Some weeks ago Luca and I decided to have a "do it yourself " sushi festival at our house. It was a small affair with only one American and seven Italians but boy did I go overboard. After having gone to the store I arrived home with no less than 500 grams each of salmon, orata, and tuna filets along with 16 Croatian shrimp for tempura. I even managed to overstock on essential sushi vegetables like cucumbers, carrots, radishes, zucchini, and avocadoes. The party went off without a hitch and we were all stuffed to the brim with yummy, healthy, homemade sushi. The next day though, as I opened the fridge, I was struck with the horrible dilemma of what to do with all the left over ingredients. Knowing that I had to eat fish for 2 consecutive days was not the problem; knowing what to do with the fish was.
I eventually decided that another day of fish tempura was fine so I heated up the oil from the night before (no need to waste it, it simply acquires the flavor of what it is frying and oil takes a little while to go rancid). This time I paired them with a wasabi mayonnaise dip. The salmon I cooked on an indoor grill and smoothered in a sauce I made from carrots, leeks, ginger, a little bit of honey, and my all time favorite seasoning for any seafood dish, fish sauce. You can just blame it on all those years of growing up in an asian american household. In the end, we ate all the leftovers with not one bored tastebud to show for it.
