My father gets a smoked salmon filet every year at Christmas. It is not the moist/sweet/tender Atlantic style that works well for lox and bagels, but a drier, flakier, more dense style. I think it is from the US Northwest Pacific, but I can’t find it on Amazon to provide a link.
My question is: What to do with it? I have done some cream cheese/red onion/capers stuff with it, but it is so strongly flavored that a little goes a long way, so most of it is always left over. It goes well in scrambled eggs, but I need more ideas so it doesn’t get pitched.
A good pasta dish:
boil fettuccine (flat noodles), toss with a cream/butter/Parmesan sauce (a bit of garlic added if you like garlic, or fresh onion), and add flakes of smoked salmon to the dish. Add some peas if you like them, or mushrooms.
Use a mixture of green (spinach) fettuccine and regular egg (white/yellow) fettuccine, and you have a seafood variation of the traditional “hay & straw” pasta dish, which uses pork (prosciutto or ham or bacon) for the meat.
1 1/2 cups salmon
1 1/2 cups mashed potato or breadcrumbs
1/4 cup chopped green onions
2 tablespoons chopped celery
2 tablespoons minced yellow onion
3/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/3 teaspoon powdered dried thyme
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 lightly beaten egg
1/4 cup cornmeal
1/4 cup flour
Mix all the ingredients down to the egg in a large bowl and combine well. Form into burger type patties. Roll in mixed cornmeal and flour and fry until golden brown.
They are really popular when I do them at BBQs served on a hamburger bun with lettuce, tomato and lime mayonnaise with a dash of chili sauce. I use either tinned salmon or smoked australian salmon which is a far inferior fish to real salmon but I have a friend who smokes his own and gives me a side now and then.
let me guess: one hour to drive back home from the store, 20 minutes to get the groceries off the car, 5 minutes to open the package, 12 minutes to wolf the whole thing down
t-bonham nailed my usual take on it down to the t’s. A total crowd pleaser.
Smoked salmon and ginger tortelloni with a coconut-curry sauce is a more high-level way to go about it if you feel like spending some extra time in the kitchen
Here’s my favourite smoked salmon leftovers recipe:
Sounds like a hot smoked salmon, if it’s flakes. Lovely stuff.
Ingredients
4 oz (110 g) tagliatelle
8 oz (225 g) smoked salmon
1 oz (25 g) butter
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed with 1 teaspoon salt
4 oz (110 g) chestnut mushrooms, thinly sliced
1 level teaspoon mild curry powder
1 level tablespoon plain flour
5 fl oz (150 ml) white wine
2 level tablespoons crème fraîche
Method
Melt the butter in a frying pan, then add the onion and sauté over a low heat until soft (around 7 mins). Add the crushed garlic and mushrooms and continue to cook for a further 2-3 minutes. Mix the curry powder and flour together and stir these into the butter to soak up all the juices. Then add the wine gradually, stirring briskly after each addition and, when all the wine is added, cook for a further 3 minutes before finally adding the crème fraîche.
The sauce is now ready and can be made up to this stage in advance, but lay a piece of clingfilm over the surface if you’re not using it immediately. When you’re ready to cook the pasta place a large saucepan with plenty of lightly salted water on to boil and cook the pasta for 10 minutes or until it is cooked to your liking, but still retains some bite.
Drain the pasta, return it to the pan.
Break the salmon into large flakes and add to the sauce. Give it one stir - no more, or the salmon will break up further. Now stir the sauce and the pasta together (again, stir sparingly and gently). Serve
Take a split, lightly toasted English Muffin and butter the halves a bit. Put some salmon on them, top them with some grated cheese, and run it under the broiler for a minute or two. If you want to get cute, put some garlic powder, cracked black pepper, and dill on it. You could use bagels or sliced bread, too.
The thing about smoked stuff is that it doesn’t really play well with others, it tends to dominate, so it’s not like you can just incorporate it into various recipes like other meats. It’s best to have it where it’s the feature flavor, because that’s what it’s going to be, anyway.
Take a wheel of Brie, not too ripe. Cut just through the rind with a sharp knife, all around the edge to divide it into thirds. Work a strand of dental floss into each cut until the ends cross, then pull to slice the cheese. Layer on thin slices of salmon and reassemble as a triple-decker cheese-and-salmon sandwich. Chop lots of fresh dill and wrap the Brie tightly in plastic surrounded by the dill. Stick it in the fridge overnight, then cut wedges to serve.
That’s the Culinary Institute of America, who had a TV show for a while. Maybe they still do; I haven’t watched much TV in ages.
Smoked salmon, mhhh, you want to cherish the flavors, not hide them too much in a large dish. Goes best with red onion chopped in thin rings, some creme fraiche on the side, rocked salad as garnish, and eaten with what we call flat bread which is kind of a thin square hard “tortilla”, but not made of mais but wheat. Also tender squeese from a lime on top, and maybe some roasted pinenuts.
Creamy Smoked Salmon Pasta
Ingredients:
3 tablespoons butter
1/2 an onion, finely chopped
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 cup skim milk
1/4 cup grated Romano cheese
Generous handful fresh spinach, (can also use half box frozen spinach, thawed and squeezed dry)
1/4 cup canned mushrooms, drained
6 ounces smoked salmon, chopped
1/2 (16 ounce) package penne pasta
Directions:
Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add pasta and cook for 8 to 10 minutes or until al dente; drain.
Melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Saute onion in butter until tender.
Stir flour and garlic into the butter and onions. Gradually stir in milk. Heat to just below boiling point, and then gradually stir in cheese until the sauce is smooth. Stir in spinach and mushrooms, and cook over low heat for 4 minutes.
Toss in smoked salmon, and cook for 2 more minutes. Serve over pasta.
