Serves 4
Years ago, I was staying at a fancy hotel in Las Vegas on a story assignment. When I went downstairs to breakfast, I noticed, across from the all-American breakfast buffet offering the usual artery clogging collection of greasy pork sausages, eggs, and every manner of white flour product slathered in butter and doused in butter, jam, or maple syrup, a Japanese breakfast buffet offering steamed rice, miso soup, salmon fillets and whole oily fish, pickles, and vegetables. Vegetables! For breakfast! I left old habits behind a piled up my plate with rice, spinach, and fish, and afterwards I felt so clear-headed and energized versions of that breakfast have been a favorite ever since. This is not a traditional Japanese breakfast, but the breakfast I make with a Japanese breakfast in mind, when I want to start my day with protein and vegetables, and feeling like a million yen.
The salmon I use here is poached and then refrigerated, which works for me because no matter how great I feel after eating fish for breakfast, I don’t really want to cook fish for breakfast. Plus, with the fish already cooked, you can pull breakfast together in minutes. The only component that has to be piping hot is the rice, and the smell of steaming rice in the morning is almost as seductive as that of bacon, but in a very, very different way.
1 cup long-grain brown rice, rinsed and cooked (see here; 3½ cups cooked rice)
1 (10-ounce) clamshell prewashed spinach leaves (preferably baby spinach), lightly steamed
Poached Salmon (recipe follows)
Sweet Miso Dressing (recipe follows)
4 nori sheets, thinly sliced into threads, or furikake or toasted sesame seeds, for sprinkling
4 soft-boiled or medium-boiled eggs (optional; see here)
1 or 2 ripe avocados, pitted, peeled, and sliced (optional)
Pickled Vegetables (here; optional)
Spoon the rice into four large bowls, or four smaller rice bowls if you’re serving bento box style. Sprinkle the rice with the nori threads. Pile the spinach on top of the rice (or in a separate dish if you’re going bento) and drizzle with the sweet miso dressing. If you are adding any of the optional components, add them to the bowl on, or put them in separate dishes around, the rice. Serve with the remaining miso dressing on the side for drizzling.
Makes 1 pound
I tend to like big, robust flavors, so I was late to try poached fish. Boy was I missing out. In fact, poached fish is so ridiculously delicious that I always poach more than I need so I have enough for the next day, and the next. And it’s so easy to make and foolproof. I made many of the poaching ingredients in this recipe optional; make it with what you have.
1 Spanish yellow onion, peeled and halved
1 carrot, broken in half
1 celery stalk, broken in half
A small handful of parsley sprigs
1 bay leaf (preferably fresh)
1 teaspoon whole black peppercorns
½ cup white wine
1 arbol chile pod (or a pinch of red pepper flakes)
2 lemons, halved
1 (1-pound) skin-on salmon fillet
Choose a deep straight-sided skillet that is large enough to fit the salmon fillet in one layer. Put the poaching ingredients that you are using into the skillet. Squeeze the lemon juice into the pan and drop the lemon halves into the pan. Add 6 cups water and bring the liquid to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to maintain a simmer and cook for about 20 minutes to infuse the water with the poaching ingredients.
Lay the salmon skin-side down in the pan; move the poaching veggies around (or remove and toss them) to make room for the salmon. If the salmon isn’t covered in liquid, add enough water so it is barely covered. Return the water to a simmer. Gently simmer—you want the water barely bubbling; reduce the heat if it’s boiling—until the salmon is just cooked through, 8 to 12 minutes. To test for doneness, gently separate the fish with a fork or your fingers; if it pulls apart easily and is opaque throughout, it’s done. If not, give it another minute or two and test it again.
Remove the salmon from the liquid and use your fingers to gently pull back, remove, and discard the skin. Serve it hot, or transfer to a plate and let it cool to room temperature. If you’re cooking the fish to eat later, after it cools to room temperature, wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate for up to 2 days.
Makes about ¾ cup
¼ cup sweet white miso
¼ cup rice vinegar
2 tablespoons mirin (Japanese sweet rice wine; substitute dry sherry)
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon low-sodium soy sauce or tamari
1 teaspoon kosher salt
Whisk all the ingredients together in a small bowl until the dressing is smooth. It will keep, refrigerated in a covered container, for weeks.
The best thing to happen for spinach since Popeye did his marketing of the vegetable can be summed up in a word: prewashed.