I Made Another Culinary Specialty

Chicken, Pork, Beef, Chicken, Pork Beef, Pork Chicken Beef….does this sound familiar to you? Even though there are umpteen different ways of preparing chicken pork and beef, I got tired of the same over and over and over again. That’s why I tried my hand at fish cakes the other day. What a relief to have something different on the table. Living on the coast, fish is part of every day life out here. In fact all kind of seafood can be found around these parts. I don’t like mussels, oysters or clams, but I do like crab-meat and lobster. I grew up with fish. Dad bought fish every week. Cod, Mackerel, Herring, Flounder, it was all available, much of it right down in the harbour when fishermen brought in their catch. Later, after moving to Norway, we often had salmon. I like salmon, especially the wild-caught. But today, most of the salmon is coming from fish farms. We are actually having fish farming right here on Campobello. When I was down in Machias,ME the other day I bought a pound of smoked salmon cut-of. It was for under $9/pound which is really cheap. But what to do with a whole pound of smoked salmon? Sandwich, yes, or with scrambled eggs – GREAT. But a pound is a lot of fish. Soooo….something else needed to be done with it. After perusing the internet I decided on trying Salmon Paté. Here’s what I did this morning: A good portion (3-400grams) of smoked Salmon went into the food processor where I mashed it to nearly a paste. I added nonfat sour cream, red bell pepper, onion, black pepper and dill and chopped chives. Fresh dill is the best but I didn’t have it. Salmon is a fatty fish and that’s why we use nonfat sour cream. The food processor mashes everything to a thick paste. 2 small bags of gelatin dissolved in a little milk are now added while the food processor is running. And that’s it. The whole pinkish cream is filled into a bowl and put into the fridge. A few hours are enough to make the cream into a pretty stiff Paté. Depending on the amount of gelatin, the Paté can now be cut with a knife. Serve with some lettuce, a slice of lemon on some crusty fresh multigrain bread or white toast…….yummy!  Other ingredients can be added like peas or corn or cut-up crab sticks. It’s a great variety from a rather usual daily diet. And you can still enjoy it with scrambled eggs. Gotta stop here, otherwise I’m getting so darn hungry that I have to make for the kitchen robbing the fridge.