the next day in a salad. So this time around I made the salmon for dinner, and served it with a hot noodle side. The next day I turned the leftovers into a salad.
Mirin Glazed Salmon
adapted from Nigella Lawson

Ingredients:
60ml mirin (Japanese sweet rice wine)

50g light brown sugar
60ml soy sauce
4 x 125g pieces salmon, cut from the thick part of the fillet so that they are narrow but tall rather than wide and flat
2 x 15ml tablespoons rice vinegar
1-2 spring onions, halved and shredded into fine strips

Directions:
1.Mix the mirin, brown sugar and soy sauce in a shallow dish that will take all 4 pieces of salmon, and marinate the salmon in it for 3 minutes on the first side and 2 minutes on the second. Meanwhile heat a large non-stick frying pan on the hob.

2.Cook the salmon in the hot, dry pan for 2 minutes and then turn the salmon over, add the marinade and cook for another 2 minutes.
3.Remove the salmon to whatever plate you're serving it on, add the rice vinegar to the hot pan, and warm through.
4.Pour the dark, sweet, salty glaze over the salmon and top with the spring onion strips.
5.Serve with rice or noodles as you wish, and consider putting some sushi ginger on the table, too.

Since I was making the noodle dish to go with it, I made double the amount of marinade the salmon recipe called for. I used half to marinate the salmon, and then I added 1 tbsp of rice vinegar to the half that was going into the noodle dish.

The noodle dish was very easy. I chopped up a random assortment of vegetables (1 bell pepper, 3 carrots, 4 green onions, 1 cup of sugar snap peas, and 1 broccoli floret). I cooked a package of Catelli Smart spaghettini according to the package directions. You could also use soba noodles, or vermicelli if you like.
Once the noodles were done cooking, I poured them into a colander. I took the pot I used to make the pasta and added 1 Tbsp of extra virgin olive oil and set on medium high heat. I added the veggies and sauteed for a few minutes, then I added the pasta back to the pot with the remaining half of the marinade.

The following day I put the cold noodles on top of a bed of butter lettuce, and topped the whole thing with leftover salmon (I flaked the cooked fillet into bite size pieces).

The salmon and noodles were so delicious the night before, and the salad was really good the next day. The salad is a perfect way to eat leftover salmon, without the danger of overcooking it in the microwave.