After marriage, we’ve been eating a lot of pork. Lots – that was basically the only type of protein we ate at home for 3 months. After a visit back to our hometown in DC and eating delicious fish grilled by my dad, we decided to mix it up a bit. We grabbed a huge bag of salmon (and chicken) from Costco – side note – everything at costco is HUGE which means we have a few portions of salmon to try. (I also love running around Costco samples too but who doesn’t…)
Back to the salmon. I did a bit of online surfing and found there are two popular ways to cook salmon in the oven – straight on a baking dish or wrapped in a foil. I decided try both. One for you and one for me. The better outcome one for me.
There was one Donburi recipe that I definitely wanted to try. Salmon donburi is usually served with raw salmon (sashimi fish on top of rice) but we only had cooked fish since our Costco frozen salmon is not sushi-grade, I’m not going to risk thawing it and eating it raw. But I really wanted to try the sauce and it sounded like it would be good with baked salmon too. So, I decided that I’d bake a simple salmon with just salt & pepper in the foil – essentially steaming the fish in the foil. This would be yummy with the donburi sauce – I declared.
To go along with this, I found a Ginger Soy Salmon recipe to be baked on foil. Thought the two Asian-like salmon’s would go well together for one meal. Well, let’s say the donburi was delicious but the Ginger Soy Salmon will not be made again. I should’ve known when the recipe called for 1 inch of fresh ginger (or 1 tablespoon of minced ginger) for 1 salmon fillet. It was definitely over-kill. Like a ginger bomb blew up in my mouth. If you absolutely love ginger, this would probably be the dish for you. But alas, not for me or Justin.
(see all that ginger!)
But – the donburi sauce was really really good! It was the perfect balance between sweet and salty with a deep flavor from the onion and garlic that was cooked with the sauce. The sauce was recommended to be eaten with sliced raw onions which added the perfect bite to the meal.
Although we had two salmons for dinner, the donburi sauce was the highlight of the night! Highly recommend. A happy dinner meal. Justin has been really busy with work and school so it’s nice to eat a good meal together so he can take a break and I can chitchat away per usual about my plain vanilla-like day that he listens so intently to.
(and there’s my reflection taking a pic on the spoon – good times)
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1-2
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Ingredients
Donburi Sauce and Onion Topping
- 1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon soy sauce
- 3 tablespoon Mirin (rice cooking wine) can be substituted with water if unavailable
- 2 tablespoon water
- 2 tablespoon granulated sugar the recipe calls for sugar but I used 1T of honey and 1T of Korean corn syrup (물엿) just because I felt like it was healthier though I'm not sure if that's completely accurate...
- 1/2 onion (1/4th for sauce and 1/4th for topping)
- 3 whole garlics
Salmon and Topping
- 6-8 oz salmon 6-8 oz per person
Ingredients
Donburi Sauce and Onion Topping
Salmon and Topping
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Instructions
Donburi Sauce and Onion Topping
- Thinly slice 1/2 of an onion. Place 1/4th of onion in a bowl of water. This will be used for the topping and placing the onions in water will mute the strong bite/kick raw onions have. Set aside the other 1/4th. This will be used for the sauce very soon - see Step 3!
- Smash (crush) 3 garlics with the side of your knife (or you can add it whole)
- Bring out a small frying pan and add soy sauce, mirin, water and sugar for the sauce. Add in the sliced onions and garlics from step 1 and 2. Bring to a Boil.
- Keep boiling until the onions are soft. Just a few minutes. Note the pic above!
- Once the onions are soft, drain the sauce out and discard the onion and garlic. (Note - I tasted the onion and it is very salty from absorbing all the soy sauce. Do not try!)
- Add sauce to rice. Add onions on top of rice! And leave some sauce to also dip your salmon in the sauce.
Salmon
- If using frozen salmon - defrost in refrigerator overnight or out on the counter top for a few hours.
- Preheat oven to 375 °F
- Drizzle salmon with light amount of olive oil. Sprinkle with salt.
- Place salmon on foil and fold up the foil packets to allow some room in the foil but seal so no steam escapes!
- Place the salmon foiled on a baking sheet in the middle rack. Bake for about 15-20 minutes until the salmon is just cooked through. Serve with lemon.
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