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Will you keep dreaming? Will you come back?
So I had this package of smoked salmon in my refrigerator. I had vague thoughts of eating it with cream cheese, although not with bagels because I haven't had a chance to get to Brookline. On my way home this evening I stopped by Dave's to look for sliced mushrooms; I came out with a pound of fresh squid ink pappardelle, matte-black and smelling faintly of the sea. And with thoughts of squid ink and salmon for dinner, I got home and found that all the readily accessible recipes pertaining to this combination called for ingredients I didn't have: capers, lemon juice, crème fraîche, dill, mussels . . . I was not leaving the house again. I looked at what I had and improvised.
Oh No You Don't Kitty Squid Ink Pasta with Smoked Salmon and Kippers
1 pound squid ink pasta
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves garlic
4 ounces cream cheese
4 ounces smoked salmon
1 tin (≈ 3.5 ounces) kippers
lemon juice if you have it
cream and grated Parmesan as needed
black pepper to taste
Put up a large pot of hot water to boil. Dump in the pasta as soon as the water is boiling; drain the pasta as soon as it's done, in this case about seven minutes since it was fresh. Follow these steps independent of the rest of the recipe; once drained, the pasta can hang out in its pot or strainer until needed, which is exactly what it did.
Finely dice two cloves of garlic. In a medium-sized pot, sauté in olive oil until garlic starts to brown. If you have lemon juice in your kitchen, add a tablespoon or two at this point. (Capers, ditto.) If you don't, remember that the bottom shelf of the refrigerator is currently hosting those chopped artichokes in olive oil and lemon juice that you haven't been able to eat. Pour off about a tablespoon of lemony olive oil onto the garlic and keep stirring until garlic is soft.
Chop cream cheese into rough chunks; this is not aesthetically necessary, but it will melt faster. Slice salmon into small pieces. The kippers will crumble from being stirred, but open tin anyway so that they are right there and ready. Realize this is a terrible mistake when one of the two small cats who have been prowling thoughtfully around the kitchen suddenly breaches vertically like an orca, seizes the kippers off the top of the dead dishwasher which you use as a cutting station, and brings them back down to the linoleum in front of the stove with him. Shout. Grab protesting cat, toss gently but purposefully away across the kitchen. (Do not worry. He lands securely on his feet.) Dive for kippers, breathe sigh of relief on confirming that the tin landed right side up and displays no signs of kitten interference. Clean kipper juice off oven door and surrounding floor, periodically removing cat from area. Prevent other cat from taking this opportunity to sniff out the plate of chopped salmon. Add cream cheese chunks to medium-sized pot, stir until melting; add salmon and kippers and stir until all components have smoothed into a sauce. If too thick and chunky, thin with splashes of cream. Grated Parmesan adds texture and body. You can skip the middle of this stage if you don't have a cat.
Transfer pasta to sauce pot. (Technically speaking, transfer about two-thirds of pasta because of size disparity between pots. Understand that other kitchens will not necessarily have this problem.) Toss until thoroughly coated. Serve hot with a dusting of black pepper. Agree it could have used some dill, but don't feel too bad about it. The dish as it stands is delicious and fishy and salty and the pappardelle have an oceanic darkness that persists without jarring through the cream sauce. Put a lid on the remains as you leave the kitchen. The cats are already starting to investigate.
Oh No You Don't Kitty Squid Ink Pasta with Smoked Salmon and Kippers
1 pound squid ink pasta
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves garlic
4 ounces cream cheese
4 ounces smoked salmon
1 tin (≈ 3.5 ounces) kippers
lemon juice if you have it
cream and grated Parmesan as needed
black pepper to taste
Put up a large pot of hot water to boil. Dump in the pasta as soon as the water is boiling; drain the pasta as soon as it's done, in this case about seven minutes since it was fresh. Follow these steps independent of the rest of the recipe; once drained, the pasta can hang out in its pot or strainer until needed, which is exactly what it did.
Finely dice two cloves of garlic. In a medium-sized pot, sauté in olive oil until garlic starts to brown. If you have lemon juice in your kitchen, add a tablespoon or two at this point. (Capers, ditto.) If you don't, remember that the bottom shelf of the refrigerator is currently hosting those chopped artichokes in olive oil and lemon juice that you haven't been able to eat. Pour off about a tablespoon of lemony olive oil onto the garlic and keep stirring until garlic is soft.
Chop cream cheese into rough chunks; this is not aesthetically necessary, but it will melt faster. Slice salmon into small pieces. The kippers will crumble from being stirred, but open tin anyway so that they are right there and ready. Realize this is a terrible mistake when one of the two small cats who have been prowling thoughtfully around the kitchen suddenly breaches vertically like an orca, seizes the kippers off the top of the dead dishwasher which you use as a cutting station, and brings them back down to the linoleum in front of the stove with him. Shout. Grab protesting cat, toss gently but purposefully away across the kitchen. (Do not worry. He lands securely on his feet.) Dive for kippers, breathe sigh of relief on confirming that the tin landed right side up and displays no signs of kitten interference. Clean kipper juice off oven door and surrounding floor, periodically removing cat from area. Prevent other cat from taking this opportunity to sniff out the plate of chopped salmon. Add cream cheese chunks to medium-sized pot, stir until melting; add salmon and kippers and stir until all components have smoothed into a sauce. If too thick and chunky, thin with splashes of cream. Grated Parmesan adds texture and body. You can skip the middle of this stage if you don't have a cat.
Transfer pasta to sauce pot. (Technically speaking, transfer about two-thirds of pasta because of size disparity between pots. Understand that other kitchens will not necessarily have this problem.) Toss until thoroughly coated. Serve hot with a dusting of black pepper. Agree it could have used some dill, but don't feel too bad about it. The dish as it stands is delicious and fishy and salty and the pappardelle have an oceanic darkness that persists without jarring through the cream sauce. Put a lid on the remains as you leave the kitchen. The cats are already starting to investigate.
spork of fooding
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. . . I don't know! I can get you recipes, but then you have to find squid ink. Maybe there are dried varieties?
spork of fooding
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The one where they're not supposed to be.
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Nine
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With the exception of the squid ink pasta, which was a windfall, all of the ingredients were easily obtained from nearby stores.
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Bet it goes faster, though.
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The cats are not compulsory, but they were memorable.
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Have you discovered the trick of buying artichoke bottoms in cans and mashing them? It imparts artichoke flavor without all the chewing and shucking. *sigh* Someday there will be artichokes again.
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May you be able someday to eat something like it again!
Have you discovered the trick of buying artichoke bottoms in cans and mashing them? It imparts artichoke flavor without all the chewing and shucking.
No, but that sounds like artichokes in a form I could eat. Thank you.
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That's the hope! I am glad to have nudged you back in the direction of eating artichokes again, whatever form they take.
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We too use a dishwasher as a cutting station, but it is not dead, just pining for the fjords.
P.
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. . . recipe? Because obviously I don't fend off enough cats in my daily cooking life.
Cassie has perfected the art of bumping my ankles hard just as I open a sardine can. Then some of the juice spills on her and she runs off and licks herself.
Your cat is ingenious.
We too use a dishwasher as a cutting station, but it is not dead, just pining for the fjords.
Ours was in the kitchen when we moved in. We're not sure when it died, but it definitely wasn't working then. We opened it once on purpose and once in order to retrieve some dishes that had been helpfully but horribly placed inside by a stranger to the house and I can't remember if we've actually taken steps to tape it shut or if we just leave it alone by mutual consent. It really does make a good cutting station, though.
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1/4 cup olive oil
1 medium red or white or yellow onion, diced
2-6 cloves garlic, minced, depending on how large they are and how much you like garlic
1 t fennel seeds
1/4 t crushed red pepper, or to taste
1 can diced or petite diced tomatoes, or the equivalent in chopped fresh tomatoes
1/2 cup dry red wine (I have actually used Marsala in this, and also dry white wine in a pinch)
1 T dried basil
2-4 cans sardines packed in olive oil, or water, or anything except probably mustard sauce, depending on the size of the cans and how much sardine you want; see below.
1/2 cup sliced black or Kalamata olives (you can also use some capers instead or in addition)
1 bunch parsley, minced
1 pound spaghetti, penne, or fusilli (I use whole wheat, but the recipes I got this from don't)
Salt if you think it needs it; some black pepper can also be nice here
Grated Parmesan or Pecorino Romano to taste, for sprinkling at serving time
Begin heating water for the pasta.
Dice and mince onion, garlic, and parsley
Heat olive oil in a large heavy skillet. Add onion. Saute until translucent. Add garlic and fennel seeds. Saute until it is enough, but at least until the garlic and fennel seeds become aromatic. Add crushed red pepper and stir for a moment. Add wine and tomatoes. Let simmer a little while you realize you forgot to slice the olives and do that. Add basil, sardines, and olives, breaking up the sardine pieces more or less depending on the sensibility of your diners; I would rather not see the little bones myself. This mixture should simmer for ten or fifteen minutes, which, depending on how fast you work, may or may not encompass the coming to a boil of the pasta water and the cooking and draining of the pasta.
Once you have cooked and drained the pasta, add the parsley to the sauce. Add salt or pepper if you deem it necessary. Then either mix everything together thoroughly, or let people serve themselves the proportions of sauce and pasta they like. I do the former to avoid sad containers of four pieces of penne discovered in the back of the refrigerator six months later.
The recipes mostly call for the smaller amount of sardines, and if I'm trying to stretch them I go with that, but I prefer more sardines when I can get them. Actual recipes tend to say the dish serves four to six, but have only two or three servings of fish per the information on the can. If I have fewer sardines, I may add a diced green pepper and/or another onion or another half-cup of olives. The largish amount of olive oil is useful to help coat the pasta, since there isn't really enough tomato to make a tomato sauce per se; it's just another ingredient.
P.
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1 large fennel bulb (sometimes called anise; 1 1/4 lb)
1/8 teaspoon crumbled saffron threads
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 tablespoon fennel seeds, crushed
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 (3 3/4- to 4 3/8-ounce) cans sardines in oil or water but not mustard, drained
1 pound spaghetti or other pasta (I use whole wheat, they don't)
1/2 cup pine nuts, toasted
1/3 cup dry bread crumbs, toasted and tossed with 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil and salt to taste
Put water on to boil for pasta.
Remove and chop any fronds of the fennel. Trim stalks flush with bulb and discard
Finely chop fennel bulb. Combine saffron, raisins, and wine in a bowl.
Cook onion, fennel bulb, and fennel seeds in the olive oil with salt to taste in a large, heavy skillet over moderate heat, stirring, until fennel is tender, about 15 minutes.
Add wine mixture and half of sardines, breaking sardines up with a fork, and simmer 1 minute.
Cook and drain pasta as things happen.
Toss hot pasta in a bowl with fennel sauce, remaining sardines, fennel fronds, pine nuts, and salt and pepper to taste. Add bread crumbs and toss again.
You can get away with leaving out either the breadcrumbs or the pine nuts, but one or the other is nice to have. Both are very nice, but sometimes either the expense of the pine nuts or the fussiness of preparing the bread crumbs may seem like too much.
As with the previous recipe, I often put in more sardines than called for. And the quite large amount of olive oil does seem necessary.
I think I've only made this once, and ended up using golden raisins because I had some.
P.
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Thank you for both of these! I also prefer more sardines when I can get them.
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The fact that our cats cannot use the internet is probably preventing the collapse of civilization, or at least civilization so far as our house is concerned, since they already know how to open doors.
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I assume this is an outrage against breakfast?
[edit] Why would anyone ever want to put them in tins? They're kippered! They're preserved already! etc
My guess is: no one in the U.S. makes kippers and they have to be packaged for import somehow. If you have a supplier of the straight-up fish, please let me know!
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OM NOM NOM.
On one memorable occasion, long ago in a galaxy far far away when none of us were married, we had a group house and two cats, Momma and Jezebel. My sister's then-boyfriend took her on an ocean fishing trip, and they came back with large pieces of bluefish. We cut it up for sashimi, nommed it right there in the kitchen and decamped to the living room to digest and schmooze.
One of us went back to get another cup of tea and discovered, to hir dismay, that the cats were on the counter licking the cutting board. The punishment spray bottles of water were deployed, causing Jez to flee, but Momma (a former stray) held her ground, merely licking faster as she laid back her damp ears. We had to remove her to the basement.
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That is very cat.
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It tasted pretty good, too!