Avocado Salmon Salad

Pan-seared salmon over romaine, cucumber, tomato, red onion and avocado, dressed with an olive oil, mayonnaise and vinegar dressing. The source names no country and the combination is a broadly Western one, so it sits in Worldwide Recipes with its URL unchanged. Salmon is the reason. It is a cold-water fish of the North Atlantic and North Pacific and is not native to African waters, so while it is imported and eaten in African cities, it belongs to no African tradition. The dishes Africa builds on its own fish are quite different: Senegalese thieboudienne with thiof, Ghanaian grilled tilapia with banku, Libyan haraimi, Egyptian sayadeya. The technique worth taking from it is the sear. The salmon goes into a warm pan skin side up and is left alone for about four minutes until one side is golden, then turned for another three. Moving it early is what tears the flesh and stops it colouring. The avocado goes in raw at the end and should be added just before serving, since it browns quickly once cut. The dressing is blended separately and drizzled over rather than tossed through, which keeps the leaves crisp.