Maple Glazed Salmon

Since I recently had confirmed that my systolic pressure is higher than is desirable, something I've suspected for some time, I've been trying to cut out the sodium in my diet.

This is harder than it seems for someone living alone because there is surprising amounts of sodium in pretty much any canned food, most stored or preserved meat or fish, soup or canned pasta, and even in breads. Even some vegetable dishes, if they come in the preserved variety, are laden with sodium. Even cereals, loaded with healthy whole grains, can have horrific amounts of sodium as do most nuts (hard to find non-salted nuts, but it can be done).

In trying to reduce my sodium, I have had to watch what I drink (Canada Dry Soda Water should be banned - 20% in a can vs. 2% in PC Soda Water). I have also had to try to eat more fresh food.

Watching what I eat includes shifting from canned beans, lentils, and so on to dried versions for my chili, shifting from normal bread to ancient grain or sunflower or flax bread with less than outrageous amounts of sodium (there is actually a couple of low sodium breads, but you have to search for them). There are also low sodium crackers, but again a bit of effort to hunt down. Low sodium soup? I think this must have to be made fresh because every preserved soup I see has a minimum 18% of your daily salt. Low sodium tuna is available in some rare places.

I am going to try making crockpots full of soup and freezing it, since I have a freezer out in the country now. That ought to help let me enjoy soup without the salt.

All of this leads to my new diet involving more vegetables (watching for the ones that have salt in the freezer bags or preserved cans), salad (with low-sodium dressing), and things like fresh fish. PC Salmon fillets (not smoked, not coated with seasoning) come in at around 4% of the day's allocation. Low sodium diets want you to shoot for 50%, something I just can't manage anytime soon. If I can get to 65-70%, I'll be pretty happy.

Anyway, I threw one of hese lovely boneless salmon fillets into the frypan and thought 'how am I going to flavour this' - last time it was some pepper, mustard, and hot chili. That was tasty enough.

This time, it was maple syrup and sesame seeds. I wasn't sure how it would work out, but I just cooked it for 3 - 3.5 minutes a side at medium heat, with a liberal application of maple syrup and an encrustation of sesame, and it worked out okay.

I think it would have been better if I had pre-toasted the sesame seeds, but this was quick and tasty enough. The maple syrup left a good glaze on the fish and the remains made a somewhat thickened sauce.

There must be something about having the sesame there though, because that plus the thickened syrup cooled rather quickly into something like a maple gum or soft taffy. That just added to the flavour and did a great job with the fish, but there is probably a more formally correct way to prepare this dish.

I should have got a picture as it even looked good on the plate! Easy to make, tasty, and very low sodium.