I remember talking to Kenji Lopez-Alt about the “best chili ever” that he developed
for Seriouseat. He said that once he finished testing that recipe he never made it that
way again. In real life, he skips a whole bunch of ingredients and steps and it still
comes out great. This happens to me all the time. I work really hard on some dish, make
a video about it, and then it fades away into oblivion. The dishes that survive and enter
my regular dinner rotation almost always get reduced to their essential elements. So how
do you go from Kenji Alt and Danielle Gritzer epic to Mark Bittman minimalist? And is the
minimalist version actually worse or is it just different? Today I wanted to explore
these topics by making my number one dinner -- the poke bowl.
Over the course of the pandemic I have made this dish at least a hundred times -- that’s
400 poke bowls, my friends. We eat it at least once a week and sometimes twice, and it never
gets old. A couple of years ago, I made a video about this dish, but today I want to
show you how I do it in real life.
Let’s start with the sauce. My original sauce included a lemon, a lime, and an orange.
But the orange quickly got dropped. I don’t always have it, and it doesn’t fit easily
into my juicer. I skipped it a few times and didn’t even miss it, so I stopped using
it. What we are really after here is acidity and the refreshing aroma of citrus and we’ll
get it with or without an orange.
Grating ginger is a pain in the ass because of all those little fibers. I tried skipping
it, but really missed it. So ginger had to stay.
Coconut milk, on the other hand, didn’t last long. It got ditched in favor of miso.
Both of those are store bought ingredients and you’d think that swapping one for the
other wouldn’t save much time. But it does! Coconut milk is not a staple that I always
have on hand. I had to remember to put it on my shopping list, I had to open a can,
stir it, store the leftovers, forget to use the leftovers, feel bad about not using the
leftovers. And although coconut milk was lovely in terms of flavor, it required soy sauce
and maple syrup or some other sweet ingredient to make it feel complete.
Miso is a completely different story. It is an all in one flavor boost with sweetness,
saltiness, and umami all wrapped up in one convenient package, so there is no need for
soy sauce or a sweetener.
In go the oils -- a good bit of canola and a little bit of sesame.
I like to make this sauce in a jar with a stick blender which makes the leftovers easy
to store. The amount of sauce I am making here is twice as much as I would need for
one meal. There is always another poke bowl coming in less than a week, and this way my
sauce is already done and I won’t need to dirty a zester and a blender the second time.
Now, let’s talk about the veggies. Obviously, any fruit or veggies can work well with raw
fish. But some are a lot easier to store and cut than others. Apples last in the fridge
for weeks (potentially even months). And cucumbers can last for about a week if they are sold
in plastic. Compared to radishes or mangos, they are a lot easier to wash and cut.
Conveniently 1 cucumber is enough for 2 batches of poke bowls, so I don’t need to figure
out what to do with the remaining half. It will go into my next poke bowl.
In my original video, I use all sorts of alliums and herbs. There were pickled onions, and
scallions, and mint, and cilantro. The only one that withstood the test of time is the
scallion. It kills two birds with one store. It gives me the flavor of an allium, but feels
kind of herby and green.
Now all we have left to do is cut the salmon. To save myself extra shopping trips, I usually
buy enough salmon for 2 meals and freeze half of it. Salmon freezes really well as long
as you wrap it really tight and don’t keep it longer than a few weeks. Just move it to
the fridge the day before you plan to use it.
Right here down the middle of the fillet, there is a bit of a chewy area. That’s where
the backbone was attached to the flesh. I like to cut it out and discard it. Cutting
the fillet in half lengthwise will also make it a lot easier to remove the skin, though
you could ask the fishmonger to do it for you.
This is also a great opportunity to remove the bloodline (that’s that brown flesh near
the skin). Place the fillet skin-side down with the brown flesh facing you. The knife
we’ll be using for removing the skin is a boning knife. That’s the long and skinny
one. If you are right handed, insert it on the left side of the fillet right above the
skin to give yourself a flap. Grab this flap and hold very tightly. I like to angle my
knife up a little so that it ends up right above the brown flesh. See -- like this. Now
just cut to the right. The front of my knife is flush with the skin, but the back of my
knife is slightly elevated to leave the brown flesh on the skin. If you are left handed,
you’d be going right to left.
If some parts of the flesh have a huge layer of fat and that bothers you, you can carefully
cut it off. Yes, it does bother me, because it can taste a bit greasy.
Now we do the same thing with the belly part of the fillet. Place it with the brown flesh
facing you. Make a flap on the left and slice to the right. Cutting the fish for poke bowls
is a piece of cake compared to nigiri or sashimi. Let’s start with the belly. Cut the fillet
lengthwise into strips.
Once the strips become thick, lay them down and cut them in half again.
Then slice everything crosswise. The most important thing to remember when you are slicing
raw fish is that you want to glide the knife through it, instead of pressing down on it.
And yes, the knife needs to be sharp.
Now do the same with the thick part of the fillet. Cut it lengthwise. Cut each strip
in half. And slice crosswise.
Add the salmon to the bowl with your veggies. Add some sesame seeds (as much or as little
as you want). Pour in half of the dressing and save the other half in the fridge to use
within a week. Now add some black pepper and salt to taste. If this is your first time
making this dish, I would hold off on the salt until you mix everything and taste. Miso
is very salty and you might or might not need extra salt. But since I’ve done this a hundred
times, I know by now exactly how much salt I want. Mix it all up and scoop over sushi
rice.
A sprinkle of sesame seeds,
and a drizzle of soy reduction.
And that my friends is what my everyday dinner looks like.
Is this easier poke bowl worse than the one I posted 2 years ago? I don’t know. I think
it’s pretty fabulous. But you can make both and let me know which one you like better.
In the description below, I’ve linked to 3 other videos that will come in handy for
making this dish: how to make sushi rice, how to make the soy reduction, and how to
serve raw fish safely. No, not every piece of salmon should be served raw, so make sure
you understand the risks and how to deal with them.
Here are more very detailed culinary tutorials for you to check out and if you are ever in
the Boston area, maybe I’ll see you in one of my classes.