How to make coriander salmon tacos with red cabbage slaw

For too long Mexican food conjured up images of truck loads of shredded cheese, buckets of beans and dollops of Spanish rice accompanied by enough grease to clog the best artery.

Now, thankfully, we’ve had a rethink. Mexican food is fresh, flavourful and packed with crunch and bite.

These salmon tacos aren’t authentic Mexican but they are tasty. The oily salmon is balanced by pickled onions and a light slaw seasoned with caraway seeds. Add some coriander and corn tortillas and you’ve got a complete meal.

The pickled onions are inspired by a recipe from Sabrina Ghayour in her latest cookbook, Feasts. Delicious and also a lovely, vibrant, pinky colour – sublime.

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Serves 4

4 salmon fillets
40g coriander
Olive oil
Salt and pepper

Pickled onions

1 medium red onion, finely sliced
100ml cider vinegar
½ tsp cumin seeds
¼-½ tsp sea salt

Red Cabbage slaw

500g red cabbage, roughly half a medium cabbage
2 tbsp Greek yoghurt
1½ tbsp olive oil
1 lime, zest and juice
½ tsp caraway seeds

To serve

8 corn tortillas

Place the salmon fillets on a plate or rectangular baking dish. Drizzle with olive oil and season generously with salt and pepper. Set aside a few sprigs of coriander and chop the rest. Reserve 2-3 tablespoons of the chopped coriander. Sprinkle the rest over the salmon. Set aside to marinade for half an hour or so.

To make the pickled onions, place the onions, cider vinegar, cumin seeds and sea salt in a jar. Give the jar a vigorous shake to mix, ensuring the onions are coated with the vinegar. Give it another shake every few minutes. Test them after 10 minutes – they should still have their crunch but have lost some of the raw flavour. Set aside until ready to serve.

Remove the core from the cabbage and slice thinly. Place the cabbage in a bowl and set aside. For the slaw, mix the yoghurt, olive oil, lime juice and zest and the caraway seeds in a small bowl. Again, set aside until ready to serve the tacos.

Wrap the tortillas in aluminium foil and warm them in a low oven for about 10 minutes.

Heat a frying pan – large enough to hold the four salmon fillets comfortably – over medium heat. Drizzle some olive oil in the pan then add the salmon flesh side down with as much of the coriander as possible still clinging to the flesh. Season with salt and pepper. Cook for a few minutes then turn on one side. Cook again for another minute then turn onto the other side and finally cook skin side down. When the flesh is just cooked through, take off the heat and remove the skin and any grey bits.

Dress the slaw with the dressing and season with more salt and pepper, if needed. Serve each person two tortillas, a salmon fillet and let them add slaw and pickled onions and the chopped coriander and coriander sprigs.

@juliapleonard