SALMON FOR YOUR HEART
Story and recipe from Song of Salmon, a cookbook in praise of hatcheries as a Community Resource. Song 1 features a West Coast Feast, many salmon recipes, stories, rhyme, poetry and myth. Send $15 ($3 more for overseas) to Stella Mutch, #36, 1413 Sunshine Coast Highway, Gibsons B. C., Canada V0N1V5

My dad had a volcanic temper, which was set off by things not going the way he wanted, and of course Murphy's Law (anything that can go wrong, will) ruled his life. He was dead at 52 after his third heart attack. It seems I have inherited his heart condition, but not the temper. My cholesterol was so high that I volunteered for the local lipid or heart clinic, not wishing the same early demise for myself. They made me aware of a lifestyle change and healthy eating in order to lower my cholesterol, which is monitored every 6 months.

I spent 3 months experimenting almost daily with salmon recipes for this book and I gained weight. When I saw the cardiologist, Dr. Greg Bondy, I expected to be chastised but to my amazement, he was thrilled with how much lower my cholesterol was. He reminded me salmon was good for my heart and told me to eat as much as I wanted of this seafood so rich in Omega 3 oil. This fatty acid can affect the body's immune system, inflammatory response, blood flow, blood pressure and viscosity (thickness) of the blood and a diet high in this oil can reduce cholesterol noticeably.

Recently, just about every health magazine I read praises the virtues of Salmon's Omega 3 immune boasting abilities. Canada's Healthy Living Guide in October's issue says, for proper mental function - feed your brain with Omega 3. In the same issue under "7 ways you can prevent breast cancer", researchers found that the lower the concentration of Omega-3 fatty acids in breast fat tissue, the greater the risk of breast cancer.
Other life giving attributes salmon provide for us are vitamins A & D, plus many minerals.

SALMON PATTIE CAKES OR LOAF

This is a very versatile dish. As comfort food, it is delicious with the mashed potatoes. It also is good with cooked rice. If you have neither on hand, it works well with bread or cracker crumbs too. Only use half the amount of crumbs - 2 cups versus 4 for potatoes or rice.

You can make 10 good-sized patties with this recipe, or put it all into a bread pan - 3'x9 ½' x5 ½'. Fry the patties in butter until nicely browned on both sides. Cover loaf pan with tinfoil and Bake at 350 for 25 minutes, take foil off and bake 10 minutes more.

In a large Bowl add
4 cups mashed potatoes
1 pound Salmon leftovers or 1-2 cans drained Sockeye Salmon (5 ½ oz. Tins)

Sauté in 1 tsp butter 1 tsp oil
¼ cup red onion
¼ cup celery

Add sauté to Salmon mix
Add the following to Salmon mix

2 Tbsp lemon
2 Eggs (beaten)
1 Tbsp fresh parsley
1 Tbsp fresh dill
1 tsp fresh thyme
Cayenne/Black Pepper to taste
Dash of Worcestershire
Dash of Bragg. (liquid Soy)

Mix all of the above ingredients together and put into loaf pan or form into patties.

Gourmet Pattie cakes
4-6 oz smoked salmon (fluffed up in the blender)
Optional - finely chopped ginger and or - capers to taste
When mashing the potatoes use butter and sour crème or yogurt plus freshly ground pepper

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The following recipe may not be used in another publication or webpage unless the complete biography and web page of Jan Degrass is included.

Mushrooms in Sour Cream, Russian-style
by Jan DeGrass - www.potluckcookbook.com

Mushrooms, particularly wild ones hand gathered in forests of birch and pine, are a traditional food of Russia. I've travelled in Russia many times and I understand enough of the language to be able to translate the recipes I was given. In 1993, during the last visit, our tour group visited a fancy restaurant in the Taganka region of Moscow. The white-coated waiters delivered appetizers to each place, a dish of mushrooms in sour cream, each in its individual ceramic pot. The taste brought back memories of other visits--sitting with new-found Russian friends at their summer cottages or dachas, feasting on fresh mushrooms that had simmered in a stew of pork and herb gravy.
In the dainty ambience of the fine restaurant we spooned the mushrooms elegantly from our little pots and scooped the sauce with toast or dark rye bread. It was rich and flavourful.
I have translated the following recipe from the original Russian instructions. The translated measurements (grams and glasses) have been left in the recipe, with my suggested amounts in brackets.

Mushrooms in Sour Cream
(Sometimes called Zhulyen)

600 grams (little over 1 lb.) fresh mushrooms
50 grams butter (I recommend increasing to 2 tbsps)
2 small onions, chopped finely
1.5 glasses (about 1 cup) of sour cream
salt/pepper
parsley, lightly chopped
handful of flour

Wash mushrooms well, chop gently.
Brown the onions in butter, then add the mushrooms. Simmer while the mushrooms reduce in size and the liquid evaporates. Pour the sour cream, salt, pepper, and parsley over the mixture then lower the heat.
Then: (1) If you have individual ceramic ramekins, place them on a baking sheet and pour the mushroom mixture into each dish. Bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes or until bubbly.
Or: (2) If you are not using the above method but are making the dish in a pan, then, just before serving, mix in some flour and again bring up to a boil. This peasant style version might be served with fried eggs and toast.

Jan DeGrass is a freelance writer and editor with 20 years experience in writing over 400 articles for newspapers, magazines and trade publications. Her published credits include national newspapers and magazines in Canada, and currently she is arts and entertainment contributor for a Sunshine Coast newspaper. Her latest project is the self-publication of a cookbook, Take Potluck! 101 Tasty, Simple Dishes for Your Potluck Party. She is a prize winner in two major writing competitions for travel-related articles and has received a national award for a business article that contributed to Canadian co-operative literature.

Jan DeGrass - Potluck Cookbook

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Brown Bread Ice Cream
Submitted by: Susan Love, New York City
www.heritagecookbook.com

1 1/4 cups of bread crumbs
1 tbsp of very good vanilla
1/2 cup of whipping cream
4 egg yolks
¼ cup of brandy
2 tbsp of sugar
1 1/2 cups of whole milk

Beat together the egg yolks and sugar and cook gently in a double boiler, stirring all the time until it thickens slightly.
Then add the brandy. Let it cool.
Whip the cream and fold it into the cooled mixture. Chill.

Crisping the bread crumbs, sprinkled with sugar, in the oven for 15 minutes. Mix together with the custard and put into an ice cream maker or freeze in the freezer,taking out every 1/2 hour to stir to break up the cristals until totally frozen.

Put the mixture into a pretty dish and serve.
Servings: 4

This is an Edwardian recipe that my grandmother used to make. She was originally from Cape Town, South Africa where her father was the owner of a bookstore. She was the oldest of six children who went to England every summer and played cards all the way up and back on the ship When she was 15 her father died even though as she said, she "ran as fast as she could to get the doctor."

Her mother emigrated to Canada with the children where they settled in Vancouver. In her early 20's my grandmother eloped to marry a tall handsome Irishman who joined the Western Irish and who was later was wounded at Vimy (WW1). Not believing that anyone could take proper care of her husband she got herself across Canada and on to a troop ship (which was practically unheard of) and arrived in England where he was in hospital. She brought him home where he died of his wound two years later.

This tiny determined woman brought up her son (my dad) trying to keep him "in line" all the while adoring him and watching him proudly forge ahead. When he moved to Toronto she reluctantly "came East" to be with her grandchildren, leaving behind the mountains of Vancouver for the flat landscape of Ontario. When I was in grade school she and I had lunch together twice a week and as I remember those lunches - she loved to play cards and didn't much like to cook, but she did have a few special recipes: curry from The Cape, Jell-o in contrasting colours and this ice cream recipe.

Susan Love, a former teacher and fundraiser, wanted to create something that would help people reconnect. A family cookbook with pictures and stories seemed a good way to do this. 21st century life connects us in all sorts of quick and easy ways,but nothing is left once you put down the cell phone or turn off the computer. Generations from now, there won't be stacks of letters in old boxes. There won't be anything to remind us how we cared about each other.

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Cucumber and Chive Salad

This early spring recipe is straight from my Welsh grandmother, whose kitchen always smelled of fresh herbs and baking bread. She had an incredible English country garden - a tangle of wildflowers and herbs, apple and plum trees, a few raised vegetable beds, chickens providing fresh brown eggs, and a varied collection of insect and bird life. As a child, adventure waited in my grandmother's garden - critters that crawled, hopped or slithered seemed to hide behind every rock or bush and the old apple trees were made for hours of climbing. The kitchen always contained delicious sights and tastes - crunchy slabs of toast, homemade hot chocolate and melt-in-your-mouth scrambled eggs with fresh parsley sprinkled on top.

My "Nana" often made this Cucumber Salad in early spring, perhaps because her chives were at their best this time of year. It is a simple, elegant salad, which can accompany almost any main course. Her recipe serves two generously and can easily be doubled. Once everything was mixed, I usually had the fun of snipping the chives for sprinkling on top!

Grandmother Upton's Cucumber and Chive Salad

1 English Cucumber
2 tbsp chives (or more to taste)
½ cup of cream
1 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp olive oil
salt and black pepper to taste
½ tbsp malt vinegar (or to taste)
a few petals of edible flowers, such as pansies, marigolds or chive flowers

Slice the cucumber thin. Sprinkle with a bit of salt and leave for one hour.
Rinse and drain. Finely chop the chives - I use scissors to snip.

Mix sugar with vinegar. Add cream, olive oil, salt and pepper. Toss the cucumbers with the dressing and 1 tbsp of chives. Sprinkle the other tbsp of chives and the edible flowers on top for garnish; serve immediately. This salad is especially nice with any fish or seafood dish.

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Grandmother Zatylny's Cabbage Rolls

In the early 1900's, my great-grandmother, Josephine Sorochinski, farmed in Manitoba. She had an old outdoor stove, built of bricks. In it, she would build a fire, take the hot coals out, make a bed of cabbage leaves and place her homemade bread on that to bake. Her daughter (and my great-aunt) told me that the bread had a taste of cabbage leaves on it and the 7 children went wild for it, breaking it in pieces while it was still hot and eating it with fresh-churned butter and garlic. Holubsti, cabbage leaves stuffed with rice, onion and ground meat, were made on Sundays for a special treat and baked, like bread, in the outdoor oven.

Here is her recipe:
Filling for Cabbage Rolls:

1 large chopped onion
large head of spring cabbage
3 stalks chopped celery
1 can tomato sauce
1 cup torn or chopped spring greens
1 cup cooked rice (white or brown)
1 pound ground beef or pork (or veggie ground round)

Sauté onion, celery and greens until tender. Sprinkle with a pinch of flour. Remove from heat. Season with salt, pepper, snips of fresh parsley and dill. Fry ground beef until crumbly and brown. Veggie ground round needs no cooking. Add this to the rice and mix well.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Prepare cabbage by cooking the whole head in boiling water in a large pot, removing the leaves as they become tender. Reserve the tough outer leaves and core pieces. Let cabbage leaves cool somewhat, then spoon about 1 tbsp filling onto the leaves. Roll the leaves to enclose the filling, tucking in the ends. Place in a large, shallow baking pan. Pour an 8 oz can of tomato sauce over the cabbage rolls. Grandma Zatylny always reserved the tough cabbage leaves to place on top of the rolls. These can be allowed to burn, as they will not be eaten. Bake, covered with foil, for about two hours - then, remove the foil and bake for an additional ½ hour, until the top cabbage leaves have burned slightly. Eat and enjoy! This recipe makes about 8 servings.

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Copyright (C) 2005 Carol M. Upton

Carol M. Upton is a writer and personal historian whose work has appeared in The Vancouver Sun and Province, The Coast Reporter, The Cup of Comfort Cookbook, The Change Agent and several trade publications. Carol owns a business called Recollections and offers a free consultation and a free monthly newsletter called Living Legends, for those who want assistance in telling their family stories. Visit Carol at www.memorybooks.ca.


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