Salmon a la Kansas

Apologies to those of you with better memories than mine; you might remember this from the July of the '09 series of Feeders.  It is a story about a salmon recipe which I have dubbed “Salmon a la Kansas”.  You might wonder why salmon and Kansas would be related in a recipe.  Salmon isn’t “local” to The Sunflower State… In this case, Kansas is a real person who (still) lives on a cattle ranch near Lillooet, British Columbia.  I somehow got to corresponding with her through our blogs, she published (and still does occasionally I find out!) one called “Canadian Crafter” and provides interesting recipes and glimpses of life on a real ranch.  We eventually traded a few emails, and found we shared a mutual dislike of “The Pioneer Woman” whom we pretty much figured was a fraud.

Recently she posted on her facebook page a story about catching salmon, which reminded me of the recipe.  I am not sure the recipe is original with her, but was intrigued by the combination of Mayonnaise and Miracle whip, and quite frankly associating it with salmon.  Anyway I thought I would revisit the dish five years later.  We had a piece of salmon in the freezer so the first step was to thaw it.   Here’s a little tip (no, I didn’t get it from Cook’s Illustrated) on speeding up the thawing process: the reason we use cookware is because it’s a great conductor of heat, and this property works both ways, so inverting a pan and putting the item on it helps it thaw much faster

Here’s the original Salmon recipe:

Line a cookie sheet with tinfoil and spray a touch of cooking spray (Pam) on it.
Combine salad dressing (Miracle Whip) with mayonnaise (Hellman's). Or one of them if you don't have both.
Spread mixture with a spatula over fillets.
Sprinkle lots of soy sauce over.
Shake dried dill weed over both fillets.
Cook for about 25 minutes at 350 degrees.

I modified it by using Dukes which I prefer, and didn't spray with Pam

Anyway got the ingredients together (with remnants of MFO’s Gimlet prep)

And I got a little surprise when I opened the Miracle Whip squeeze bottle, finding engineers had been thinking (always dangerous), but probably not a bad idea for the more viscous “salad dressing”.

So I got roughly equal parts Dukes’ and Dressing

Whisked them together

The clever Miracle Whip bottle seemed to make a comment

Anyway, placed the salmon on the sheet pan (we decided to do one with and one without)

Slathered the stuff on one, and just a little oil on the other and committed to the heat

And when the finger press test indicated done, pulled it out of the oven to firm a little

The finished dish pretty much matched my (fading) memory, it was moist and the Dukes/MW/Soy did add a little sauce feel to it.  Not exactly haute cuisine, but maybe a little something different for you once in a while.. Thanks Kansas, and yes we were

DFD

Bonus Bites:

I always enjoy Tom Sietsema’s reviews in the Sunday Post Magazine.  This week he did a little piece on questions he gets asked frequently, the most popular of which is “what’s your favorite Restaurant?” which he ignores.  Couple of interesting ones:

How often do you eat out?:  10 to 12 times a week

What do you look for in a restaurant:  food, service, and ambiance that make me want to come back for more

My favorite (included in the answer to) Is there anything you won’t eat?:  To my mind, zucchini is about exciting as reading the phone book

MFO and I will be leaving for MOMSTER III’s maiden cross country to Missouri this coming weekend.  If things go according to plan, there will be a major culinary event.

stay tuned and

DFD