Happiness is my latest pie, a dilled salmon potato

Dilled Salmon Potato Pie

28 oz cooked salmon, flaked (I used canned, boneless, skinless, Atlantic, drained)

2 lbs Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled, boiled, mashed

2 eggs, beaten 

1/2 stick salted butter

1/4 yellow onion diced

1 T sea salt for the potato water plus 1/2 tsp for seasoning

1 handful fresh dill fronds, chopped

1/2 lemon 

 

1- Set the oven to bake at 425F.

2- Start the water on the boil; peel and quarter the potatoes; boil covered by water salted with 1 T salt, about 20 minutes to fork tender; remove to a bowl and mash with a potato masher, plain, and let cool.

3- Meanwhile, dice the onions; melt the butter in a skillet and gently saute the onions until transparent, and set aside to cool.

4- Drain the salmon and flake it; add salmon to the potatoes, mashing in until thoroughly distributed.

5- Add the butter and sauteed onions to the potatoes and mash. Season with 1/2 tsp salt.

6- Chop the dill and mash it in.

7- Squeeze one half lemon with your hands over the mixture and mash.

8- Add the beaten eggs and mash.

9- Turn out the mixture into a large pie pan, sculpt until level, and bake in the middle of the pre-heated oven 42 minutes until golden brown on the top, because 42 is the answer to everything.

10- Let cool 5-10 minutes, slice and serve on warm plates with a fresh vegetable or a side salad.

 

Makes eight servings.

 

Two slices will stuff you with seven ounces of salmon, which is 40% of the US RDA for protein. You can fiddle with the quantity of salmon down, and the quantity of dill and lemon up, as desired. The last time I made this was with 21 oz of salmon and two slices seemed not quite enough at just over five ounces of salmon, even though it seemed to me that it should have been enough.

 

You could probably make salmon cakes with this, frying them in oil using one less egg and no lemon juice in the mixture to reduce the moisture content, since this is the bones of a Newfoundland cod cake recipe. But at the end of the day, I'd just rather shove it in the oven down here at 42.9704° N latitude.

 

IYKYK. 

 

 

 

 

 

   

Basil Pesto Sockeye Pie

Wild Alaskan Red Sockeye Salmon in the 14.75 oz. can is acknowledged to be one of the cleanest and most potent sources of omega 3 fatty acids, calcium and protein. But did you ever open up one of those things? Eek! Its price is often compelling compared to the putatively dirtier, farm-raised fresh salmons, but how do you serve this stuff, skin and bones and all?

I came up with a solution, and you know it's got to be good if my young son looks forward to eating it. We have it twice a week! The best part is the recipe combines no less than 6 super foods in one neat package, 7 if you make the pesto with spinach. My mother's meatloaf was the inspiration, may God rest her soul.

Basil Pesto Sockeye Pie

2 eggs, beaten in a large bowl

1 can (14.75 oz.) Wild Alaskan Red Sockeye Salmon, drained

.5 cup Basil Pesto Sauce recipe

.5 cup Tomato Sauce, Semi Home Made

2 cups organic quick oats

To the bowl of beaten eggs, add the salmon and mash with ye old trusty cheapo hand-held potato masher until it no longer looks 100% disgusting. Stir in the basil pesto sauce and the tomato sauce. Then add in the oatmeal, mashing away, until thoroughly mixed.

Let it stand and soak while you do the following:

Preheat the oven on bake to 375 degrees F. Grab a 10" Pyrex pie plate and thoroughly grease it with vegetable shortening, like Crisco. Plop the salmon mixture into the pie plate and flatten it out using the potato masher. You can smooth the surface more finely to finish using a silicone spatula. Place the pie in the oven on the middle rack and bake for 35 minutes, checking that a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool for five minutes or so and slice it like pie. Serve with ketchup generously drizzled on top, two slices per adult.

Additional notes:

1) Canned salmon is often very high in sodium, containing nearly 1900 mg. per can, according to the label on the brand I buy. How much of this gets tossed out when you drain the salmon is not stated. Doctors often say a healthy adult should consume no more than 2000 mg. per day. You can reduce the sodium in this recipe if you need to by leaving the salt out of the basil pesto recipe (the teaspoon of salt in that recipe amounts to 2360 mg. distributed over approximately 1.25 cups, or approximately 944 mg. in .5 cup prepared pesto). Otherwise your minimum sodium intake per slice could be as high as almost 400 mg., plus whatever's in the ketchup and the Pecorino Romano cheese.

2) Your choice of oats is also important. I often use 100% rolled oats instead of quick oats to give the recipe a "toothier" quality. Since these take a little longer to "cook" when you make oatmeal, in this recipe you can help them along with a little more soaking time in the mixture (covered in the refrigerator) and an extra half cup of the tomato sauce. The added benefit is all the goodness of the whole grain.