Smoked Salmon

The past few days I have been learning to smoke salmon.  I was amazed that the actual work to make it takes very little time.  It’s just the marinating and smoking that takes a while.  The most exciting thing about making this smoked salmon was something that happened because my dad was helping me create the recipe.  He had things pulled out to use in the marinade and happened to be drinking coca cola, which was sitting with the other things.  Slightly confused, I asked if we were going to add the coca cola to the marinade.  He said he hadn’t planned on it, but decided we should, so we added that unusual ingredient.  It was also entertaining to watch the sea salt react with the coca cola when I poured it in.  It only took me about ten minutes to prepare it, with a few minutes of transferring between the stages of marinating, drying, and smoking.  It marinated for about ten hours, dried for maybe half and hour, and then smoked for about ten hours.  Next time I might try drying it for longer, because it was not as dry as I hoped it would be.  Also, it turned out fairly salty, so I would not add as much salt next time.

Smoked Salmon

Prep Time: 10 minutes       

Cook Time: 10 hours marinating + 1 hour drying + 8-12 hours smoking

Ingredients: 1/8 cup soy sauce; 1 cup water; 1 tbsp. Worcestershire; 1/8 cup apple cider vinegar; ½ can coca cola; 3 tbsp. sea salt (or less); 1 tsp. onion powder; ½ tsp. black pepper; 3 lb. salmon

Directions: Mix soy, water, Worcestershire, vinegar, coca cola, salt, onion powder, and pepper.  Put salmon in marinade to soak for 10 hours, refrigerated.

Salmon waiting to be smoked.

Blackberry Fruit Leathers

Making blackberry fruit leathers should be a fairly easy process…unless you’re me and fail to spray the plastic pan and spend half an hour removing one of the fruit leathers from the tray!  I know not to make that mistake again.  Thankfully I only had one plastic tray, so the second fruit leather was on plastic wrap and was much easier to remove.  The only trick with the plastic wrap is making sure none if it remains stuck to the fruit leather.  I found the recipe for the blackberry fruit leathers in a book I had on drying and canning foods.  It took me about an hour on each end of the drying process to make the fruit leathers, but if you remember to spray any plastic trays you use and don’t have trouble deciding whether to leave the seeds in or not, that should probably cut that time in half on either end!

Below is the recipe for blackberry fruit leathers.  You can also make fruit leathers out of different fruits with different proportions of sugar.  For one cup of fruit: blackberries and Santa Rosa plums—2½ tbsp. sugar; strawberries—1 tbsp. sugar; raspberries, peaches, nectarines, apricots, and other plums—1½ tbsp. sugar.  For all non-berry fruits, heat only to just below boiling point (about 180 degrees Fahrenheit) instead of to boiling.

Blackberry Fruit Leathers

Prep Time: 30-45 minutes  Cook Time: ~20 hours

Ingredients: 4 cups of blackberries; 10 tbsp. sugar (5/8 cup)

Directions: Heat blackberries and sugar on stove until boiling and mixture looks syrupy.  Put in blender if needed.  Filter out some of the seeds if desired.  Spray plastic tray if using dryer and pour berries on ~1/4 inch thick.  Can also dry in the sunshine on plastic wrap.  Remove and roll after dry (about 20 hours).

 

In the dryer and before the removal process.

Potato-Crusted Cod with Tartar Sauce

This is a definite “keepers” recipe for me.  I found the recipe in an October/November 2011 issue of Cook’s Country magazine that my mom picked up at the library.  It is probably one of my favorite things that I have made for this project.  Of course, in the process, I did make some changes to the recipe.  First of all, I used cod instead of halibut (which the recipe was originally written as), I used brown mustard instead of Dijon, I added a bit of salt to the fish before coating it, and didn’t use nearly as many crushed potato chips as the recipe originally said (it said two cups, but I don’t think we used as much fish as the recipe called for).  We also didn’t have some of the spices for the tartar sauce, so we used a pre-made one that we had.  Honestly, I think it tasted just as good or better without the tartar sauce though!  One thing that I learned for future times of making the recipe it to not coat all the sides of the fish in the sauce and chips, because then it stuck to the foil.  I missed reading that part of the directions.  Still, the fish tasted delightful in the end, even though it was mostly cold by the time I ate it after taking pictures.  For those who don’t like spicy, I would add less of the cayenne pepper.  I don’t mind a bit of spice, and I thought it was just right, but my mom said it was a bit too much.  I’m not sure what the tartar sauce in the recipe tasted like since I didn’t have the ingredients to make it.  If you are interested in the tartar sauce recipe you can access it here with a free trial of if you already have a Cook's Country membership (or like me, see if your library has the magazine).  It took me about an hour to make the fish and bake them, but I was fairly meticulous in coating the fish (and I used a lot smaller pieces than called for in the recipe), so I’m sure it would take quite a bit less time for a more experienced cooker.

Potato-Crusted Cod with Tartar Sauce

Prep Time: 30 minutes        Cook Time: 12-15 minutes

Ingredients: ¼ cup mayonnaise; 1 tbsp. lemon juice; 2 tsp. Dijon mustard; 1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper; pepper; salt; 4 (6-oz) skinless cod fillets (or other firm white fish such as halibut, haddock, or mahi-mahi), 1 inch thick; 1 cup potato chips, crushed; tartar sauce (optional—see recipe for directions if wanted)

Directions: Pre-heat oven to 450°F.  Combine mayonnaise, lemon juice, mustard, and cayenne pepper in a bowl.  Pat fish dry with paper towels and season with pepper and salt.  Brush tops and sides of fish with above mixture and coat with crushed potato chips.  Place fish on foil-lined baking sheet and bake until fish flakes apart when gently prodded with a knife, about 12-15 minutes (fish should be 140°F).  Serve with tartar sauce if desired.

For tartar sauce, mix ¾ cup mayonnaise, 3 tbsp. finely chopped pickles, 1 tsp. pickle juice, 1 small shallot—minced, 1 tbsp. of rinsed and chopped capers, ¼ tsp. salt, and ¼ tsp. of pepper.