Sunday, July 19, 2015

Salmon Salad

For a certain family holiday, we eat Cajun food, Scandinavian food, and chocolate. It can be a difficult mashup to pull off. This year I planned a menu I called "Southern Smorrebrod" or "Smorrebrod and S'more brod," based off of the Danish open faced sandwiches. I got various breads for the bases, including soft white flatbreads from Ikea, crisps from Ikea, and a dense sourdough rye batter bread (the mix was from Ikea, but I baked it!). Then I made protein salads: a "Cajun" chicken salad, pimento cheese, and a Scandinavian-inspired salmon salad. People could then top their open faced sandwiches with sliced hard boiled eggs, red onion, lettuce, tomato, avocado, lettuce, nuts, dill fresh from T's garden-- and probably other delicious stuff I don't remember. I made way too much food, but I do actually think it was a fun meal. T rose to the challenge to make "S'more brod (bread)" to go with the Smorrebrod, and not only was it pretty yummy, but it was a visual pun with the rye bread as well. Maybe someday I will upload the photos we took to prove it.

Anyway, I liked how the menu turned out, but I was surprised to like my salmon salad the best, because I was the most worried about it. I based it roughly on the Swedish salad "Skagen," perhaps named after the port in Denmark? Skagen is made with shrimp, but by swapping in salmon, I think I still maintained a geographically appropriate spirit, at least.

Skagen-esque Salmon Salad

Large fillet of salmon-- mine was about 1 1/2 pounds-- bake it as you see fit; flake.
2 yukon gold potatoes-- I baked alongside the salmon, of course they take longer; peel, cube
cucumber, diced
1 large shallot, chopped
1 - 1 1/2 c cooked peas
capers

Combine. Dress with, as needed:

3 parts sour cream
1 part mayo
a squort of mustard

Season with:

salt
pepper
a whole lot of fresh dill
lemon juice-- you could even grate in some zest, I suppose



4 comments:

Ford said...

The bread was from a mix?! Shucks, I just came to Reb Eat World looking for the recipe. A friend was describing a rye bread that sounded very similar, and I said I'd look for a recipe, so now I am down the Vollkornbrot wormhole.

Rebekka said...

(Blushing) Yes, it was a mix. In true Ikea style, it was quite inexpensive and the directions didn't quite work. Months ago, I did find this blog: http://www.danishsandwich.com/, and think it might be a nice stop in your wormhole trip.

Rebekka said...

When I asked you the two axes of goals for your contribution (the axis of effort and the axis of creativity), making the bread was going to be your job on the (very small) chance that you said high for effort and middle for creativity.

Rebekka said...

Perhaps I should leave deeper links:
http://www.danishsandwich.com/2011/01/real-danish-rye-bread-rugbrd.html
and
http://www.danishsandwich.com/2014/09/danish-rye-bread-easier-than-ever.html