Simple Salmon Patties

Though I'm ever one to grumble about modernity, convenience society and fast food, sometimes  I confess, speed is of the essence. This same speed often demands sacrifices, most commonly it means cutting down on health benefits or flavour, often with the unfortunate side-effect of leaving a cold hard pit of disappointment in the immediate aftermath of one's hasty dining experience. So shedding my usual identity as an irritable old codger, I've decided to roll out a recipe that is not only fast but tasty and healthy to boot!

These salmon patties are packed with protein and healthy fats and are convenient not only due to their speed but because they can be eaten in burgers or all dressed up in yogurt, lemon and fresh herbs. Ever better than this, they're portable and easy to reheat, a great little lunch to make ahead and take on the go.

Preheat oven to 425

Ingredients:

1/4c. Roasted nuts, ground (I used almonds though walnuts are also great)

1/4c. Split pea or lentil flour (You can grind them yourself in a coffee grinder, it's a tad on the coarse side but it works!)

1 Yellow Onion, diced

2 cans of salmon (213g. each) debonned

2 eggs

2 pinches of wasabi powder (optional, can be substituted with whatever spices tickle your fancy, coriander would do the trick!)

Zest of one lemon

Juice of one lemon

Salt and pepper to taste

The recipe is simple enough, as promised.

Dice the onion (you can pass it through a food processor)

Grind the nuts and legumes if necessary (Nuts can be coarser, up to you!)

Press as much liquid as possible from the salmon 

Combine all ingredients together, make sure to incorporate the eggs thoroughly

If you feel that the mix is too wet, feel free to add some additional nuts, legumes or some wholewheat flour to bind it, you want a mix that keeps its shape when formed into a ball

Lightly oil a cookie sheet

Ball or shape the patties

Bake until browned

Crossing Boundaries: My take on Siopao Asado

For those of you not familiar with it, siopao asado is a delicious Filipino  dish, simple as that.  This soft steamed bun is stuffed with mouthwatering pork which is coarsely chopped and cooked until tender and still slightly chewy. Does this sound at all familiar? A tad like Char Su Bao and a variety of other sweet and savoury buns that dot Asian cuisine perhaps? Siopao asado finds its roots, despite its semi-Spanish name, in the convenient handheld meals which have long travelled alongside Chinese merchants and colonizers. The veneer of Europeanism which is lacquered onto the name situates these buns at the crossroads of Chinese and Spanish cultures in the rich melting pot of the Philippines.

 I chose the title “Crossing Boundaries” for a variety of reasons. While siopao asado is definitely an example of crossed boundaries, my take on the recipe has changed it even further, putting a Korean spin on it by using gochujang and integrating cabbage and onion to add my own little twist, as well as some veg. A lot of these age old dishes exist in many a permutation and adding my own touch to it I just throws another layer onto an endlessly adaptable dish. Feel free to play with the filling and change it to match your tastes, it’s truly the nature of the beast to do so!

The title of the post is also relevant for me in another way. This recipe was given to me by my fellow food scholar Adrian whom I've had the privilege to work, laugh and procrastinate with this semester. His knowledge of siopao’s historical roots are far more academic than this little blurb was ever meant to be and I guess what I mean to say is that I've officially caved, I have to acknowledge it; resistance is futile, my entire life is coloured by academia...oh well!

Ingredients

For the dough I used the original recipe from http://www.panlasangpinoymeatrecipes.com/siopao-asado-recipe.htm with the minor modification that I cut the sugar by half a cup and boosted the rising times (often doubling them)

Filling:

-1kg of pork and vegetables. While the original recipe calls for only pork, I used about half pork, half cabbage, onion and green bean. For all of the vegetarians and vegans you can also use vegetables entirely, patted dry tofu would probably be a good addition!

-1/2 head garlic, crushed-2 medium size onion, minced1/4 c. soy sauce1/4 c. sugar1/4c.  Gochujang3 Tbsp Rice vinegar

2 Tbsp cornstarch

Mix the dough and knead about eight minutes until smooth and elastic. Set aside to rise for an hour or so.

Prep meat and vegetables, crushing the garlic and chopping vegetables and pork into bite-sized pieces. Remember, this is a hand food, you don't want huge strands of pork of cabbage plopping out if you're eating on the run.

Heat some oil in a deep pan or pot, brown the pork and onions at medium heat.

Add garlic, cook until fragrant. 

Deglaze with the vinegar and soy sauce, add the gochujang and sugar

For pork buns: Simmer on low heat for as long as possible (minimum 45minutes) this slow cooking makes for a more tender filling and lets the flavours develop. Should it start to stick you can add broth or other seasoning to taste (sugar, soy, vinegar to taste)

A few minutes before you finish cooking, add the cabbage and other vegetables cook until desired though do remember that they will steam for 10 minutes and you don't want to overcook them. 5 to 10 minutes in the sauce will suffice to let the flavours mingle. 

For the vegetarian option: Cook the vegetables in the sauce for 5 to 10 minutes then feel free to let the mixture sit at room temperature while the buns rise to absorb flavour.

Should the mix need thickening dissolve the cornstarch into water and add to the mix, heat for 5 minutes or so until thick

Once the dough has risen, flatten it

Cut the dough into equal wedges

Roll into balls

Let proof under a damp cloth

Once the dough is done proofing, flatten the balls

Fill dough with a scoop of filling and carefully fold the edges of the dough together by pinching it closed

Continue pinching the dough, combining each pinch with the last one to make folds

Once there is just a lip left

 fold it into the other pinched segments in one fell swoop

Grab all of the dough at the top and twist to seal, this will also provide the pleats that are an iconic feature to these buns

Steam the buns in a bamboo steamer or double boiler, on lettuce or wax paper. If you're slumming it like me and lack not only a steamer but also wax paper, feel free to use a colander over a pot of boilling water with a lid. Though you'll want to grease the steal to prevent the buns from sticking.

Steam for 8-10 minutes until dough is firm, remove buns from steamer (or umm... colander) and let rest, being careful not to burn yourself.

Enjoy on the run

Or alongside a nice cup of green tea!

Eugénie's Ginger Chutney

Yesterday, life in Toronto changed. This was clear as the snow fell, caressing the warm pavement before melting flake by flake into oblivion. The beautiful bluster signalled the opening movement of yet another seasonal adagio, one which we know and which epitomizes the passing of yet another year. This year, though the accompanying dance is the same, the stage is different. Subtle cues are a constant reminder - the leaves still grasp tenaciously at their branches and the constant thrum of the city, its sirens and horns are the undercurrent to a life which though sounding wild is now distinctly urban. As I walk through my new-old apartment I am struck by my sense of familiarity with this place. The rusty nail head which projects from the wooden floor of the dining room, seems to exist for the sole purpose of plucking at my sock. This is now a common occurrence in a life displaced. As I ruminate on this and look out on the spectacle distanced from me by a single pane of dirty glass my mind gently slides towards old habits.

My mind has lingered on chutney for the last week or so. The fruit has sat patiently in the fridge, waiting for a moment which could not have been more appropriate. While outside a fine layer of powder fought a downhill battle, I unpacked jar upon jar, enjoying as I always do the quaint designs which ornament them. These pastoral cornucopia evoke as ever a rustic flair, one burdened with the reality that each of these jars, although hinting at an artisanal past, are yet another testament to seamless and perfect mass production revealing neither chip nor fragile bubble in their empty walls. This juxtaposition between the past and present is made more evident when these jars are filled, allowing us a glimpse at imperfect chunks of fruit suspended and viewed through a lens of forced perfection.

There is something tantalizing here, in this jar of chutney, which goes beyond a simple blend of complimentary flavours. Physically, it is as stated, contradictory. Emotionally it seems a perfect agent for signifying transition, from space to space and time to time. From the standpoint of memory, while this batch of chutney is fresh, the recipe itself is old, speaking volumes beyond what can be contained in an otherwise unremarkable jar.

On a personal level, this is the recipe of Shannon’s grandmother Eugénie, extracted from a forgotten newspaper thirty of forty years ago and existing within a family far beyond its flash of municipal fame. How many people have squirreled this yellowing strip of paper away, taking it from a publication which is by nature implicitly ephemeral? How many people have squirreled this yellowing strip of paper away, taking it from a publication which is by nature implicitly ephemeral? How many traditions is it at the root of? To whom are Christmas tables incomplete without this ruby-red jar acting as a prism for a dinner’s celebratory delight?

In this way, this chutney is special; it has taken places in memory both collective and personal, existing for individuals and families. How many, upon seeing this recipe in print, in one fleeting moment re-appropriated it for themselves? Making changes, altering it, fabricating a food which was squarely theirs, one which is unique in its own time and space, cementing individually the identity of a food which emerged from a collective. Beyond this, where does this chutney’s story extend to? Canadian apples and pears are enmeshed with cayenne and ginger. The name, the sweet and sour which grace your palate. These tie themselves together, pulling at their imperial roots. These roots are as ever, intertwined with colonialism, juggling subjugation with cultural inquiry in the greater framework of culinary exchange.

This jar of chutney is complex, in flavour and in history. It is a step in an evolving process, a story that remains to an extent inaccessible, locked in the privacy of the families which have made it their own and in the multiple permutations which it stems from. The contradictions that this chutney embodies, between its ingredients, sweet and sour, between the roughly cut fruit and the smooth walls that contain it, each extend to this food’s identity, made unique by its private life but which would have remained obscure if not for a fleeting moment in the public eye. Nothing better reflects the dichotomy between cold snow and warm pavement than this otherwise humble chutney. Winter’s beautiful first failure to take the lead in a dance which it will inevitably dominate, before itself fading from center-stage. This food, this space, this season, surfaced to me as the channel through which to re-define home away from home.

Regardless of what meaning this chutney does or does not have to you, here is the recipe. Perhaps you too will find your own meaning for this not so humble preserve!

-5lbs. (2270g.) pears sliced & peeled

-2lbs. (908g.) apples peeled and coarsely chopped

-1lb. (454g) ginger

-1/2 lb pitted dates, coarsely chopped

-1 cup sultana raisins (I used Thompson)

-1 large onion finely chopped

-2 tbsps. pickling salt

-juice of 2 lemons

-1 tbsp. cayenne pepper

-1/2 tsp. grated nutmeg

-3 bay leaves

-2 liters cider vinegar

While it is a general rule not to tinker with preserve recipes, I was short a few hundred grams of pears and apples, I replaced these with cranberries. Also, fair warning, the fruit must optimally sit in the vinegar for three hours before being cooked, this is the kind of recipe which requires a whole afternoon!





Chop and prep all ingredients, combine everything but the sugar in a large pot






Let soak for three hours




Bring to a boil and simmer until fruit is tender




Add sugar and keep stirring until syrupy, about twenty minutes





Pour into sterilized jars and seal, process in boiling water for ten minutes

This chutney is best served after sitting for a few months