Cooking in the Alaska Bush: Salmon Pesto Ravioli

Posted on October 12, 2011 by Jack & Barbra Donachy

Flash frozen just after being made, these ravioli are ready for a few brief minutes in boiling water.

Is it really worth making your own pasta?

That’s what we wanted to find out. So when we shipped staples up to our home in Point Hope this summer, we included a 25-pound bag of semolina flour and a CucinaPro manual pasta machine. And we eschewed buying the bags of dry pasta from Costco that have been standard in our kitchen for the past several years.

The verdict? It’s definitely worth it, provided one has the time–which, happily, we do. That being said, with each batch of linguini or ravioli we turn out, we are becoming more efficient. Two sets of hands make the work easier and faster, and the pasta itself is amazing! The flavor is superior to store-bought dried pasta, it cooks up in a fraction of the time, and the variations one can create are limitless.

Below is a salmon-based ravioli filling we recently created.

Salmon Pesto Ravioli

½ pound salmon, pan-fried in olive oil, skin on

1 tablespoon dried Italian seasoning. Morton & Bassett or Spice Hunter offer tasty mixes.

1 ½ tablespoon garlic, chopped fine

2 tablespoons finely chopped pine nuts

¼ cup mushrooms, chopped fairly fine

a few grinds of black pepper

¼ cup – 1/3 cup pesto

Olive oil

Sherry (optional–no sherry for us out in the bush)

1. Place cooked salmon in a glass bowl. (Remove skin and cut it into small pieces and add for maximum flavor.)

2. Combine chopped pine nuts, garlic and mushrooms in a small bowl and set aside.

3. Heat a little olive oil in a small frying pan. Add pine nut, garlic and mushroom mixture, and sauté until cooked through, stirring frequently–about 2 to 4 minutes. Add to salmon in bowl. Include the oil in the pan. (Add Sherry while cooking mixture, if desired.)

4. Add remaining ingredients to the bowl. Use a fork to mix thoroughly, breaking up the salmon. Add additional olive oil, if needed, so that mixture holds together. Cover and place in refrigerator for an hour or more.

5. Use mixture as ravioli filling.

6. Serve ravioli with a lightly seasoned marinara sauce or with an olive oil topping, such as onions and sun dried tomatoes sautéed in olive oil.

Finish with grated Parmesan cheese and perhaps a couple of grinds of black pepper. A Willamette Valley Pinot Noir would be the perfect complement. Another good choice would be Chardonnay.

Bush Alaska: Arctic Snow Fence

Posted on October 9, 2011 by Jack & Barbra Donachy

The first snow fell a few days ago. Brilliant sunshine melted it. Snow fell again yesterday. So far the sun is winning the battle. As the days are getting shorter, it is certain that the snow will win.

Our lagoon has iced over in large patches. There are short tracks on the ice where people have briefly ventured out but returned.

The snow fence stands ready for the winter. It looks strong and resilient having beaten back the drifts year after year.

The fence in Point Hope looks much sturdier compared to the fence in Shishmaref (http://wp.me/p1305P-1T). This can only mean that we are ready for gale force winds.

Whalebone Graveyard Fence

Posted on October 9, 2011 by Jack & Barbra Donachy

Point Hope is a whaling community. The villagers primarily hunt bowhead whales. The jawbones of the bowheads are used to mark feasting areas and (above) the graveyard. The graveyard is completely surrounded by the jawbones, which average about seven feet tall. Some looked to be well over ten feet! It’s impressive to note that every two bones used in this unusual fence represents one whale.

Home Made Pasta

Posted on October 2, 2011 by Jack & Barbra Donachy

Jack and I brought up a manual pasta machine with every intention of making our own pasta. We forced the issue by not purchasing any pre-made pasta in our annual shopping. We sent up a twenty-five pound bag of semolina and a dose of sheer determination.

Honestly, the machine looked a little daunting. After eating through our rice at a pace likely to use up our stores, the reality set in that we would need to face the machine and make the pasta.

We took the machine out of the box. We opened the directions. Directions? There was a basic recipe and a phone number to order parts. Thank goodness for the internet! We read recipes and watched youtube videos and set to work.

The first attempt was a DISASTER! I swear every recipe on the internet had comments like “this was so easy,” and “simplest way to make pasta.” When I looked up “what do I do with ruined pasta dough?” I found nothing. So no one ruins their dough? Interesting. I thought maybe I could salvage it and use the dough for a top of something. I was so frustrated, I threw the whole thing out.

Because of my tenacious streak (nice way to say stubborn), I tried the dough again. This time, I didn’t follow the directions and didn’t incorporate all the flour. Now the texture seemed more pliable. I wrapped it in plastic and let it rest overnight.

Round two with the machine. I ran the dough through the machine, like I had been instructed. I decided to make fettuccine noodles. The thinking was that flat wide noodles might be easier to handle. The dough ran through the machine nicely and was thin and even. I cranked the dough through the fettuccine cutter and GLOB, a sticky mess. Good thing I could run it through the flattening part again. After a couple of tries, I got the noodles to come through the cutter in strips with fettuccine indentations. I decided to let them dry all together in big pieces. After a couple of hours, I peeled them apart. They looked weird and too thin, almost translucent. The raw noodles did taste ok, though.

Jack then whipped up an olive oil, sundried tomato, garlic, mushroom, chicken mixture to serve with the pasta. He dropped my pasta creation into the boiling water. I couldn’t look. Another disaster was looming. After three minutes, he pulled the pasta out of the pot and drained it.

Drum roll, please. It was amazing. Just the right texture. Boiling the dried out noodles gave them spring and chewiness. We were honestly shocked how good they tasted.

We’re totally sold! I spent the next hour looking up recipes for raviolis. I think I’m ready to handle the ravioli attachment now.

White Chocolate Chip Pear Butter Bread

Posted on October 2, 2011 by Jack & Barbra Donachy

I impressed myself when this came out of the oven. It had that perfect rich baked brown crust on the top with a beautiful crack that revealed the white chocolate chips. The whole pan of bread disappeared in two days!

I had made pear butter the weekend before with a dozen bruised and ailing pears. I found a recipe that called for pears, orange juice, orange zest and nutmeg. I cooked it in a crock pot over night and finished it with some pectin in the freezer. It turned out wonderfully. It was dark and thick, sweet and spicy with a lovely citrus note.

I thought the pear butter would work really well in a sweet bread. I found a recipe for apple butter bread and altered it to suit my needs. I added chopped pecans and white chocolate chips for a surprise.

Crazy for Biscuits

Posted on October 1, 2011 by Jack & Barbra Donachy

It’s official. The first snow came yesterday. We can now enjoy wintery comfort food without being scorned.

When I was a kid, my mom made all of our bread. Generally, she made whole wheat loaves and sometimes white braided breads for special occasions. Her home made breads were so good out of the oven. This must be where my love of breads originated. When I moved out on my own, I tried making biscuits that came out of a refrigerated can. Those were ok. That was the sum of my biscuit experience.

After a conversation about biscuits with my friends at work, I was inspired to try my hand at some. Who knew you didn’t need a box of Bisquick to make biscuits?! My first batch came out buttery and delicious. After cutting perfect round biscuits, I kneaded the leftover dough and cut the last batch. I learned that kneading them again caused them to not rise as well as the first batch. I’ve also learned that biscuits don’t have to be round. I cut the next batch into squares, and voila! a perfect batch of biscuits.

Since that experience, I’ve made batches of biscuits. They only take 1/2 hour and they taste wonderful with our homemade cloudberry jam. Yum!

I’ve read I can use the biscuit dough as a base in muffin cups and stuff the biscuits with anything my heart desires. If that isn’t enough, I can imagine what could get baked right into the biscuits…herbs, cheeses…oh, boy!

Caramel Apple Cookies

Posted on October 1, 2011 by Jack & Barbra Donachy

The inspiration? A granny smith apple and a bag of individually wrapped caramels.

The two items sitting in our kitchen made me think “wouldn’t an apple cookie with a caramel tucked inside taste like fall?”

Let me tell you, it does! Hot cinnamon flavor dancing around toasty cooked grated apple pieces. Make sure you take two bites so you can savor the caramel twice!

Here it is: Caramel Apple Cookies

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 cup packed brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1 egg

2 cups flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 shredded granny smith apple

15 wrapped caramels

Preheat oven to 350F. Line baking sheet with parchment, or lightly grease sheet.

In a large bowl, stir together flour, salt, baking soda, and cinnamon.

In another bowl, cream together the butter and sugar. Add vanilla and egg and beat until light and fluffy. Add flour mixture and stir to combine. Fold in apple pieces.

Take caramels out of cellophane and cut in half.

Drop tablespoon sized drops of dough onto baking sheet with some space in between (they will spread). Push half caramels into center of cookie drop. Make sure to leave some dough under the cookie so the caramel doesn’t burn.

Bake for 12 minutes or until edges are set. Allow to cool slightly on baking sheet and finish cooling on a wire rack.

(I tinkered with the original recipe found on http://www.chewywaffles.blogspot.com/.)

Drifting and Dancing Wood

Posted on September 6, 2011 by Jack & Barbra Donachy

There are beautiful pieces of driftwood on our beaches here in Point Hope. The piece above looked like ocean animals doing a dance among the summer flowers. I never really thought about where driftwood might travel from until yesterday. I realized that this wood traveled in from the ocean, maybe hundreds or thousands of miles from my village. There are no trees here. The closest trees are small willows that grow up river some ways away. Each piece of driftwood, some as small as sticks and some as large as entire tree trunks, has a story. Maybe they came from Japan or Russia? Where have they come from? How did they come to be on this beach? What caused them to drift? What did they experience along the way?

Setting the Net

Posted on September 5, 2011 by Jack & Barbra Donachy

September 4: We’d be wanting to learn how to set a net from shore, so when a couple invited us to come fishing with them, we jumped at the opportunity. The way nets are set here is pretty ingenious.

The first order of business is to get a big enough weight out from shore to securely anchor the far end of the net. In Shishmaref and lots of other places, they use small dingies or other watercraft to accomplish this. But the current runs strong near Point Hope, and high winds can come up quickly. In the past, lone anglers launching small boats off the beach led to drownings. So a different method for getting the cloth sacks of rocks which serve as weights out into deeper water was developed. Here fishermen use long poles–sometimes lengths of two-by-fours nailed together. The fish often run quite close to shore, so even 25 feet or so can be far enough and a 30 foot net set is all you need. The pole is threaded through a loop on the top of the weight, enough floatation in the form of plastic buoys is attached to the end of the pole to keep everything floating as its pushed out, and then the pole is pulled back and the weight drops to the bottom.

Meanwhile, a long line has been run through one end of the net, top to bottom along a piece of wood attached to the net and is also run through the weight. With the ends of the line tied together to form one long loops, and controlled from the beach, this line is pulled until one end of the net is snugged up against the weight. The top and bottom lines are adjusted so that the net is positioned upright, and the lines are tied off to two stakes on the beach. At the other end of the net–the one closest to the beach–another line holds the net in place and is similarly tethered. Corks keep the top of the net up, and a lead line keeps the bottom of the net down. It sounds a bit complicated, but in practice the whole process is fairly simple and intuitive.

Once the net is set, the fishing is much like any kind of fishing anywhere. You wait, hoping to see the tell-tale dancing of corks, or maybe a splash as a large fish entrapped in the net swims to the surface. Up here the quarry are salmon (pinks, silvers and Chinook), and the highly prized “trout,” i.e. sea-run Dolly Varden. While you wait for the fish to come along, you might see grey whales or even Orcas, seals, or maybe a walrus. Hundreds of thousands of seabirds nest and roost on the cliffs of Cape Thomson to the south, so the sea is usually alive with murres, gulls, puffins and more.

Where There’s Only Sky and Water

Posted on August 31, 2011 by Jack & Barbra Donachy

A solitary surf fisherman in late August hoping to intercept the last of the pink salmon or a roving school of Dolly Varden on the point at Point Hope, Alaska.

Surf fishing is addicting. Part of the magic lies in not knowing when or even if the fish will show up. So you fall into a rhythm, walking up or down the beach casting, waiting for the lure to land, and beginning your retrieve. As you fall into this rhythm, invariably your mind wanders… back to fish you’ve caught and fish you’ve lost on this beach or on other beaches, back to something your dad, or a coach, or a friend said to you a long time ago, back to places you’ve been and to people who have slipped into and out of your life. At other times, you find yourself looking into the future, forward to the day when your mortgage is paid off, or to a day when you are at last able to travel to some dream destination. Your feet are planted more or less firmly on sand or pebbles. Behind you are cities and towns, offices, classrooms, dinner parties, appointments, work, triumphs and regrets, small talk, clocks, calendars… Before you, stretching out as far as you can see, there is only sky and water and the possibility that on the next cast you’ll be woken from your reverie, everything suddenly solid, your rod bent into a graceful, lively arc.