Typhoon Shelter is a Hong Kong style of serving usually fried crab or prawns, but this baked salmon version is perfect for home cooking. It may seem like a lot of garlic, but it really isn’t overpowering at all. This is a firm favourite in our household. An added bonus is that it leaves you with a fair bit of delicious garlic oil to use later.

Ingredients

Serves 4

1 cup vegetable oil

3 heads garlic, cloves peeled and finely chopped

4 salmon fillets, scaled

salt and pepper, to season

8 spring onions

2 bird’s eye chillies, sliced

1 tbsp salted black beans (available from Asian grocery stores or some supermarkets)

a good pinch of sugar

1/2 cup loosely packed picked coriander leaves

Method

Heat the vegetable oil in a small saucepan over low-medium heat and add the garlic. Cook the garlic for about 15-20 minutes, stirring reguarly until it is lightly golden brown and then remove the garlic from the oil with a wire mesh. Reserve both the fried garlic and the garlic oil.

Heat your oven to 200C. Place the salmon fillets skin-down on a layer of baking paper on baking tray. Season with salt and pepper and bake for 10 minutes. Transfer the baking paper with the salmon still on top directly to a serving plate.

While the salmon is cooking heat 2-3 tablespoons of the garlic oil in the wok (reserve any leftover garlic oil for another purpose) and add the spring onions and chillies. Toss for about a minute until the spring onions start to soften then sprinkle over the sugar and toss for a further minute. Pour the mixture over the salmon, then scatter the garlic and coriander leaves on top and serve immediately.

Tips for Typhoon Shelter

1. The garlic becomes delicious and mild when it’s toasted so don’t worry about the garlic being overpowering.
2. If you don’t want to use your oven, you can easily pan-fry the salmon instead.
3. The extra garlic oil is delicious when used in salad dressings, for frying steaks etc. I often make this dish just to get the garlic oil!