Warming salmon

Spicy salmon with fresh greens

This one turned out surprisingly well. There was just one cheat involved, and that was a sudden craving for blue cheese. It's on the side, so you can ignore that. If you're really avoiding garlic, then I guess the chorizo would maybe present a problem, but it's small enough amounts not to bother me too much here. It's really for the flavouring - I've heard that garlic-infused oil can be a neat trick to get around the onion family issue, so I guess you could use that with some smoked paprika instead.

Ingredients (serves 2):

3x small uncooked chorizo (or half a proper one), sliced

2x salmon fillets, skin on

Thyme, a handful

Lemon half

2x pak choi, sliced

Spinach - 2-3 good handfuls

1x red pepper, sliced

1x red chilli, chopped without seeds

Sea salt (Maldon-style, not rock)

olive oil

Take the salmon fillets and rub thyme into both side of the fillet. Salt the skin side well (makes it crunchy!)

Add a good amount of olive oil to a medium frying pan (big enough to take 2 fish fillets!). When warm, add the chorizo and turn until just cooked and coloured - place the chorizo on a warm plate but keep the oil in the pan.

In a large saucepan (we have a 'chef's pan' - I have no idea what it is but it's brilliant for everything), add some olive oil and add the chilli when warm. When the chilli begins to soften, add the peppers and turn occasionally.

Back to the other pan. With the heat on and the oil hot, add the salmon flesh-side down. It will spit a little, but that's likely the thyme.

In the other pan, add the pak choi and remember to stir. Cover if possible between those stirs.

Turn the salmon over when the pale pink starts creeping up. The mission now is to let it cook through to the middle on the skin side, giving you crisp skin and a moist middle.

In the veg pan, add the spinach and a good squeeze of lemon. Stir occasionally. Turn off the heat when all are cooked with still a little crunch (note: depending on how good you are at timing, you may want to start the veg earlier, though this will make the veg softer, but that's nice too).

The salmon will be nearly done - chuck the chorizo back in for a quick warm and a brown. Put everything onto a plate and enjoy.

I also had a load of lemon and herb olives, so they got put on the plate too. And the naughty bit of blue cheese.