Chef JJ Johnson uses rice at home in many different ways — making crepes with his kids, using leftover rice for his wife’s lunch salad and frying it for dinner multiple ways

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Defining Dishes is a new Indyeats column that explores the significance of food at key moments in our lives. From recipes that have been passed down for generations, to flavours that hold a special place in our hearts, food shapes every part of our lives in ways we might not have ever imagined. I came up with this baked honey-soy salmon dish in the first flat I ever had all to myself, as a master’s student in Stirling, Scotland. I think that’s what makes me feel most proud of it, because it was the first thing I made that made me truly feel like an adult. I was 25 and had been living away from home in Malaysia for nearly five years, and although I never really cooked with fish, I was really craving it, particularly Chinese steamed fish. Salmon was relatively cheap in Scotland, but I always felt that there was something about cooking fish that was very intimidating. It felt like it was too fancy for me. I also feel like it’s still socially acceptable to eat overcooked, dry chicken breast, but eating overcooked fish is just much more unpleasant and no one wants that. But something came over me one day when I saw a fresh salmon fillet with a really good discount in the Tesco clearance aisle. Maybe that should tell you something about me – I don’t know if others would consider that safe – but it looked good and I said, “You know what, maybe today’s the day”. At the time, it so happened that honey-soy salmon was really trending, I had seen it all over the place. I didn’t Google a recipe, I just sort of figured out what flavours could be good on a piece of fish. I made a sauce using soy sauce, Chinese cooking wine and maple syrup (which was gifted to me by one of my very nice friends), poured it on top of the fish and shoved it in the oven, because I didn’t have a steamer then. I did look up how long to cook it for, and Google said 20 minutes. I ate it with steamed rice and to my delight, surprise and relief, it was absolutely delicious. I felt really good about it. It was a real level-up moment in my life. It was the first time I had made a difficult dish, even though the actual labour wasn’t difficult at all and it is essentially a very simple dish. It made me feel like I could do it; I could make grown-up food. At the time, I was 24 or 25-years-old and I had been living away from home for some time, but never without housemates. So I was truly on my own. It was a revelation to realise that I could make Chinese food like this at home. I come from a Malaysian-Indian family. We don’t steam much of anything and so if I wanted steamed fish, I’d have to go to a Chinese restaurant. But now, I didn’t really have to. After that, it became my hyper-fixation meal. I just couldn’t get enough of it and made it all the time – at the peak of my fixation, I ate it three times a week. But I did learn that it does not make for good leftovers. It must be eaten on the day it’s made, otherwise the fishy smell gets a bit unappealing. Once I learned that, I ate it about once a week, and each time I’d experiment with it. I learned the importance of adding aromatics like garlic, ginger, spring onions, coriander and chili. But the key motivator to my experiments was laziness. Could I get away with not slicing things up? What if I don’t want to turn the stove on? How can I cut corners? No matter what kind of nonsense I threw at it, it has always turned out reliably good. The first time I cooked the dish for someone else was when my parents came to visit me from Malaysia. We had just returned from a trip, and they were staying in my flat for a week and it was the first time they came to a place that was truly mine. I remember very clearly cooking the salmon for them because a couple of friends had invited me out to the pub that night and I wanted to go, but I didn’t want to order takeaway for my parents – they were at that stage in their holiday when all Asian parents get grumpy because they haven’t had rice in three days and it was paramount that they ate some immediately. I had 30 minutes before I had to get going to the pub, and I figured that I knew how to cook this dish so well by now that I could get it done in 20 minutes. However, it was also the first time I had scaled a fish. Before, I just cooked the fish with scales and all, I didn’t even realise you had to take them off. For some reason, this time I decided I needed to scale this slab of salmon. I read one Google-recommended article and was like: “Let’s go.” What they don’t tell you is that scales fly. They go absolutely everywhere. And there’s a kind of black coating, like a slime, on the fish that will also go everywhere. I remember my parents peeking their head around the kitchen door to ask if everything was OK, and me just barking: “YA IT’S FINE.” I had to get that thing in the oven NOW, so it had to happen. And you know what? It turned out great. This was the second dish I’ve made for my parents that they’ve said: “Oh, wow.” The first time was for a prawn curry, but this was special because they were so impressed by the efficiency of it and also, it was the first time they realised that wow, I’m an adult, I’ve figured it out. They were used to me making good food, but this was the first practical dish; it’s not me sitting in the kitchen, having to cut a mountain of onions and pounding galangal. Last year, after I moved to Virginia to be with my husband, I made it for him for the first time. It feels really nice to share this part of me with him. It was a piece of myself that I figured out on my own, before married life, and it feels really significant because it was my independence dish. I want everybody to make it. However, I have a bone to pick with fishmongers in the UK. I want to know why they don’t scale the fish you buy unless they’re asked. Surely nobody wants to eat the scales? Just scale it please, thank you very much. And if any readers have suggestions for how I can make my baked salmon skin crispy, I would very much like to know. I still haven’t figured that part out yet. Mallini Kannan is a communications specialist from Malaysia, who now lives in the US with her husband. She still cooks this dish every week. Read More The dish that defines me: Frank Yeung’s prawn wontons The dish that defines me: Alex Outhwaite’s Vietnamese bun cha The dish that defines me: Eddie Huang’s Taiwanese beef noodle soup Breakfast for dinner and four other things you should cook this week Where to find the best Guinness in London – and how to spot a bad one How sizzling kitchen drama The Bear is spicing up the dating game for chefs

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Seven races into the Formula 1 season and the moment has finally arrived. You can only bypass the trials and tribulations for so long before the tomfoolery of the sport’s most prestigious team must be dissected, head on. It’s time to talk about Ferrari. To say the 2023 campaign thus far has been underwhelming for the Scuderia would be in itself an understatement. Zero wins. Only one podium – in Baku – and even that was from a pole position start. Last time out in Barcelona, Charles Leclerc qualified a dismal 19th, failing to recover to a points-finish on Sunday. Carlos Sainz qualified second but could only manage fourth on raceday. Yet what makes Ferrari’s current infamy in motorsport’s most famous competition more baffling is their display in motorsport’s most famous endurance race. Because, returning to the 24 Hours of Le Mans last weekend for the first time in 50 years, Ferrari turned all predictions upside-down with a shock victory. Spearheaded by British driver James Calado, alongside former F1 star Antonio Giovvinazzi and Italian Alessandro Pier Guidi, Ferrari took their 10th Le Mans win and first in 58 years. It was a thrillingly impressive performance, beating favourites Toyota, in front of a sold-out 300,000 crowd at the centenary event. And what was it based on? Top-notch reliability, a clear-cut strategy throughout and straight-line speed which made the difference over the course of 342 laps. Can Ferrari’s F1 team take note? All the more, Leclerc was present in the garage in Le Mans, alongside F1 boss Fred Vasseur. How they must have both felt, seeing Ferrari’s best moment of 2023 so far play out in an endurance car as opposed to an F1 car. “It feels absolutely amazing, especially having a Ferrari winning,” Leclerc said afterwards. “I was here to support and I’m really happy that Ferrari won. It was an incredible experience.” Rewind a week and Leclerc was not so chirpy. “I don’t have the answer,” he exclaimed after his Q1 exit in Spain. What’s more, after the car returned to the factory in Maranello, a further sense of disconcertment. No obvious problem was identified. For a car which has thrived on Saturdays and struggled on Sundays, this was a discernible step backwards: a sense of direction which has been in motion for 12 months now. Ferrari’s last win in Formula 1 was in Austria, last July. 18 races have come and gone since then, with all but one won by Red Bull. This season, they trail Christian Horner’s team by 187 points already, languishing in fourth place. The point in time when Leclerc was a championship challenger seems a distant memory now. It’s hard to believe how far the Prancing Horse has fallen since his two wins from three to open up the 2022 season. The hope and realisation that the sport’s most famous team – who have not won a drivers’ title in 16 years, their longest-ever drought – were very much back in the top-end running was palpable. However, such potential has fallen off a cliff. No changing of the team principal, with Vasseur replacing the harshly axed Mattia Binotto in the off-season, has altered the stagnation. The Frenchman, too, is at a loss to explain the lack of consistency and progression. “We have 1,000 people [working] on this now and it is very difficult to understand and to fix it because it’s not always the same problem,” Vasseur said in Spain. When the boss is struggling to understand the issues at hand, there is a very tangible problem. Longer-term, you do wonder how long Leclerc’s patience in particular will last. The 25-year-old was linked with Mercedes last month, in a swap deal for Lewis Hamilton which seemed as fanciful then as it does now, with the Brit on the verge of signing a new deal. Leclerc’s anger in 2022 of the situation with his beloved team has now turned almost to an acceptance: an acceptance that ‘something has gone wrong… again… and we don’t how to fix it.’ And ahead of the Canadian Grand Prix this weekend, who knows what Ferrari will turn up in Montreal? The media don’t. The tifosi fans don’t. But most concerningly of all, the team don’t either. Read More Ferrari boss unhappy with ‘light’ Red Bull penalty for cost cap breach Ferrari chief orders ‘full investigation’ into Charles Leclerc’s retirement at Bahrain Grand Prix F1 2023 calendar: Every race this season Christian Horner reveals how close Fernando Alonso was to joining Red Bull Christian Horner reveals how close Fernando Alonso was to joining Red Bull

MINNEAPOLIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul 17, 2023--