areiamus

When I catch the train later in the evening, which is any time after 6, I have a tendency to doze off. This seems to happen more often when I’m sitting in the aisle seat and the unfortunate window seat occupant must either: tap me awake, mutter ‘excuse me’, or lift their arms (and bags, I suppose) high in the air and attempt to navigate the 15cm gap between my knees and the seat in front of us – all of which rouse me and spark an awkward moment where it’s clear that they’ve broken the commuter code of non-interaction, and I’ve broken the social convention of impersonal helpfulness without acknowledgement.

The aforementioned happened at Taringa this evening, just one station from my destination of Indooroopilly. As I struggled to gather my thoughts and decide what to eat for dinner, salmon attacked - not grilled or fried, but perched atop ribbons of pasta with fresh basil. Inspired, I set off to Coles.

Ingredients:

• 200-300g salmon fillet (preferably not actually from Coles)
• 300g or 5 small or 3 big tomatoes
• 3 fresh basil sprigs
• 200g linguine
• 3 garlic cloves
• sea salt & cracked pepper
• olive oil

And so:

1. Set 2-3L of water to boil. Add linguine, stir briskly and cover until water reboils. Cook for the rest of the time uncovered, around 10 minutes. If you bite a strand and it’s the same colour all the way through, it’s ready. Tip some of the water off to a spare pot. Drain pasta in a colander, toss with a little olive oil to prevent sticking. Return the saved water to the main pot, set the colander in the pot and cover until you’re ready to serve.
2. Finely chop garlic, dice tomatoes and wash basil. Add garlic, salt & pepper to 2-3 tablespoons olive oil over high heat. As the garlic starts to sizzle, turn the heat down to medium and add tomatoes. Cover and simmer for until the tomatoes have softened and there is some liquid in the pan.
3. Cube the salmon not smaller than 2cm a side. Lower the heat and evenly space the salmon pieces in the pan - there should be enough liquid that they’re not frying. Scatter basil leaves over the mix and cover for 2 minutes. Very gently stir, turning the salmon over and mixing the basil into the sauce. Cover for another 2 minutes.
4. Serve immediately.