Salmon Pasta with Broad Beans, Soy & Honey

Salmon pasta with soy and honey, is one of those meals we never tire of. It’s a weekly staple that tastes delicious; is really good for you; and only takes half an hour, so what’s not to like?

There is however one little down side, it uses three pans. So not the end of the world if you have a dishwasher, either the mechanical type or the human type! I grew up with a rule that whoever cooks, gets out of the washing up! I appreciate though that that doesn’t really help if you live alone.

Back to the food! Today I’m using broad beans, because the harvest is in full swing, meaning I have a lot of them.

But like most things we cook, it’s flexible, frozen peas work just as well. Sometimes we grate a carrot in or shred some spinach. When the sugar snaps or mangetout are producing they get chopped in. And some weeks we add chilli. Whatever you happen to have in the fridge or the garden.

The only essential ingredients are pasta, onions or shallots, peppers, ginger, ideally fresh but ground is fine, garlic, soy sauce, honey, with some sort of veg. We nearly always make it with salmon, very occasionally we have used chicken. On decadent occasions we’ve used smoked salmon, which is chopped up and popped into the pasta pan for the last 30 seconds of its cooking.

Any protein substitute would be fine though.

Growing Broad Beans

Broad beans really are one of the easiest crops to grow. I grow them every year in one of the raised beds in the kitchen garden.

You simply sow a row of beans in October, their shoots pop out of the ground within weeks. They then tolerate whatever the winter weather throws at them, including freezing solid.

When the first of the warm weather arrives they spring into action growing at an incredible rate. They also produce the most beautiful flowers, especially the variety I grow called ‘Crimson’. The bees also love them, which means good pollination for me and a good early source of food for them. Everyone’s a winner!

By early June we are enjoying our first harvest of scrumptious small beans and by the end of June it’s all over. One warm evening this week we cut all of the stalks down and sat outside podding them.

We simply put them into a sealed container and freeze, grabbing a handful when we need them.

Let’s get cooking

Gather together the ingredients, and grab those three pans (one non-stick), a chopping board and sharp knife. You will also need a kettle which you can fill before you start.

Ingredients – In order of use – Serves 2

1 Onion
1 Pepper
1tbsp Olive Oil
3 Cloves of Garlic
1 piece of Ginger or 1tsp Ground Ginger
100g Pasta Penne or Fusilli
2 Salmon steaks – for poaching
Broad beans – roughly 100g podded
1 tsp Honey – plus a little extra for drizzling
1 tbsp Soy sauce – plus a little extra for drizzling

Method

Chop the onion and pepper finely.

Pour the oil into the non-stick pan, and add the onion and pepper. Bring up to temperature then turn to the lowest heat setting and cover with a lid. Set the timer for 10 minutes.

During this time you can prepare the garlic and ginger, chopping them very finely.

When the timer goes off add them to the pan.

Stir them in, then place the lid back on and allow to soften gently. This will take around 15 minutes or until the onion is translucent.

In the meantime you can put the kettle on, before weighing out the pasta. I use either Penne or Fusilli, but this is flexible, use what you like.

Place the pasta into your second pan and pour over the boiling water. Bring to the boil then turn down to a rolling simmer.

The pasta should take about 11 minutes. Set the timer for 4 minutes, this is when you need to poach the salmon. You may now need to put some more water into the kettle and re-boil.

Place the salmon steaks into your third saucepan ready.

When the timer goes off, start it again for another 4 minutes.

Pour the boiling water over the salmon and bring to the boil, again turning down to a rolling simmer.

Get the beans ready.

When the timer goes off for the second time re-set it for 3 minutes and add the beans to the pasta pan, turning up the heat to bring back to the boil.