Foodie Fridays: Fish are food (and simple salmon)

After Junior J's fall, my mum advised me not to let the boy eat egg, chicken, beef and shellfish.  She said that the Chinese believe that the first three would affect in the healing of the wound, and the consumption of shellfish was supposed to increase the likelihood of scarring.  Normally, the logical side of me would scoff at her advice, and would ask for scientific evidence, but the guilty mummy side of me decided to follow her advice (in an attempt to make myself feel better!).  So for the past 10 days, we've been eating loads of tofu, fish and pork.  Its been a little challenging sticking to these restrictions, since eggs are a major component of Junior J's diet (and one of the easiest ways to feed him protein!), and most of the soups that I know how to cook have chicken stock as their base.  

However, we've more or less managed to avoid these 4 "taboo" items (except when they were hidden, like in mayonnaise, or in soups that we drank when we ate out), and as a result have been eating alot of fish.  When I was supposed to meet some mummy friends for lunch recently, I suggested that we dine at Mahattan Fish Market, since that meant I could order fish to share with the little boy.  To all our surprise, the waitress came back 5 minutes after we had placed our order, to let me know that the dish I had ordered (the fish was cod) had a "mercury warning" tagged to it.  All in all, we've always heard about how preggy ladies should avoid certain fish like swordfish and shark, but this was new.

Feeling rather anxious (since we do feed Junior J cod sometimes), I went home to read up about the mercury levels in fish, and found out that cod fell into lower mercury category, along with lobster, snapper and certain types of tuna, and pregnant women were advised not to eat more than 6 servings per month.  (Click here to read more about the levels of mercury in seafood.)  Safer types of fish with the lowest levels of mercury include salmon, plaice, catfish and tilapia.

Guess we'll be eating more salmon from now on!  While we do love dining on salmon, I do find it rather tough to cook it just right.  And we find that many places tend to overcook their salmon, such that it loses its lovely moistness and becomes rather tough and dry.  After many failed attempts to pan-fry salmon, this seems to be the only method that works for us:  

1. Pre-heat oven at 200 degrees Celsius.

2. Slice salmon fillet into smaller slices, about 2 inches wide, and rub the slices with olive oil, basil, salt and ground black pepper.

3. Place in pan, skin-side down, and bake for 9 minutes.  All done!

My mum likes to douse her salmon in black-pepper sauce, but I like my fish done simple, so that I can taste its sweetness.  Do you have a tried-and-tested salmon recipe?  Do share!