There are a lot of things that you are supposed to enjoy when you are a grown-up, that I don’t really enjoy.

Like:
– getting tipsy at dinner parties and arguing about politics
– organising community events
– the theatre
– OPERA AUGHGHGHGH
– Curb Your Enthusiasm
– The Sopranos
– oysters
– striking up conversations with check-out people at supermarkets
– reading the newspaper for fucking HOURS
– classical music
– gardening
– very long lunches where your bum goes to sleep

Fish is another one. And vegetables. If it wouldn’t have such invidious effects on my long-term health prospects, (by which I mean make me fat), I would just eat burgers and chips and pizza all the time.

But you’re not allowed to do that when you are a grown-up, you have to eat fish and vegetables – often at the same time. And a lot of people LIKE it and order it in RESTAURANTS!!!! I used to dread fish nights. I would buy it because if I didn’t my husband would give me a lecture about how we’re not allowed to eat burgers all the time and I’ll do anything to avoid a lecture.

I’m a bit scared of fish. It smells horrible even when reasonably fresh and stinks the house out when you cook it and it’s all slimy and sometimes there are BONES and urgh it’s all completely gross and designed, if you ask me, just to make yourself extra grateful that you’re having spag bol the next night.

And while I often get a craving for sushi, (I think I’m after the salt in the soy), quite often halfway through some sashimi I am filled with the fear that I might vomit.

Recently though, I have hit on a thing to do with salmon that I actually really genuinely look forward to.

What you do is you cover it in chilli, lime, soy, ginger, garlic and whatever other Asian things you have knocking about, wrap it in foil and then BAKE it for 12 minutes.

It doesn’t stink the house out and it isn’t slimy. You have it alongside spring greens sliced finely and stir-fried with some oyster sauce and it’s honestly really a very nice thing to have. It has really changed my mind about fish. And I’m incredibly stubborn about stuff like that.

So let’s go through that again for those of you who weren’t listening.

Asian baked salmon for 2

2 salmon fillets
knob of fresh ginger, roughly sliced
1 clove garlic
small bunch coriander(???)
1/2 a chilli, seeds in or out I don’t care
5 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tbsp fish sauce
1/4 tsp Chinese five spice

1 Put everything except the salmon fillets in a whizzer and whizz for a few minutes.

2 Put a piece of foil on a baking dish large enough to wrap over the salmon fillets in a loose parcel. Put on the salmon fillets. Pour over your whizzed slush marinade and leave for as long as you can – although it can be baked just how it is.

3 Bake in a 180 oven for 10-12 minutes

Please note: you do not have to use all of those ingedients – this is nice just with chilli and soy and ginger; everything else is just showing off, which is a grown-up thing that I do actually enjoy.