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. 

 

 

 

 

 

   

It turns out you could make it on just French Fries, milk, oatmeal and some kale, spinach or broccoli, and lose weight

This story got my attention:

Why French Fries Are More of a "Superfood" Than Kale.

From there I landed on:

Could you survive on just one food?

From which this:

Some years ago a reader wrote to The Chicago Reader advice column, The Straight Dope, asked whether it was true you could live on just potatoes and milk. After all, it's been said that before the Irish Potato Famine, people there were living almost solely on potatoes. Cecil Adams, the erstwhile columnist, claims to have run the numbers with his assistant and found that a whole lot of potatoes and milk would get you most of what you need – with the exception of the mineral molybdenum. But you can get all you need of that by also eating a bit of oatmeal.

Hearing this, [dietician Jennie] Jackson [of Glasgow Caledonian University] laughs. “Oh, that's our diet – that's the Scottish diet from a hundred years ago. That fits right in. Potatoes, milk, and oatmeal, with some kale in there, too.”

Happiness is Chef John's roasted Greek chicken thighs with potatoes

Adapted from Chef John at all recipes dot com here.

10 chicken thighs with skin on

1 T kosher salt

1 T dried oregano

1 t black pepper

1 t dried rosemary leaves

1 pinch cayenne pepper

.25 cup lemon juice

.5 cup extra virgin olive oil

6 cloves fresh garlic pressed

4 russet potatoes, peeled and quartered

1. Combine salt, oregano, black pepper, rosemary, cayenne, lemon juice, olive oil and garlic in a bowl. Whisk until blended.

2. Lightly Crisco a large roaster.

3. Dredge each piece of chicken in the spice mixture in the bowl and place each in the roaster. I could have used a little more lemon juice, but .25 cup was all I had. The last two pieces of chicken got shortchanged. Chef John's original recipe calls for less chicken than I used, but mine still turned out just fine.

4. Position the potato pieces around and between the chicken pieces.

5. Preheat the oven to bake at 425F while you tidy up.

6. Roast the chicken and potatoes for one hour.

7. Reduce heat to 350F and roast another 10 minutes.

8. Switch to broil for a few more minutes if additional browning is necessary.

9. Serve chicken and potatoes on a large plate, topped with some of the pan juices if you like, and steamed petite peas and butter.

10. A glass of cold Moscato was perfect with this.

11. OK, two glasses.