This bowl. This bowl is a dream. The citrusy ponzu salmon goes so well with that miso hummus. yep, I went and put miso and hummus which according to multiple taste testers sounds weird – but tastes amazing. It adds this umami flavour to the hummus that makes it super addictive. Do it.

Also we need to have a grammar chat. I’m by no means pretending my grammar is not perfect especially not in this corner of my world! I tend to place fast and loose with grammar rules to create the conversational tone I’m going for on here and Instagram. I’m not so concerned with have correct sentence structure and I sometimes just make up words. I blame the early influence of the genius of Roald Dahl for that tendency. Side note if you haven’t read his adult short stories and novels you have to, the man is witty no matter the audience age he is writing for. That said, what’s with people saying something is ‘addicting’? I keep seeing this on Instagram, and yes it’s mostly American writers so maybe it’s an American English thing but I find it so distracting when people use addicting as a noun! To me addictive just sounds so much better (and isn’t a verb). So fellow food bloggers please let me know are you a fan of saying something is addicting or addictive> And if you commonly use addicting, why? Where did you first hear it? This is the English teacher in me being a nerd, but it honestly sounds so silly to my ears.

Oka rant over and now we can talk about this addictive miso hummus. If you’ve ever combined miso and tahini in a dressing you will understand why I thought miso hummus would be such a good idea. It has that salty sweet balance that makes any food incredibly addictive (my dad makes salted ample pecans like these nuts and holy crap I cannot stop eating them, I basically have to swat my own hand away from the bowl). The hummus recipe below includes an extra step that you may not find 100% necessary and that’s cool I’m not going to argue with you, I mean I’ve already started a war over corrective adjective use in this post so I’m going to pick my battles.

The extra step? Removing the skin from the chickpeas. You simply press the cooked chickpeas (I used canned because the time I’m willing to put it didn’t extend to also cooking the chickpeas) between your fingers and they pop out of the skins. Discard the skins and blend the now shiny smooth looking chickpeas for the silkiest smoothest hummus you’ve ever had. There’s no graininess because you’ve gone and removed the part that creates that graininess. if you’re as into texture as a key element in your enjoyment of food as I am then you need to try this at least once. Then you can decide if it’s a necessary step for you or not. It takes around 10 minutes or so to remove the skins. Less if you get someone to help you (or if you have kids their little fingers would be perfect for this sort of slave labour).

The combination of the miso laced hummus, the bright crunchy salad and the citrus hit salmon is a dream. I love baking salmon like this as it keeps it super juicy, creates very little mess and your house doesn’t smell like fish. The salad colours really pop if you use yellow carrots for those of you that see them at your local market. Flavour wise, the orange variety still works just as well. If you can’t find ponzu just use a little extra vinegar, a generous squeeze of lemon juice and some soy sauce.

Serves 4

Ingredients

600g salmon side, skin on (can use 3-4 fillets taken from the tail of the salmon instead)

1 Tbs lemon zest

2 Tbs ponzu

2 Tbs olive oil

4 x mini cucumbers, finely sliced

4 x radishes, finely sliced

2 x (yellow or orange!) carrots, sliced into thin ribbons (use a mandolin or vegetable peeler)

2 Tbs finely chopped spring onion

1/3 cup finely chopped parsley

1/3 cup finely chopped mint

2 tsps apple cider vinegar

Miso Hummus

2 x 400g chickpeas

2 cloves garlic, crushed

1/4 cup tahini

3 Tbs miso paste

50-80ml ice cold water

Directions

Preheat oven to 170 degrees celsius. Line a oven proof dish with baking paper.

Pop the chickpeas from the skin, discarding the skin  – if you can be bothered with this slightly tedious step! See above for why bothering is worth it;)

Place salmon side skin side down on the baking dish and sprinkle over the lemon zest. Drizzle with half the ponzu and half the oil. Season with pepper. Roast for 12 -20 minutes depending on thickness of the salmon.

Meanwhile, blitz the chickpeas in a food processor until they are finely ground and starting to blitz together. Add crushed garlic, tahini, lemon juice and miso paste and blitz until smooth. With the motor running and the water in a steady stream. Check the consistency after 50 ml and if too thick and more water. It should be silky and light. Check seasoning and add more miso, lemon juice or tahini to taste. it should not need salt with the miso paste.

Make a dressing by combining the remaining ponzu and oil with the vinegar.

For the salad, combine the cucumber, herbs, radish and carrot in a bowl and toss with half the dressing.

To serve, place hummus in the bottom of 4 bowls, top with salad and salmon, drizzle over extra dressing. Serve with extra lemon on the side.

HH. x