My wife is from Alaska, and so far our
consistent Christmas present her dad sends us is the Alaskan version of a Hickory
farms basket with sausages, and cheeses, and crackers, and sauces but
most importantly these little packets of delicious greasy smoked
salmon. I can only eat so much of the stuff alone but recently
I have been experimenting with using it in some recipes and I'll tell
you straight up: it's awesome.
I have been taking it in an Eastern
European direction just because I think that the flavor of the Salmon
lends itself nicely to elements like dill, marjoram, garlic, sour
cream, paprika etc. I also think that it's an excellent ingredient
paired up with mushrooms so here is my latest creation. Slices of
nice bread with butter are a must with these dishes too!
Hungarian Inspired Mushroom stew with
Smoked Salmon
Serves 4
Ingredients
¼ lb bacon finely chopped
¼ lb hard smoked salmon (not the cold
smoked raw seeming variety but the hard smoked firm kind)
24 oz of cleaned sliced mushrooms
(cremini, portabello, button etc.)
1 carrot finely diced
2 med onions finely diced
2 stalks of celery finely diced
1 TBS tomato paste
2 C cabbage finely diced
½ C red wine
4 cloves of garlic minced
1 tsp marjoram
1 tsp red chili flakes
1 tsp red chili flakes
1 tsp black pepper
2 tsp paprika
salt to taste
2 TBS finely chopped fresh parsley
Method
Fry the bacon until crispy at med then
add ½ of the garlic and stir for 20 seconds
Add in your onions, and red chili flakes if your using them, and fry until golden
Add the carrots, celery, cabbage, and
tomato paste and sautee stirring for 5 minutes
Add ½ C red wine and deglaze for 2
minutes
Add 1 C water and half your paprika,
stir, reduce to simmer, then cover and let simmer for 20 min stirring
occasionally until everything is very tender
Add in smoked salmon and mash into mixture
Add mushrooms with a little salt, marjoram, the remaining paprika and garlic, and black pepper, raise
heat back to medium and stir together then cover for 5 minutes or so.
Remove lid and let mixture cook until
the mushrooms are tender and the sauce has thickened to your desired
consistency
Add salt to taste and garnish with
fresh parsley
Creamy Cucumber Salad with Dill
Serves 4
Ingredients
2 cucumbers, ½ peeled into stripes and
cut into 1/3 inch cubes
1 clove garlic mashed into a fine paste
½ tsp salt
1 TBS dried dill
1 TBS sour cream
¼ Greek yogurt
Method
Mix all ingredients together and let
sit at least 30 minutes before serving
Eat it!
No comments:
Post a Comment