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. 

 

 

 

 

 

   

I made this salmon with spinach creme sauce for Christmas Eve and it was a big hit

 Also very easy to make. I will do it again.

I made substitutions because I didn't have the exact ingredients: my own tomato sauce for the cherry tomatoes which made the outcome redder, half & half instead of heavy cream, and since the tomato sauce was made with basil I omitted the chopped parsley.

The recipe is very adaptable.

 

Happiness is real lemon, real pepper, Atlantic salmon baked in the oven

 Skip the dry, bottled, lemon-pepper seasoning and do this instead.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Real lemon pepper salmon

 

1 2+lb. Atlantic salmon filet, skinless

canola oil

1-2 fresh lemons, well-washed, sliced thin

ground black pepper

salt

 

Pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Oil a roasting pan with canola oil

Place the salmon in the pan

Sprinkle, very generously, with ground black pepper

Sprinkle lightly with sea salt or kosher salt, if desired

Arrange the lemon slices all over the top of the salmon

Bake about 25 minutes on the center rack of the oven

Remove and squeeze roasted lemons with a spoon against the pan, if you wish, and spoon over the servings

Serves about four

Wild Alaskan Sockeye Salmon In The Can, By Meijer

The price of this canned salmon moderated recently for some reason after spiking up to over $6 per can, so I bought a dozen cans when it went on sale for under $5, after the price adjustment.

I figure I paid about $3.80 per pound, which these days is pretty darn cheap for wild salmon.

Natural Radiation in Salmon

Bananas have 3.5 pCi/g, or 525 pCi per 150 gram banana, enough to alarm a radiation monitor. One per day would give you 36 microSieverts per year.

In America from all sources we get about 6,200 microSieverts per year.

Salmon has 20.0 pCi/g, nearly 6 times as much. A 150 gram piece of salmon will thus emit 3,000 pCi of radiation, a little over 200 microSieverts per year if you ate that much everyday.

Naturally!

Why I'm Still Not Worried About Radioactive Wild Salmon From Alaska

From an excellent blog post "Radiation Misinformation" by Jack Phillips from 10 February 2012 here:

[S]almon have always been radioactive because they contain radioactive potassium just like we do. Have they become more radioactive as the result of the release of 26 billion Becquerel (Bq) into the Pacific Ocean as reported by Tepco?  Unlikely when you consider that this is less than one Curie (Ci) of radioactivity and the oceans contain over 400 billion Ci of radioactivity, 380 from Potassium, 87 from rubidium and 1 from Uranium 238.

Eat Your Salmon! Fears Over Radioactive Contamination of Food Stoked by Internet Alarmists

Lots of irresponsible and loose talk about food tainted with radioactivity continues on the internet, which is where it belongs, I guess.

These zealots frequently complain that the news media and the government are conspiring to cover up the health dangers posed by the Fukushima accident.

So I was surprised to note this one at 'fair and balanced' Fox News here, from June 30th:

According to the U.S.-based group of medical doctors Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), no amount of man-made radiation in water and food is safe. “There is no safe level of radionuclide exposure, whether from food, water or other sources, period,” said Jeff Patterson, DO, immediate past president of PSR, in late March. “Exposure to radionuclides, such as iodine 131 and cesium 137, increases the incidence of cancer. For this reason, every effort must be taken to minimize the radionuclide content in food and water.”

Imagine that. 'Conservative' Fox News matter-of-factly giving a platform to a long-time anti-nuclear weapons group supported by the political left.

Hard numbers rarely enter into any of these presentations, just alarmism and extremism. Government and professional statements, such as here, here and here, rarely get the attention they deserve.

Or try this one on for size, from NHK World, here, on June 24th:

"Masanao Nakano, a senior engineer at the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, says that in one year, the radiation concentration level will become so low that eating fish from even the most contaminated areas would pose little danger to health."

I remain convinced that there is no evidence whatsoever to stop eating wild Alaskan sockeye salmon, fresh or canned.

Radioactive Salmon?

The Vancouver Sun provides this discussion of the possible impact of the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster on Pacific Ocean salmon:

Radioactive water leaking from a reactor at Japan’s damaged nuclear plants isn’t likely to harm [British Columbia] salmon because they don’t travel as far as the coast of Japan, said Nancy Davis, deputy director of the North Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission.

“They tend to go to Gulf of Alaska, the Bering Sea, or maybe as far as the central North Pacific, but they are not maturing off Japan and swimming all the way back here,” Davis said. “Immature and maturing salmon are in the deep ocean, they’re not on the Japanese shelf or near the nuclear plant.”

She said it’s possible that Japanese chum salmon might be in the waters near the damaged plant, but that they would not be returning to Japan for another three or four years. Japan mostly produces chum salmon, which Davis said is very unlikely to be imported into British Columbia.

Davis said it is important to consider what elements are involved and what their half-lifes are, and how the salmon would come into contact with the radioactive materials.

Another [Simon Fraser University] professor said he could not say what the effects on salmon would be.

“Given the limited information available, I cannot even speculate about the effects of radiation leaking into the ocean. It is far too early to say anything with any confidence,” said Randall Peterman, SFU professor and Canada research chair in fisheries risk assessment and management.

For the rest of the article, which also discusses radioactive contamination of seaweed, go here.

We eat a fair amount of wild Alaskan salmon in our house, and will continue to do so.

Filet of Salmon Teriyaki

I rarely get to make this anymore because we normally buy wild alaskan salmon in the big can, but when some kind soul sends a filet our way (thanks, Grandma and Grandpa), this is a fast, healthy, and easy way to prepare it.

Filet of Salmon Teriyaki

1 12-16 oz. filet of Atlantic salmon (cook skin side up if not skinless)

2 T frozen concentrate of orange juice

3 T soy sauce (I prefer San-J brand Organic Wheat Free Tamari Sauce)

1 large clove fresh garlic

.25 t dry ground ginger (or .5 t sized chunk fresh ginger root, peeled)

3 T extra virgin olive oil

3 green onions, diced finely

1 t sesame seeds

In the bowl of a food processor mince the garlic clove, then add the ginger (and mince if using fresh), followed by the orange juice concentrate, soy sauce and extra virgin olive oil. Blend thoroughly and pour the mixture into an oven safe baker. Place the salmon filet in the baker and turn it over a couple of times to coat.

While the salmon is marinating, pre-heat the oven on bake to 350 degrees F. Bake the salmon swimming in the marinade about 25 minutes uncovered on the center rack of the oven.

If you want to, you can cook the salmon in the microwave to save time. I've done it often and it turns out well. Just be careful not to overdo it. I use the same round Pyrex pie plate I use for my Basil Pesto Sockeye Pie, except I cover the salmon with microwave safe plastic wrap. Cook on high for about six minutes, depending on the power rating of your microwave. Test for doneness by flaking with a fork in the thickest part of the filet.

Serve topped with some of the sauce from the baker, the sesame seeds, and the green onion.

Brown rice on the side accepts the sauce well, and steamed broccoli florets rounds out this meal for a super foods triple play.