Maximize your harvest & bake the skeleton!

After filleting our fish (Coho above), we bake the skeleton for a hearty feast!

After a hard days working, that is catching our limit in hatchery salmon and steelhead, we look least forward to filleting the fish, until recently.  Specifically, we botched the fillet job and decided we should bake the sketelon. So I slathered butter on the top with fresh cracked peppercorn and sea salt for seasoning, viola!  It tasted wonderful, we even leave the head on and eat the cheeks, thank you to my Montana friends for that tip! 

 Waste not, want not - 18th century English Proverb

How is it that we had been missing this?  Now we look forward to our baked reward, and eagerly fillet the harvest of hatchery fish, and feast on the remains, smiling to our selves since we waste less when we bake the fish skeleton.  

Hearty Smoked Salmon and Chanterelle Chowder in bread bowls

Hearty Smoked Salmon and Chanterelle Chowder? Yes!  Don't ask how I came up with the idea, we harvest food from nature and this years' bumper crop got me thinking.  What to do with all this salmon and all these chanterelles.  Since my specialty is soup, why not put them together like a bisque? Only I don't like bisque, I do like chowder, so I put the two together.  At the time I only had my teriyaki-smoked salmon available, and the outcome was very delectable !

Use your own pre-smoke salmon recipe or the one on this blog, if you like it extra salty or spicy, that is even better for flavor! 

Pan "dry" the shredded chanterelles to a dark nutty color over low heat in a cast iron pan with a dab of butter ("dry" meaning removing excess water from the chanterelle mushroom).

Serves 4-6 people

4-8 oz. of smoked salmon - flaked apart
1 cup of dry chanterelle mushrooms (see above)
4 small yukon gold potatoes - cooked and cut into 1" squares
1 cup of chopped green onions
1/2 cup of fresh parsley
1/2 cup of yellow onion - caramelized
1/2 cup of garden carrots caramelized
Sea salt to taste
Fresh cracked black peppercorns to taste
1 tsp of sugar

White sauce:
1 cube of butter
1 cup of flour
1 pint of cream
2 cups of milk


Sea salt to taste

Fresh cracked black peppercorns to taste

First make white sauce, melt butter over low heat, add flour to melted butter in pan to make a rue, slowly add milk, salt,  pepper and stir constantly over low heat for twenty minutes or until thick, then add cream till smooth.

While the white sauce is going, brown yellow onions and carrots in a frying pan together till caramelized.  In another pot boil potatoes whole, then peel and chop into 1" squares.



When the potatoes are cooked and chopped, onions and carrots caramelized and white sauce is done, then combine all the ingredients in a large pan, or crockpot, on low, allow to simmer till green onions are tender, 15 minutes.

Speedy note:  I usually start the potatoes, chop up the carrots and onions ahead of time, and set them all to cook before I start the white sauce, saves time. I usually buy the bread bowls from the bakery, since I am a great cook and a lousy baker!

Serve in bread bowls. 

Waste not want not! Feast of Coho Salmon!

This map is from the California Fish and Game webpage, if you live in the peppered area and are not currently fishing for Coho, Silver Salmon, stop everything and go fishing!

 For the past month my husband and I have been enjoying fishing for fresh coho salmon, silvers.  While he lands the majority and I land the minority, the coho fishing this year is fantastic, we each average five fish a day on the line and land possibly two.  Every weekend we're out fishing, camping out of the back of the pick-up.  While this may not be the most romantic way to spend out time, I can't complain.  My husband is more enthusiastic than I am about me hooking and landing fish.  Combine that with seeing elk, bald eagles, king fishers, beavers and deer - I feel blessed and humbled.  Our friends love it to, since we would rather share the bounty of fish than freeze them.

This bright Coho, silver, was caught in fresh water.

Coho, silver salmon, is quite possibly the best tasting salmon, in our opinion.  Leaner than its cousin the Chinook, or King Salmon, this variety of salmon is a favorite for most palettes.  Often we catch them so fresh the sea lice are still attached, bright and silver with meat dark orange red, we even bake the fillet skeleton!  We generally only smoke the less then bright salmon, and turn away the dark ones. The catch this year is plentiful and the average size seems larger, too.

The no name river we catch all the Coho out of run into this other body of water.

Recommendations, eat fresh bright salmon - FRESH, and smoke the rest.  Try not to waste any of it.  Recently, a new tradition, we have started to bake the left overs after we are done filleting.  We simply put the trimmings,skeleton, including the head - there is nothing like Coho cheeks, on a stainless cookie sheet with a dab of butter, fresh cracked black pepper and sea salt for 10 minutes.  We pick the bone clean, every-time, delicious.

Apple Smoked Teriyaki Salmon

Hot Smoked Salmon, Teriyaki brine, with applewood.

This "hot" application of smoked salmon, brings forth the natural sweetness of salmon with a hint of apple and garlic producing a light flaky tender moist salmon, sure to turn even the most reluctant fish eater!

Prep time: 2 hours      Cook Time: 2 Hours      Total Preparation Time: 4 hours    

1 fillet of fresh salmon
1 cup of brown sugar
1/2 cup sea salt
1/2 cup soy sauce
1 tsp of fresh cracked black pepper
3 crushed cloves of garlic

Take rinsed fillet of salmon, pat dry with paper towel and place in bowl. Premix dry ingredients and rub gently into the flesh side of salmon then drizzle half of the soy on to fish.  Cover and place in fridge for two hours.  Remove and rinse the fish with the rest of the soy. Place on cedar plank or aluminum foil shaped to the fish to allow for plenty of "smoke" to flow over the fish.  Put in smoker for 2 hours on 200 degrees, do not pre-heat smoker, it remains moist if allowed to heat gradually.

For cold smoke or stronger teriyaki flavor, leave in brine for up to 12 hours.

Chanterelles and Salmon a plenty!

Well we are torn between fishing and mushroom hunting again this year!  We are finding pounds of fragrant apricot chanterelles in the woods and are busy catching hatchery coho averaging 10 pounds.  Difficult time of year for us, so hectic smoking fish and drying mushrooms.  To bad we cant always smell like we have been in the woods or out by the river!

Savory Chanterelle Mushroom Breakfast Skillet

A savory filling dish, great for people who don't like mushrooms as Chanterelles are one of the meatiest, delectable, tasty mushrooms out there!
Serves: two hungry people or 3-4 lite breakfast eaters    Prep time: 15-30 minutes

4 pieces of chopped bacon
2 Yukon gold potatoes - chopped 1/2" squares
2 beaten eggs - range-free organic
1/2 cup of chopped chanterelle mushrooms
1/2 cup of onion - chopped
1/2 cup of yellow peppers optional
1 clove of garlic - smashed then chopped
1/2 cup of cheddar cheese - grated
Sea Salt -to taste
Fresh cracked black pepper- to taste

Express chef tip:  While the bacon is cooking on medium, slip potatoes in microwave for 4 minutes, and chop up the veggies and grate the cheese, this saves 15 min!

In a hot pan, on medium heat, add chopped bacon, rendering half the bacon, 5 minutes to a golden edged color - not crispy. Drain all fat from pan and return to heat.

Add rendered bacon, chopped onion, garlic, chanterelles and peppers, to pan and cook till onions are caramelized and chanterelles are limp and withered. Always cook mushrooms thoroughly! About five minutes.  Combine chopped cubes of potato. Take a minute to mixed the potatoes it will bring a nice caramel color to them. For crispy potatoes take a little rendered fat and dab of butter and potatoes on medium high pan, for five minutes while caramelizing onions.

Shove contents in pan to side, and add beaten eggs, cook the scrambled eggs to almost done then mix all the contents in the pan together. Remove from heat, add sea salt and fresh cracked black pepper to taste and top with grated cheddar and serve!

First Chanterelle Mushrooms of 2011

Chanterelles we have harvested near Vancouver, Washington on September 18th, 2011.

Fall Mushroom Season Starts Early!

Apricot colored Chanterelles are one of the many edible varieties of mushrooms harvested from the forests of the Pacific NW for commercial or personal use.  Mushrooming can be a fun pastime throughout the year in some areas of the northwest.  Always use caution when collecting any wild mushrooms, clear identification can mean life or death.  Chanterelles are one of the most readily identifiable, with a keen eye.  Someone who can tell the difference between a chickadee and a house finch can, with some research can identify chanterelles with ease.

Be Prepared!

When you go hunting for mushrooms in the forest, be prepared, for anything.  Always tell someone where you are going.  Don't go out alone.  Take water, food, and other necessary items in a light backpack like you would for a short day hike.  Make sure you have a knife to cut the specimen cleanly, leaving the bottom "root" in the ground.  You may find several different kinds, never put them together, take paper lunch bags to keep them separate.  Paper bags can get wet and fall apart, so put paper in plastic or in a woven basket.

Items we always take include:   

• Brightly colored rain gear - seriously people no one likes to be cold and wet in the forest or mistaken for a deer, most mushrooms are harvested in the forest during hunting season. 
• Take Bear spray, wild animals are on the move during hunting season, and you don't want to be on the menu.   
• Knife. 
• Paper bags.  
• Water.  
• Nuts- or any food with high calorie and protein content.
• Field Guides, (2) for cross-referencing.  
• Hiking boots, don't go out with someone who is not wearing them either - unless you can carry them out with a sprained ankle or broken leg.

Mushroom resources and links:

All That the Rain Promises and More by David Arora, is an absolute must have for the western half of the U.S.

National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Mushrooms
 
youtube.com has many videos, with footage from many who harvest mushrooms frequently.

Pacific Northwest Key Council  http://www.svims.ca/council/keys.htm is a very comprehensive guide for mushroom identification.

Natural Resources Canada BCERN: Matchmaker Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest. http://www.pfc.forestry.ca/biodiversity/matchmaker/index_e.html