Do you feel like a piece of shit? Are you dripping in self-loathing? Have you neglected all responsibilities and blogging obligations for the past five days while your diet consisted of 60 per cent cheese-based goods? Well then, you useless sack of humanity, I have the recipe for you.

It’s a salmon rice dish that I’ve just recently started cooking which never fails to make me feel like less of a glob of patheticary and it’s super easy to throw together. I’ve just made it for myself after a bit of a write-off of a week and thought it the decent thing to do to share it with the world.

I started cooking this about the time I started reading Samin Nosrat’s Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, when I decided to open my heart up to the joys of salt, which will be evidenced throughout the following recipe. I have even started using the super fancy Maldon salt, which makes me feel like a real grown up. I haven’t yet finished the Fat, Acid or Heat chapters yet, but I already feel like I have been armed with the knowledge I need to boldly cook without a recipe, so long as a sprinkle my swanky salt about the place.

And so this isn’t so much a recipe as it is a remedy. It includes some generally healthy foods and inflates me with a sense of accomplishment, which can be quite healing.

I like to use it as an edible Control Z, undoing all the undesirable dids you did in the past. It will make you forget that most of your liquid intake over the past few days was a rich, almost meaty red wine. It will make you believe that you might actually do some meal prep and reply to your emails and wash your sweaty, sin-stanked clothes in the laundry basket. Maybe you will become a kinder, more wholesome person, perhaps you will go on that bush walk and, heck, you might even call your grandmother. This bowl of salty goodness will wipe your metaphorical slate clean for at least a few hours into the digestive process.

So are you ready to transform into a higher being? Let me take you through this evening’s process.

Step 0: Put on a podcast to play while you cook, which will feel like a multi-tasking wonder woman who fills her head with knowledge. Also, brush your hair, because doing it now will mean you won’t have to later. And pour yourself a glass of water to drink/flush out your filth while you cook. Chances are you’re in need of hydration.

Step 1: Grab a single vacuum-sealed portion of salmon from the freezer. Sure, you COULD use fresh salmon, but you’ve probably been in no state to rush to the supermarket in the past 24 hours. I like to buy my frozen salmon in bulk when it’s on special because I really get off on the idea that I’m saving money. I don’t like using so much plastic, but I need the fish to be individually-wrapped because I’m only ever cooking for one independent woman who honestly can’t stand the sound of other people breathing when she’s trying to sleep. I mean, I’m actually surprised single-portion salmon isn’t more aggressively marketed towards single women to be honest; it’s the perfect food for women empowered by the fact that they don’t have to fuck around cooking for some slob but the health factor taps into that secret better-not-get-fat-because-no-man-will-have-me fear.

Step 2: I know, the salmon is frozen. And you’re hungry now. But don’t get getting your knickers in a twist, for I have a somewhat-questionable-but-hasn’t-given-me-food-poisoning-yet trick I learned from my fast food days that changes everything. Submerge your frozen fish – still in the vacuum-sealed plastic – in a dish/sink/puddle of room temperature water. That guy will be ready to go in about 20 minutes.

Step 3: Meanwhile, swan out to your collection of potted herbs to both forage for ingredients and fill you with a smug I’ve-not-killed-these-plants-yet-and-am-therefore-an-earth-goddess feeling. I have a shitload of mint at the moment, which is practically impossible to kill so long as you water the bastard every day. Grab seven-to-eleven of these mint leaves, depending on their size. Of course, I just made up that quantity then by pulling the number out of thin air, so maybe it’s best to listen to your heart when it comes to the exact number. I also grabbed three green oregano leaves and like five half-dead dark brown ones, because I’ve nearly killed this plant and there’s not much for the taking. I’m also obsessed with thyme at the moment, partly because of the taste, partly because of the pun ammo it provides and partly because I’ve recently bought a big-arse bush of it and want to use it before it inevitably withers and dies (or, that it’s THYME has run out) like all good things in life. Grab a spring of thyme measuring roughly 14 centimetres (again, a completely made-up quantity).

Step 4: Grab a flat-bottomed bowl, one with enough of a surface to eat a piece of delicate cake off but with edges high enough to cater for an overzealous amount of custard. Using a pair of haphazardly wiped-down kitchen scissors, snip your home-grown herbs into the bowl.

Step 5: Cut off about a third of a lemon and squeeze it over the herbs.

Step 6: Sprinkle some of that fancy salt over the top, with flair. You’re a free-ballin’ cook making up your own rules, you’re allowed to be wanky with your salt.

Step 7: Grab a handful of snow peas, trimming the stem off and breaking larger ones into two.

Step 8: Try to remember the last time you had a decent serve of veggies, and decide you probably could do with another handful of greens.

Step 9: Time to get that rice cooking. Of course, you could totally cook your medley of brown, red and wild rice properly with saucepans and all that jazz, but I cannot be arsed and, honestly, am mildly fearful of all the mishaps rice cooking can bring, so just get a microwavable mix from the supermarket. Does it make me less of an expert and a culinary coward? Sure, but I really don’t like washing up extra stuff. So you hold you head high and just nuke that sachet of shame according to the directions on the pack.

Step 10: By this time, the salmon should have been thawed. Take that sucker out of the packet, pat it dry and set aside.

Step 11: Warm a family-sized frypan over a medium-hot heat, adding olive oil to the pan once it’s warm.

Step 12: Once it’s pretty flipping hot, place the salmon in skin-down, enjoying that sizzlin’ sound. Sprinkle a bit of salt over the top and give it a light squeeze of lemon. You’re going to have to trust yourself when it comes to crispy skin. If it’s sticking to the pan, it’s not ready to be flipped. The skin will remain on if you give the salmon enough time on one side. Hold your nerve, soldier.

Step 13: Fill the sink with a good five centimetres of hot water and a squirt of detergent. You’re feeling like a pile of stink, you really don’t want to be battling the washing up later on.

Step 14: Tip half the packet of cooked rice into the bowl over the salted, lemony herbs. Reserve the rest for tomorrow night’s meal repeat, or for ravenous snacking later on. Give the rice a good mix so the greenery is evenly distributed. Give it another squeeze of lemon and an extra wanky sprinkling of salt.

Step 15: Flip that fish! Give the crispy skin a wee saltin’, because salt has filled the void in your heart.

Step 16: After about a minute or two, chuck the snow peas in the pan, being careful to not throw them on the salmon. I know, I am someone who really only eats raw snow peas, so cooking them seems wild, but I promise you that a two minutes in the pan will change them forever. Make sure they get a good coating of oil and, of course, a theatrical sprinkle of salt.

Step 17: Layer the snow peas on the rice mix, before adding the salmon skin-side up.

Step 18: Dump the frypan into the water, giving it a decent scrub – it won’t require much effort if you do it straight away. I know it’s a hassle, but doing it now is better than putting it off for hours, with the knowledge that you’re going to have to scrape that grimy bastard weighing you down with the tangible mass of the carton of stubbies you drank in the weekend and the emotional heaviness of not knowing what embarrassing behaviour said beer inspired.

Step 19: Set yourself up at the dinner table with another big glass of water. Ignore the call eat slumped in front of the TV, create a bit of ambiance and give yourself a break from a screen so you can feel superior about not needing streaming services to distract yourself from your underwhelming life. But you don’t want to be sitting there alone with your thoughts, so block out the echoes of your inner dialogue by continuing whatever podcast you were listening to or with a bit of a tasteful background music. I recommend playing thank u, next on repeat or putting on some Fleetwood Mac, but only the songs with Stevie Nicks on lead vocals (HOWEVER, you’re going to want to avoid Landslide, unless you want to sob about how you’re getting older, too). This evening I decided to listen to some generic piano while I continued reading the aforementioned cookbook, hoping to learn about how all the cooking advice I just gave was completely wrong.