Seared Salmon with Edamame Salad & Miso Dressing

Ingredients

• 2 salmon fillets, skin on, about 160g each
• salt and pepper
• 1 tsp vegetable oil
• 100 g sugar snap peas, halved
• 1 cucumber, halved, deseeded and thinly sliced
• 2 spring onions, thinly sliced
• 200 g frozen edamame, defrosted
• 1 tbsp rice vinegar
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp white miso paste
• 1 tsp honey
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 1 tbsp sesame seeds, toasted
• Steamed jasmine rice, to serve
• Pickled ginger, to serve

Method

1. Whisk the white miso, rice vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil and honey together in a small bowl until smooth and glossy. Taste — it should land salty, tangy and subtly sweet. Most of the salt comes from the miso and soy, but a final pinch ties it together if it needs lifting. Set aside.
2. Toss the edamame, sugar snap peas, cucumber and spring onions through about a third of the dressing until everything is lightly slicked — you want the vegetables dressed, not drowned. Divide between two plates.
3. Pat the salmon fillets very dry with kitchen paper, both sides — water means steam, and steam means no crackle. Season the skin and flesh generously with salt and pepper before it hits the pan.
4. Heat the vegetable oil in a stainless or cast-iron frying pan over high heat until it shimmers and is just starting to smoke. Lay the salmon in skin-side down, away from you, in a single layer with room around each fillet — crowd the pan and the skin steams instead of crisping. Press gently with a spatula for the first 30 seconds to stop the skin curling.
5. Cook for 4–5 minutes without moving until the skin is deeply crisp, mahogany at the edges, and the flesh has turned opaque about two-thirds of the way up the fillet. Flip and cook for 1 minute more for blushing-pink medium — the residual heat carries it a touch further off the pan.
6. Lift the salmon onto a warm plate, skin-side up, and take the pan off the heat for 30 seconds to cool slightly. Splash another spoonful of the miso dressing into the still-hot pan and swirl for 15–20 seconds until it loosens into a glossy pan sauce — this turns the dressing from a paste into something you can pour. Taste it; adjust now, not at the table.
7. Plate the steamed jasmine rice alongside the dressed salad. Sit each salmon fillet skin-side up on top of the edamame, spoon the warm pan-sauce dressing around, scatter generously with toasted sesame seeds, and tuck a little heap of pickled ginger alongside each plate.