I’m feeling indecisive. I knew all the flavours i wanted to eat but I couldn’t decided whether i wanted to have a pretty salmon with sauce and salad thing or if a quinoa bowl was more my vibe. So I made this dish both ways to see what was best. Turns out both are best, depending on level of hunger/patience for plating. This means that you’re getting a double whammy today. 1 recipe, 2 incarnations. Lucky you.

Before I get into the two ways things, can we ahve a look at the crispy skin?! So good! The first version has only one essential difference: there’s no quinoa. It’s still super filling without it because there’s 3 different kinds of protein in there for you, haloumi, egg and salmon. Yess I put haloumi and salmon, two of my favourite things, in the same dish because I love them both and they are delicious together. I am baffled that I haven’t done this before. I’m basically an idiot.

The second version has, wait for it, quinoa as the base. It’s more of a salad bowl and when I have it like this I add and extra handful of salad leaves and half the salmon as the quinoa make it really filling. The healthy fats in the salmon and dressing also help make it filling as does all the protein so i would highly recommend decreasing your salmon portion if eating it with quinoa. But you do you. Side note, I need to stop saying ‘you do you’ but I can’t because never before has a sentence so accurately summed up my attitude towards life, opinions and health.

The flavours in this salad are excellent. I made this sauce for the first time ages ago and was reminded of it sitting languishing in the blog archives when my housemate made a similar one with dill (could totally add some dill to this) the other night to have on a potato and salmon salad. It was great thus this happening this week.

That sauce is tart and zesty and creamy and so fresh. The yoghurt and avocado make it so delightfully creamy too. If you want to keep things lower in fat use skyr yoghurt as it’s thick but made from skim milk.

If this is written in a confusing manner please let me know, almost all the ingredients are the same whether you’re serving as a salad plate or quinoa bowl. The portions do change though as the quinoa bowls serve 4 people. Changes are in brackets.

Serves 2 (salad, first image) – 4 (quinoa bowl, image above)

Ingredients

2 cups cooked quinoa (if making option 2, quinoa bowls)

1 egg (2 if serving 4 as a quinoa bowl)

2 x 100-140g salmon fillets, skin on

2 cups mixed lettuce (4 is making option 2)

1 zucchini, sliced into long ribbons

1.5 cups radishes, trimmed, cleaned and quartered.

4 baby cucumbers, sliced (1cm thick max)

2 tsps extra virgin olive oil

80grams haloumi, sliced into 5mm thick strips

Creamy Green Sauce

1/2 an avocado

1/2 cup skyr or similar plain yoghurt

1 tsp dijon mustard

juice and zest of 1 lemon

1.5 cups flat leaf parsley

1/4 cup roughly chopped spring onion

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp black pepper, freshly cracked

1/3 cup water

Directions

Soft boil the eggs, bring a small pot of water to the boil. Place eggs in and boil for 6 minutes and 30 seconds. Remove, plunge into cold water and set aside to cool. Once cool enough to handle, peel and set aside.

Add all sauce ingredients excluding water to blender and blitz until smooth and well combined. Add water and blend again.

Heat olive oil in a pan and add haloumi slices. Fry for a couple of minutes each side until golden. Remove Chop into 2 cm pieces and set aside.

Season salmon with salt and black pepper on both sides. Heat oiled pan again and once hot add the salmon skin sized down. Cook for 2-3 minutes uncovered. Turn and cook for 1-2 minutes or until cooked to your liking (longer if you want i anything more than medium rare) then remove from the pan.

Directions for salad plate: Place 1/3 cup of sauce on the bottom of a plate spreading with the back of a spoon. Place salmon, skin side up, in the centre and surround with ribbons of zucchini, radish wedges, cucumber, lettuce leaves and scatter over some haloumi. Cut the egg in half and add a half to each plate. Season and serve.

Directions for Quinoa bowl: Place 1/2 cup quinoa in the bottom of each of 4 bowls, top with lettuce, zucchini, radish and cucumber. Add 1/2 a salmon, 1/2 an egg and haloumi. Place a generous dollop of sauce on top. Serve with more sauce on the side. Season and serve.

Now which do you prefer?

HH. x