Sesame Tamari Salmon Bowl

This bowl of goodness is such an easy meal staple to introduce into your home. With simple, straight forward preparation that results in incredible flavour. The ingredients work together to give you the perfect blend of fresh, savoury, and delightful umami. A lot of the flavourful punch will come from the salmon and seasoning, but seaweed is another unique ingredient that influences the delightful dance of taste and nutrition in this dish.

Sea Vegetables

-       Arame -       Dulse

-       Irish moss - Kelp

-       Kombu - Nori

-       Spirulina - Wakame

-       Chlorella. - Dabberlocks

Seaweed is one of those things that seemed so bizarre and foreign to me before I was educated about the importance of sea vegetables in our diet. It is an uncommon ingredient for most Canadians to be using in their weekly cooking regime, but it has so much to offer to benefit our health. Along the coastlines of the world, we have historically observed sea vegetables to be used in feeding livestock for thousands of years. They have also been used to improve the quality of nutrient-poor soils. Sea vegetables contain beneficial B vitamins, are rich in many minerals like zinc and magnesium, and also contain omega 3’s.

One important nutrient in seaweed & sea vegetables is Iodine. Iodine is a trace element that can be found in not only sea vegetables, but also many types of fish like cod, tuna, shrimp, and other seafoods. It can also be found in iodized table salt and most dairy products. Iodine has been found to aid in a healthy immune response. It is also essential in the production of the thyroid hormones thyroxine (T4) and triiodothyronine (T3). These thyroid hormones are important for regulating many vital biochemical reactions in the body, including enzyme activity, protein synthesis, and skeletal and central nervous system (CNS) development in infants. T3 and T4 are regulated by thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH), which is released by your pituitary gland (a gland in your brain that is responsible for many hormone communications and interactions). This function regulates your thyroids iodine uptake; if there is a lack or an absence of iodine, TSH levels stay elevated and can result in complications including hypothyroidism.

Due to the varying iodine levels in our soils around the world, crops can have varying iodine levels across the board. There are also chemicals that inhibit the absorption of iodine, such as fluoride. Fluoride can be found in most city/town water, dental products, pesticides, processed foods, and Teflon pans. All that to say, it is so important for us to incorporate sources of iodine into our cooking and into our kitchen (and supplement if necessary and supervised by a health care professional).

I hope this recipe is a fun, easy, and enjoyable way to introduce some more iodine and other goodness into your diet, happy eating!

Ingredients:

*Makes 2-3 bowls

For the Salmon:

-       2 small salmon filets (3-4oz each)

-       ½ cup tamari

-       2 tbsp sesame oil

-       1 tbsp honey

-       1 tbsp coconut sugar or brown sugar

-       2 cloves of garlic (crushed)

To prepare the sauce, mix all ingredients (excluding the salmon) in a small bowl until well combined. If you have the time, I love to let the salmon marinate in this sauce for at least 2 hours before baking. When you are ready to cook your salmon, prepare a glass baking dish lined with parchment paper or tinfoil. Bake at 400 for 15-20 minutes until salmon is well cooked, tender, and easily flakes apart.

For the bowl:

-       1 ½ cups rice (uncooked) cooked in chicken or veggie broth (follow cooking instructions on the package)

-       ½ cup green onion

- Edamame (shelled, I like to buy it frozen)

-       1 package of seaweed, sliced (I like to use seaweed snacks)

-       1 avocado

-       Cucumber

-       Black sesame seeds for garnish

-       White sesame seeds for garnish

Prepare your rice in a pot and begin preparing the other ingredients. Slice your green onion and set aside. Cut the cucumber into 1” sized pieces (I will typically use about 1/2 of a whole english cucumber) and set aside. Take out the seaweed from the package and slice into strips, if you want, you can always cut them into smaller pieces.

Once your rice is cooked, place about 1 -1 1/2 cups in each bowl. Begin topping with your set aside ingredients: cucumber, 1/2 an avocado for each bowl, edamame, cucumber, seaweed, green onion. Then you can either pull apart the salmon and add to each bowl or simple place each small filet on top. Garnish with black and white sesame seeds and drizzle with the leftover sauce from the salmon.