Northwest Wild Country Radio Station

Since my late teens, I’ve been sort of a closet cook. Out of necessity from my first marriage - as my ex could not boil water without a cookbook and only cooked when I held a gun to her head (kidding ... she never cooked).

So I had to learn or go hungry. By trial and error, I came up with some cool recipes. As you can imagine, quite a few of these include fish.

Summer is the time for excess. Exceptional seasons with liberal limits means we will be baking, barbecuing, broiling and frying salmon. Lots of salmon. Every other day, salmon. More salmon. "Please-Dad-can-we-have-steak-instead?" salmon.

This means leftover fish. Being only able to eat so much cold salmon, I had to come up with some way of using all this fish without wasting it.

Fish patties were a natural progression. I started with a generic recipe, them embellished on it over the years. After 30 years of trial and error, the following is what I came up with. So many friends and family have suggested I share the recipe, well, here you go, kids. I dare you to come up with a better recipe for leftover salmon.

The General's Salmon Patties

In a large mixing bowl, combine the following:

1. Take the “spare” salmon out of the fridge. Usually 3 to 4 pounds of cooked salmon is ideal for this recipe. Slowly crumble the pre-cooked fish between your fingers into the bowl, watching carefully for and removing all small bones.

2. Fry one full package of bacon - chop the bacon into small pieces before frying. Fry until crisp, put all bacon (and a bit of the grease) into the bowl with the 3 to 4 pounds of cooked salmon. Then add:

1 cup chopped green onion
1 cup crumbled smoked salmon
1/3 cup chopped garlic
1/3 cup capers
¼ cup Italian dressing
4 tbsp Garlic Gormay jalapeño rub
Salt and pepper to taste

3. Mix those ingredients thoroughly with the crumbled salmon, again still on the lookout for bones. You’ll be amazed how many of them escape scrutiny.

4. Now add the “glue”. Add large eggs (not salmon eggs, chicken eggs, I have to be specific here, I know what kind of person reads these blogs) one at a time until the mixture becomes “sticky”, viable to mash between your palms to form patties. Usually two to four eggs will do.

5. Do not add bread, bread crumbs, crackers, etc. these ingredients add a bland taste and funky texture to your patties.

6. In a large non-stick pan, pour a thin layer of Garlic Gormay garlic flavored olive oil, or plain olive oil with some fresh chopped garlic browned in the oil. Set in patties (make them approximately ¾ inch thick) and watch them closely, fry them until crispy on both sides. Lay them on paper towels, let them cool a bit and eat until you can’t breathe.

7. Cook all of the mixture. Many report to me, and I think I agree, they are as good cold out of the fridge the next day as they are hot out of the pan. The best part of this recipe: it doesn’t have to be too exact to turn out wonderful.

The patty foundation: Many different salmon work well for patty makin's: kings, coho, the half a zillion pinks we are all going to bring home this summer and kokanee. White fish like ling, sea bass and halibut don’t taste as well, perhaps due to lack of oils. Steelhead, especially hatchery summer runs, make for dandy patties.

The best patties I have ever tasted I made with Rufus Woods triploids, probably due to the tremendous fat content of the meat. I have not tried it with albacore tuna, but with the way tuna fishing is blowing up off the Washington coast, I guess we’ll see. I’ll bet it rocks.

Perhaps I’ll forward this recipe to our Captain friends on “Deadliest Catch” and see how my recipe transfers to crab ...

Metal To The End,
-Chef Know It All