YES YES YES!

It’s summer, it’s hot and you want something that is bright, fresh, spicy, nutritious and DELICIOUS. Look no further than my wonderful blackened salmon with mango avocado salsa. Serve it on your favourite kind of rice with your favourite veggie, and you’ve got a perfectly balanced meal, fit for royalty.

I don’t like measuring things. I kinda just do a shake of this, a dash of that. Here’s what I did for my blackening spice. Just a couple of shakes each!

Garlic powder, smoked paprika, cayenne pepper, cracked black pepper, salt, oregano, hint of cinnamon.

You can use any paprika you have on hand (smoked, spicy, sweet, regular) and if you don’t have oregano, try thyme! This is not exactly a traditional blackening spice, but it does the trick and tastes amazing.

Start your rice and cook according to the package. This will take the most time.

While the rice is going, make the salsa! Just dice up one mango, one avocado, half a tomato, 1 green onion and mix it all together with fresh lime juice, salt and pepper to taste. That’s it! So easy! And you know what? It’s out of this world. I want to put this stuff on everything. Tacos, burritos, grilled chicken, as a garnish on soup! It’s that good.

When the rice has about 10-12 minutes left, start the salmon! Heat a cast iron pan on a high heat with a bit of avocado or canola oil. Dip your salmon in the blackening spice and press it gently to the flesh. Once the oil starts to smoke slightly, put the salmon, flesh side down, into the pan. DON’T TOUCH IT! Turn the heat down to med-high and let it do it’s thing for about 4-5 minutes. Flip it to the skin side and let it go for another 4-6 minutes, until the skin is crispy. Cook time will depend on the thickness of your piece of salmon. If you have skinless salmon, that would work too. I used a nice piece of sustainable wild salmon from St. Lawrence market so I thought I’d give the skin a go. Don’t fret if you can’t get the skin as crispy as you like. Worse case scenario, you peel it off and don’t eat it. The salmon will still be delicious!

When the salmon had about 5 minutes left to go, I quickly steamed my asparagus.

Put a nice scoop of rice on your plate and top with asparagus(or veg of choice), salmon, mango salsa and garnish with a lemon/lime wedge. Look at the vibrant colours, inhale the intoxicating spices and dig in. The sweet/creamy/tangy salsa works beautifully with the fatty/spicy salmon. A bite of rice, salmon, asparagus and salsa all together on one fork is proof that heaven is real. Well, not really but you get what I’m saying. It’s pure bliss!

I’ve made a similar recipe for my blog with catfish, so you could always substitute that. Not into fish? Try this with chicken legs, breasts, wings or thighs! Vegetarian or Vegan? Tofu! The spices will transform whatever protein you throw their way.

That’s it for today folks. If you feel like having a laugh before you start cooking dinner for tonight, why not check out my video for SiriusXM’s Top Comic? I need votes to get to the finals so I can win 25K and get my own show at Just For Laughs! Comedy AND food? who says you can’t have it all?! Thanks everyone!

https://topcomic.siriusxm.ca/comic/julia-hladkowicz/