Fresh Salmon Cakes @LucyBurdette

Lucy Burdette: I do not care much for salmon. There, I’ve said it! I know it’s good for me, and I know lots of people think it’s a treat. And I will eat it if it's presented at a dinner party. But I will not order it, no matter how delicious the sides that come with the fish sound. 

Now you understand how extreme it was for me to try making my own salmon cakes. And it happened because the recipe in Once Upon a Chef looked good enough to eat lol. I served it to three friends and my husband (who also does not care for salmon) and all of them found the cakes delicious. So you be the judge!

Ingredients

1 1/4 pounds fresh salmon

1/4 cup mayonnaise

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1/2 teaspoon salt

Freshly ground pepper

1 1/4 cups Panko breadcrumbs, 1/4 cup for the patties, and the remainder for frying

Three scallions,

Two stalks of celery

2 tablespoons fresh dill

1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika

1/4 teaspoon ground mustard

1 teaspoon celery seed

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Note that Jennifer Segal, the chef at Once Upon a Chef, uses Old Bay seasoning rather than the combination of paprika, ground mustard, celery seed, and cayenne pepper that I used. I am always looking for ways to reduce salt, so I used some of the ingredients that come in Old Bay without the salt. I also cut back the salt itself.

Stir together the lemon juice, mustard, mayonnaise, spices, and finely chopped dill.

Chop the scallions and the celery finely.

If there is skin on the salmon, remove it. Then chop the fish into small chunks. Mix the lemon juice combination plus the scallions and celery and 1/4 cup Panko into the chopped salmon. (The salmon needs to be in small bits so the cakes will stick together.)

Spread the remainder of the Panko on a large plate. Form the mixture into golf ball sized balls, and flatten them on the Panko, turning them gently to cover both sides with breadcrumbs.

The salmon cakes can be refrigerated for a couple of hours until you are ready to cook them. 

Fry them on medium heat until both sides are brown and the fish looks pink. Serve with cocktail sauce (my favorite) or tartar sauce, your choice.

I served the salmon cakes with a green salad, baked sweet potatoes, and strawberry shortcake to finish. 

It was a lovely spring-ish meal, and didn’t I prove that I can be flexible? However, I still will not order salmon when I’m out to dinner--I will always choose crab cakes instead!

Last but not least, A DISH TO DIE FOR, #12 in the Key West food critic mystery series, will be out on August 9, but is now available for preorder wherever books are sold

About A Dish to Die For:

Peace and quiet are hard to find in bustling Key West, so Hayley Snow, food critic for Key Zest magazine, is taking the afternoon off for a tranquil lunch with a friend outside of town. As they are enjoying the wild beach and the lunch, she realizes that her husband Nathan’s dog, Ziggy, has disappeared. She follows his barking, to find him furiously digging at a shallow grave with a man’s body in it. Davis Jager, a local birdwatcher, identifies him as GG Garcia, a rabble-rousing Key West local and developer. Garcia was famous for over-development on the fragile Keys, womanizing, and refusing to follow city rules—so it’s no wonder he had a few enemies.

 When Davis is attacked in the parking lot of a local restaurant after talking to Hayley and her dear friend, the octogenarian Miss Gloria, Hayley is slowly but surely drawn into the case. Hayley’s mother, Janet, has been hired to cater GG’s memorial service reception at the local Woman’s Club, using recipes from their vintage Key West cookbook—and Hayley and Miss Gloria sign on to work with her, hoping to cook up some clues by observing the mourners.

But the real clues appear when Hayley begins to study the old cookbook, as whispers of old secrets come to life, dragging the past into the present—with murderous results.

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Easiest Spring Salmon and Asparagus #dinner #recipe

LUCY BURDETTE: The farmers market opened in Connecticut last week on the town green and I can't tell you how happy that made me! So far we have nothing in the garden other than asparagus, so I went shopping with vegetables and bread on my mind. I was also in the state of mourning over the yellowtail snapper in Key West as well as the Key West pink shrimp. So I was happy to see the fish vendor's booth not too crowded. (Keep in mind that it was raining and in the low 50s, so only the most intrepid souls were out.)

I've never been a big fan of salmon, but we know it's good for us (try to eat wild, not farmed.) And our son-in-law made us a delicious grilled salmon on a cedar plank last month. So I decided to try a recipe for myself. 

"How are you going to cook it?" asked the fish lady.
"I have no idea," I admitted.
"I bake it with a basting of maple syrup and mustard. It's delicious and could not be easier."

Sold!

Always on the lookout for low sodium products that taste good, I've come across some fabulous Canadian mustards, made by a company called Koslik's (MJ and Linda--you are so lucky!) They have a store locator so you can figure out whether a place nearby carries them. I've tried three kinds and they're all delicious. My latest obsession is with their amazing maple brand. Only 20 mg sodium, spicy with a tang of sweet--what could be more perfect?

Ingredients for simple baked salmon and asparagus (for two people)

8 ounces wild salmon 
3 tablespoons good maple syrup
1 tablespoon Koslik's amazing maple mustard
10 to 12 stalks fresh asparagus
Preheat the oven to 350. Cover a large baking tray with parchment paper and then brush
it lightly with olive oil. Drizzle more olive oil on the asparagus and roll the stalks in the oil on one side of the tray. 

Whisk the syrup and mustard together. Place the salmon on the other end of the tray and brush with the mustard maple syrup mixture. 

Five minutes into baking, remove the tray and brush again with mustard etc. Bake another five or so minutes until the asparagus is bright green and the salmon light pink. We served ours with a green salad (aren't those sprouts cute? They are called wasabi sprouts and have a little kick.)

The seventh Key West mystery, KILLER TAKEOUT, is on bookshelves everywhere. What about yours?

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