There is some overhead with tuna, though: high mercury levels in those fish make it inadvisable to eat even a moderate amount of tuna more than about once a week - not enough to get you the amount of omega-3's you should be getting. Even if that weren't a problem, tuna is expensive! For most people then, the best odds of getting what you need, without heavy-metal poisoning, and without breaking the bank, is canned salmon.
I like canned salmon. It's pretty versatile. You can make a salad out of it, just like you can with tuna. It's great on a bed of lettuce, or in a sandwich - but that's warm weather food. Winter time is a good time for soups and chowders, like the salmon chowder recipe I posted here earlier - but a batch of chowder is a lot of chowder! One 15 oz (more or less) can of salmon makes several quarts of chowder. To put that into perspective, one quart of chowder makes a big meal for the two of us, so a batch makes several big meals.
Now, I'm a guy, and everybody knows that a guy can eat the same thing for every meal, every day, for a long time, without complaining, if he has to. On the other hand, even if he doesn't complain, eating the same thing, the same way, repeatedly for a long time, wears a little. Given the opportunity (without having to do too much work) a guy will usually opt for a little more variety than that. All of which means that, although I like my salmon chowder, I don't want to have to eat it continuously for weeks.
The result of all this is that I have to find some other way to prepare salmon, if I want to keep up my salmon consumption. That got me thinking, and remembering.
When I was a kid in grade school, even up into the early years of high school, school cafeterias usually prepared only one entree. In fact, you usually got what some of my Yankee aquaintances called a "meat and two," which was a meat entree and two vegetables. Sometimes you also got a dessert, and you always got a half-pint of milk. Listen carefully - you didn't have a choice! Your plate was dished and handed to you with what you were supposed to eat already on it!
The significance of this was that pretty much every Friday of my life, from about age 6 up until 15, I had fish for lunch. Now most people will say that it was an accomodation for Catholic students, who were forbidden to eat "meat" on Friday, but were allowed to eat fish instead. It did work to their benefit, and very likely the timing of the fish lunch was selected for just that reason, but in fact, it was really done in order to subsidize the salmon fishing and cannery industry. This is because, in general, the government is more concerned with keeping economic engines running, than it is with accomodating religious proclivities.
What this meant for me, was that for most of those years I spent in the public school system, I ate salmon for lunch, nearly every Friday. That itself wasn't really all that significant - what was important was the way the salmon was prepared. You see, every friday morning, the cafeteria workers had to prepare to make a fish lunch for several hundred students, all of whom had to be fed in the space of about an hour, starting at noon. None of this eating in shifts, the way they do it now. For that reason, the meals they prepared had to be fairly simple. There just wasn't time for a lot of fancy folderol!
What they usually served was salmon croquettes, and many of my classmates despised them, but not me! I loved them. Not only that - don't tell my Mom - but they were better than the ones I (rarely) got at home! In fact, in the 52+ years since I entered first grade, I've not found anyone who made a better tasting salmon croquette than those prepared by the cafeteria workers in the schools I attended.
Here's some more food for thought (so to speak!) - when I was in grade school, cafeteria workers were actually cooks! They prepared the meals on-site, and then served them. Today, most school cafeteria workers are just servers. The food (if you can call it that) is prepared somewhere else and delivered to the school. Is it any wonder that school cafeteria food these days sucks?
Anyway, what all this is leading up to, is that I needed a good recipe for salmon croquettes, and I am happy to say, I found one. The credit for the recipe goes to someone named Sylvia Woods, and was excerpted by recipesource.com from something called "MasterCook II." Ms. Woods' original recipe can be found here.
Now of course, having found a good thing, I just couldn't leave well enough alone, so now I'll give you my version of the recipe.
Ingredients:
| salmon | 15 oz can | 1 | ea |
| green onion | finely chopped | ½ | cup |
| bell pepper | ripe, finely chopped | ½ | cup |
| egg | large | 2 | ea |
| stuffing* | herb-seasoned | 1 | cup |
| salt | 1 | tsp | |
| dill weed | ¼ | tsp | |
| black pepper | ¼ | tsp | |
| olive oil | 6 | Tbs | |
| butter | 6 | Tbs |
Drain, clean, and flake the salmon, then combine all ingredients, except the olive oil and butter, in a large mixing bowl and mix throroughly.
Prepare a non-stick frying pan, combining 2 tbs olive oil and 2 tbs butter over medium heat, When the butter has stopped sizzling the oil mixture is ready to use.
Make patties of the salmon mixture that are about 3" across and about 1/2" thick. I use a 2" ice cream scoop, filled level with the mixture, and drop a scoopful directly into the oil, then I flatten it with a spatula. Works perfectly every time.
Cook each side of the patties for 2 to 3 minutes, until they are browned to your idea of perfection. When they have reached this ideal, remove them from the pan and drain them of any excess oil.
You will need to add oil and butter, 2 tbs each, from time to time, in order to cook all of the croquettes. This version of the recipe makes 7 or 8 croquettes.
Serve hot!
I've made these twice now, with and without the dill, and they were good enough to make me happy. Happy eating.
Mariner
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