Miso coconut broth features on my weeknight menu at least once a week. I serve it with oven-baked crispy-skinned salmon or steamed or grilled white fish, and always with plenty of steamed green vegetables and kumara.

This recipe requires a small amount of coconut cream and as I make it on a regular basis, I freeze leftover coconut cream in an ice cube tray and keep the frozen coconut cream cubes in a snap lock bag in the freezer. Each cube is about a tablespoon, which helps to make this recipe even more simple to make; better living, everyone.

Miso coconut broth with crispy-skinned salmon & vegetables

Makes enough for two.

For the broth:

good quality miso 2 tablespoons, I use Urban Hippie

coconut cream 4 tablespoons

fresh root ginger 1 tablespoon, grated

garlic cloves 2, grated or crushed (grate whole unpeeled garlic cloves using a microplane grater; the clove will grate but the skin doesn’t. Genius)

juice of half a lemon 

sweet mirin 2 tablespoons

fish sauce 1/2 teaspoon

chilli paste 1 teaspoon

kaffir/makrut lime leaf torn in half

reserved vegetable steaming water 1 cup

Place all ingredients into a small saucepan and bring to the boil. Taste the broth and add more fish sauce, lemon or water to taste. Place a lid on the pot and set aside.

For the salmon & vegetables:

salmon fillet 300g, cut lengthwise into two pieces

green vegetables such as bok choy, silverbeet, broccoli – as many as you see fit

kumara 1 medium

equipment: cast iron griddle pan, steamer (I use a fold-out metal steamer that adjusts to fit the size of the saucepan)

Place a griddle pan into the oven (don’t add any oil), set the oven to fan bake and crank the temperature gauge up as high it goes. Leave the pan in the oven to heat up until it’s searingly hot.

Peel the kumara and slice into 5cm pieces. Fill a large saucepan with a couple of centimetres of water and place the steamer inside the pot with the kumara on top. Place a lid on the pot and steam for about 15 minutes. Meanwhile wash the green vegetables and slice up into similarly-sized pieces.

Time to cook the salmon. Open the oven door and place the salmon onto the griddle pan, skin side down and quickly shut the door; do this as quickly as possible to prevent the oven losing heat. The salmon will take around five minutes to cook. Place the green vegetables on top of the kumara and steam for a further three minutes or so.

Remove the griddle pan from the oven; this is obvious but the handle of the griddle pan will be insanely hot, so wrap a tea towel around it and use an oven mitt. Might I suggest you leave the tea towel wrapped around the handle of the griddle pan once you’ve removed it from the oven to remind you that it’s hot (you benefit from my experience here).

To serve:

Divide the steamed vegetables between two bowls and pour over most of the miso coconut broth. Top each pile of vegetables with a piece of perfectly crispy-skinned salmon and pour over the rest of the broth.