Salmon koobideh
Fusion cooking

By Johnny Waters
February 18, 2003
The Iranian

Ingredients

-- 1/2 lb of salmon fillet, skinned and minced very fine (labor intensive)
-- 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
-- 1/2 tsp somac powder

Mincing

I used a very very sharp German knife to mince the fish, occasionally pounding it into the cutting board with the side of the blade. You will find that in a short while it will become a paste. This is a technique of cutting fish that I learned from a sushi-chef/friend of mine for serving "hotate" (scallop) sushi.

Mixing

Press the minced fish into a flat oval onto the cutting board, sprinkle the pepper and somac evenly over the surface, and kneed well, until evenly mixed throughout the fish. I did not use lime juice in the mix because the acids would "cook" the flesh (like a ceviche) and would reduce it's ability to stay together on the skewer.

Threading

I use a sheet of plastic wrap to do this, place the fish onto the wrap, and arrange into a rectangular shape. Make sure that there are no wrinkles on the wrap, as it will complicate removal for grilling or broiling. Don't make the kabob more than 5" long or else it will fall off :)

Lay your skewer (a flat koobideh skewer or a square "resham" skewer) on the center of the rectangle, and use the vinyl wrap to mold the meat to the skewer. Let this arrangement sit at room temperature for about 20 minutes, then refrigerate until ready to cook.

Cooking

This is the hard part, depending on the thickness of the kabob (I make all of mine very thin) it will take 5-10 minutes to cook under a hot broiler (see my last article on no-grill koobideh) or over hot coals... this mixture behaves very much like beef koobideh, but takes less time to cook.

Serving

Serve on Chelo with butter and onions.

Fusion ideas

Make kateh, allow to cool to room temperature in the pot, cut a long rectangular cake from the fused mass of rice, lay the kabob on top, decorate in the middle with a strip of Nori (dried pressed kelp) and serve as a huge piece of Iranian Sushi!

Note: I have seen "ground tuna" in the local supermarket, but not since I came up with this idea.

Enjoy.

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