Coming Out of the Fog – a Culinary Retreat (a cookie recipe, too!)

Posted on June 14, 2022 by Jack & Barbra Donachy

This summer, one of my goals was to reignite my writing spark. To that end, I signed up for a couple of writing workshops. First stop, Tutka Bay, Alaska.

Several years ago, I acquired the Tutka Bay Lodge Cookbook. It has become one of my two absolute favorite culinary resources. Through the book, I became acquainted with people whom I thought would be kindred spirits. The chefs sought to sustainably use and showcase what they could forage from the lodge’s nearby wilderness. The lodge’s location seemed idyllic – a fjord only accessible by boat surrounded by forest. The cookbook is filled with culinary wonders featuring harvested beach greens, foraged berries and mushrooms, and wild caught fish. When I first read the cookbook, I learned that a cooking school is held on site. I began dreaming of a visit. As with most lodge visits in Alaska, a stay there is expensive. So, it remained a dream – I would say a recurring dream. But I visited the lodge virtually and fueled this dream by regularly adapting the cookbook’s many recipes to create dishes and meals with items we forage and gather here at the Lake.

Set among spruce trees and overlooking a narrow fjord off Kachemak Bay, the deck at Tutka Bay Lodge was an ideal place for cooking classes, a soak in the hot tub, or just relaxing and listening to the songs of forest birds.

During this same time, Jack contributed writing and photos to a lovely “local” magazine called Edible Alaska. The magazine features food-related stories from all over our beautiful state. Earlier this past Spring, the Edible magazine people organized a culinary writing retreat at Tutka Bay Lodge. We were lucky to be invited to this retreat along with what turned out to be an intimate group of fourteen enthusiastic foodies.

What was a day in the life of an Alaskan culinary writers’ retreat like? As Tutka Bay Lodge is noted for being a dining destination, the days were filled with delicious food. Days started with spruce tip sprinkled breads, house-made lox, fluffy scrambled eggs infused with the lodge’s greenhouse herbs, and bacon sourced from a farm across Kachemak Bay. One of our lunches featured a fresh tossed raw vegetable dish with a grilled open-faced halibut salad sandwich accompanied by a bowl of cream of celery root soup topped with julienned Granny Smith apples. Each dinner began with appetizers paired with wines. Among other starters was a beautiful cold charcuterie lain out along with fresh pretzel bites doused in butter and a Moroccan eggplant tagine. Family-style dinners followed with menu offerings such as king crab infused mashed potatoes, a perfectly cooked beef tenderloin, tossed salads, and herbed biscuits. The most memorable dessert was a Spanish-style baked cheesecake topped with a caramel sauce made from foraged beach kelp.

Due to the workshop atmosphere, there were plenty of opportunities to learn about local foods. Across Kachemak Bay in the town of Homer, we went on guided tours of Stoked Beekeeping Company, Blood, Sweat and Food farm, and Synergy organic vegetable farm. At a dinner hosted by Synergy Farm, we tasted and learned about mead from Sweetgale Wines. Back at the lodge, we foraged the beach at low tide with naturalist guides. Tutka Bay Chefs taught classes on Moroccan spices, salmon preparation and sushi-making. A local oyster farmer taught us about her business followed by an oyster tasting session. I came home loaded with culinary ideas and goals for the summer. I am more inspired than ever to make bull kelp pickles and to find goose tongue and other beach greens from our nearby ocean beaches.

As writers, we were happy for the opportunity to work with Kirsten Dixon, author and lodge owner. She led us through a writing workshop, connecting modern and ancient stories to Tutka Bay. She shared some of her personal writing as well as other writing that inspired her. Kirsten suggested some writing themes and encouraged participants to share their work at the end of the retreat. The lodge features a cozy writer’s loft which Jack and I found to be ideal as we composed our thoughts surrounded by beautiful views and birdsong.

I departed our retreat inspired to write more regularly. But that wasn’t what left the biggest impression. One of the participants I met on the first day confided that she hadn’t been around people in two months. She seemed particularly uncomfortable in social setting settings that were part of life at the lodge. The funny thing is that as she shared this with me, I realized that I felt similarly. For all of us, this retreat was the first time since Covid began that we had been in an intimate setting with new people. A warm feeling was growing in the group. What was it? One person articulated it well. “This experience has been like coming out of a fog” she said. It felt freeing to be in place that invited the sharing of ideas and thoughts, a lovely counter to feelings of suspicion and worry that seemed to pervade social gatherings these past two years.

It was a wonderful visit with newly made friends. I now have a new group I can share culinary ideas with. I have more inspiration to gather and create. I have new ideas to draw writing from. I feel like my fog, too, has lifted.

In honor of this feeling and inspired by my new friends and my new cookbook, Living Within the Wild, I give you a small batch of “Coming Out of the Fog Cookies.”

In Kirsten Dixon and Mandy Dixon’s new cookbook, they shared a recipe for berry chocolate chip cookies. The idea is to take a great chocolate chip cookie and embed a surprise of berry jelly in the center. With this recipe bouncing around my head for a few days, I came up with my own version of this cookie. My idea is to take the best part of a monster cookie and stuff it with a complementary jam surprise. This batch is small. (Two people should only eat eight cookies between them, right?) Of course, this recipe can easily be doubled or tripled if need be.

I invite you to join me in coming out of the fog.

Coming Out of the Fog Cookies

Ingredients

2 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
2 tbsp granulated sugar
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 large egg, beaten
½ tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp creamy peanut butter
8 tbsp all-purpose flour
6 tbsp quick oats
¼ tsp baking soda
Pinch salt
8 tsp jam

Directions

Preheat oven to 325° F (160° C).
Line baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, mix together first 6 ingredients.
Stir in flour, oats, baking soda, and salt.
Chill dough for about 15 minutes.
Divide dough into 8 pieces and roll into balls.
Flatten balls.
Place 1 tsp of jam in center of flattened dough.
Close dough around jam. *
Place stuffed cookies, smooth side up, on prepared baking sheet.
Bake for 18-20 minutes, until lightly browned.
Let cookies cool on baking sheet for a few minutes and finish cooling on wire rack.
Enjoy slightly warm or room temperature with a glass of freshly brewed ice tea.

*If your dough is too sticky, butter your hands to work with the dough.

Breakfast Panna Cotta – Turning Ordinary Into Extraordinary

Posted on April 10, 2021 by Jack & Barbra Donachy

A breakfast fit for a celebration – now where’s my champagne?

As it happens sometimes, we received a random box of ingredients, this time thanks to the Farmers to Families program. The box included a variety of items that someone defined as household staples. Included were roasted chicken quarters, hot dogs, potatoes, apples, milk, and yogurt. Jack quickly turned out a delicious soup with the chicken, potatoes, and other veggies we had in our fridge. My challenge was the yogurt. I usually make our own yogurt, so we already had more than enough for our regular menu.

Living in a small village, we often gift extra food amongst our neighbors. For example, if someone gets an extra order of canned pumpkin or tahini (real examples), we share. When that happens, the resulting cooking challenge always strikes me as our own episode of Chopped. We don’t like to let anything go to waste. So the puzzle of the yogurt needed to be attended to right away.

I had just finished re-reading The Tutka Bay Lodge Cookbook and was in the middle of another pastry chef cookbook when the box arrived. I already had Panna Cotta on the brain. I wondered if Panna Cotta could be made with yogurt instead of cream. Panna Cotta is a wonderful gelatinized dessert that can become a delicious canvas for a variety of fruit. The name is derived from Italian and means “cooked cream.” In my experiment, it would be cooked yogurt. So, yes, this is not a true Panna Cotta. My version has the same vanilla bean canvas and the same structure. That’s where the similarity ended.

I tested different dishes and glasses for serving the Panna Cotta including wine glasses and ramekins. I think they all worked beautifully. My breakfast Panna Cotta definitely tasted like a rich vanilla yogurt. But it made for a gorgeous and delicious breakfast presentation – layers of crunchy granola, chewy dried fruit, zippy tart berries, and a drizzle of last summer’s wineberry syrup. The same visual layers can be accomplished in any clear glass if ramekins are not available. With just a bit of chilling time and not too much effort, you too can turn ordinary into extraordinary.

Breakfast Panna Cotta

Ingredients

1 1/2 tsp powdered gelatin (1 package)
3 cups plain yogurt
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla paste
2/3 cup granulated sugar
granola
dried fruit
frozen or fresh berries
berry syrup

Directions

Place gelatin in a small bowl. Pour a couple of tablespoons of the milk into the gelatin and mix. Let set for about 5 minutes.
In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the remainder of the milk, yogurt, vanilla and sugar.
Place about 1/2 cup of the yogurt mixture into a small pot. Warm mixture while stirring constantly.
Add gelatin mixture to pot.
Whisk mixture until gelatin is dissolved. Let cool for 5 minutes.
Pour gelatin mixture back into the original yogurt mixture in the medium bowl. Mix thoroughly.
Divide the panna cotta into 6 ramekins or glasses.
Cover with plastic wrap and chill overnight in the refrigerator.
To serve, layer on granola, dried fruit, berries and berry syrup of your choosing.
Alternatively, run a knife around the edge of the ramekin, dip the ramekin in hot water and unmold onto a serving plate prepared with a bottom layer of granola. Top panna cotta decoratively with remaining ingredients.

Dungeness Crab Cakes

Posted on April 10, 2021 by Jack & Barbra Donachy

*Sweet Dungeness Crab – all you’ll want is a spritz of lemon.*

For as long as I can remember I’ve ordered crab cakes in restaurants. They are, I think, the most difficult seafood fritter, patty or cake to get right. The best I’ve had were served at McCormick’s in Portland some years ago. They came with hollandaise sauce and I used to have them for breakfast with a cup of black coffee or a glass of Pinot Gris, after which I’d walk up the street to Powell’s to look at books or to write.

Thanks to the Dungeness in our freezer, I’ve been experimenting. Crab is difficult because it’s more important to get the seasonings right than with other seafood and then you’ve got to cook the cakes just so. If the cakes are very good, lemon is all you’ll want.

Dungeness Crab Cakes

Ingredients

½ pound cooked Dungeness or Blue Crab meat. If it seems too wet, it is. Squeeze the excess moisture out with paper towel or through a strainer. Take extra care to make sure there is no shell.
seasonings: Crab is very sweet. It needs something. I use a blend of dried powdered peppers such as Aleppo, Ancho, Cayenne, Chipotle. The idea is that you want to balance the sweetness of the crab with something that pulls your pallet in a different direction. This actually serves to underscore the sweetness of crab, its signature trait. In addition to the above types of spice, smoked paprika, nutmeg and tarragon can also be added. Dill or fennel? I wouldn’t. I seldom spice anything exactly the same twice. The key here is the spicy pepper.
soy sauce: as desired
1 or 2 shallots, diced fine, sautéed till soft in olive oil, removed from pan and set aside to cool
¼ cup red bell pepper, diced, sautéed in olive oil, removed from pan and set aside to cool
1 egg, beaten with a little soy sauce whisked in. Provided you don’t add too much spice to the cakes themselves, you can also add a couple shakes of Cholula here.
panko: approximately the same amount in volume as the crab meat. Start by mixing in about half the volume. That won’t feel like enough, so add more till it seems about right – not to wet, not too dry.
Olive oil and Butter

Directions:

In a large bowl, mix together the crab, seasonings, shallots, bell peppers, soy sauce and egg. Hands work best for this. Then mix in the panko. Shape the cakes into patties. Keep them fairly small so that they are easy to turn and they stay together.
In a frying pan on medium heat, add enough olive oil and butter in equal parts to shallow-fry the cakes. When the oil is hot, set the timer for 4 minutes and add the cakes. Cover the pan and cook for 1 minute, then lower the temperature to a little below medium. It is important to check the cakes periodically to make sure the bottom side is browning the way you want.
At 4 minutes, gently turn the cakes over and continue cooking uncovered. Occasionally spoon some of the oil-butter mixture on top of the cakes.

These are the best crab cakes I’ve ever had. All I ever want with them is a spritz of lemon. When Barbra and I pick a whole crab and dip it in herbed lemon-butter, we almost always go for a buttery, oaked Chardonnay. But these cakes want something lighter and more fruit forward, so Pinot Gris or similar pairs well.

Don’t Discard the Discard Sourdough Crackers

Posted on March 16, 2021 by Jack & Barbra Donachy

Delightfully crispy and packed with flavor: cheese-like tang, garlic, onion, with a hit of salt. You’ll never discard your discard starter again.

One day, I noticed a friend had posted on a community webpage that she had extra sourdough starter if anyone wanted it. It made me wonder about extra starter – a problem I don’t seem to encounter. Due to a combination of where we live and our predisposition to avoid waste, we generally don’t have “extra.” Of course, shortly after coming to the conclusion that we’d never have extra starter, I had a week where I skipped making sourdough loaves and wound up with “extra starter.” One of my recipe books recommended discarding the extra. What?! I decided to taste it, to see if the flavor would inspire a recipe. Tasting raw starter was a bad idea. Yuck!

After a bit of research, I decided to tinker with a cracker recipe I found on the King Arthur Flour website. My first batch came out wonderfully flavored, but too soft. The problem was the thickness. My rolling pin and I could not get the dough thin enough. The solution came to me after rolling lasagna noodles – the pasta machine! If you’ve only ever thought of your pasta machine as a noodle machine, think again. Besides wonderfully flavored and textured linguini and spaghetti, I’ve also cranked out perfect bowties, ravioli and even wonton wrappers. This seemingly single-purposed machine helps perfectly roll sourdough to make satisfyingly crunchy crackers.

If you don’t have a pasta machine, I highly recommend the Atlas model we have. It is a heavy beast, but it is a kitchen tool that’s made the cut every time we’ve had to pack up and move. If you don’t want to add another item to your cupboards, a rolling pin will still work with this recipe. Be patient and aim to roll a thickness of about 1/16”.

The finished crackers have a tangy cheese-like flavor from the sourdough starter. This in combination with a mixture of onion and garlic and a hit of grey sea salt make these crackers very addicting. Serve with the complementary topping of your choice. Or enjoy their flavor unadorned, as I usually do.

Don’t Discard the Discard Sourdough Crackers

Ingredients

1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp granulated shallots (onion powder would work, too)
1 tsp granulated garlic
1 cup sourdough starter, unfed
4 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
olive oil for brushing
coarse salt for sprinkling on top (I like grey sea salt)

Directions

Mix first 6 ingredients to form a smooth dough.
Tightly cover in plastic and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. I often refrigerate for several days.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper or reusable liner.
Cut off 1/4th of refrigerated dough and roll until it’s about 1/16” thick. I roll it like it is pasta on the pasta machine down to the 5th setting.
Placed rolled dough on prepared baking sheet.
Using a knife, or pastry roller, cut dough into cracker shapes. There is no need to move the crackers apart.
Brush dough with olive oil.
Sprinkle with coarse sea salt.
Bake for 9 minutes.
Crackers will be lightly browned when done.
Let cool on wire rack. Store cooled crackers in an airtight container at room temperature.
Repeat with remaining dough.

Lingonberry Flaugnarde Pour Deux

Posted on March 6, 2021 by Jack & Barbra Donachy

Flaugnarde is a lovely French name for a baked dessert which has fruit baked into a batter. The flaugnarde process creates a lightly crisped crust and a thick custard-like middle. Topped with ice cream, you’ll have a grand slam last course to any meal.

Lingonberries, known around here as low bush cranberries, are the last berry we forage for before we tuck in for winter. Collectors of these sour, flavorful gems are advised to wait until after the first frost for the best berries. We’ve learned that as long as the berries are fully red, the freezer also seems to do the same trick of enhancing their subtle sweetness.

Last year we found a killer spot for lingonberries across the lake. Looking back on the calendar where we kept noteworthy events, I noted that our several gallons of lingonberries in the freezer were collected in only two picking sessions. Now that’s a great spot!

Lingonberries can be used for cranberry recipes and vice versa. We’ve made lingonberry relish to go with roast turkey or moose, lingonberry breads to accompany poached egg breakfasts, and lingonberry juice for a hot spiced drink to warm up with on cold winter nights.

One of the tastiest recipes I’ve made with lingonberries is a version of Cranberry Chess Pie. It’s creamy filling packs a cranberry-orange, sweet-sour flavor punch inside a beautiful flaky pastry dough crust. This is the recipe I was channeling when I came up with a crustless version, which was supposed to be a little lighter on the calories. I can’t say I was successful with the calorie reduction. But I can say, it was incredibly delicious. I told Jack that I wished I could record his mmmming and ooohhing while he was eating this dessert. That would have been worth a thousand words.

Although this dessert is perfectly delicious on its own, I highly recommend serving it while it’s still warm with a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream. The dish will come out of the oven with a beautifully browned dome top. While it’s cooling, the flaugnarde will fall, creating a hollow perfectly shaped for a scoop of ice cream.

Lingonberry Flaugnarde

Ingredients

1/2 cup + 2 tbsp granulated sugar
1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
Pinch salt
1 extra large egg or 2 small eggs
2 tbsp flour
1 1/2 tbsp Greek yogurt
1 tsp almond extract
1 1/2 cups lingonberries

Directions

Grease two 8 oz ramekins. Set aside.
Heat oven to 375 degrees F (190C).
In the bowl of a stand mixer, add sugar, butter, and salt. Mix together.
Mix in eggs.
Mix in flour.
Mix in yogurt and almond extract.
Mix well.
Stir in lingonberries.
Divide mixture into the prepared ramekins.
Bake until top is golden brown and filling is firm, about 50 minutes.
Cool ramekins on wire rack.
Top warm flaugnarde with scoops of vanilla bean ice cream. Devour immediately.

Salmonberry Sour Cream Crumble Cake for Four (Or two. Or one.)

Posted on February 28, 2021 by Jack & Barbra Donachy

Salmonberry crumb cake

Springtime in Mongolia meant every kind of weather. Recently, this similarity to Chignik Lake has seemed to be especially true. A few days ago the lunchtime thermometer read 42 degrees under sunny skies and only a few patches of a deep snow that had blanked the landscape remained. We were inspired to go for a Honda ride to look for whatever new growth we might find. That was a few days ago…

Yesterday, we awoke to drizzly rain that morphed into melty, wet snow. Next thing we knew, we were immersed in a blizzard that blanketed us in again in a winter wonderland. This morning, the new day greeted us with broken skies, gusts of wind, a thermometer registering a chilly 16°, and new skim ice near the shoreline.

The warmth streaming in through our windows a few days ago prompted thoughts of summer – fishing, berry picking, mushroom hunting, boating, and the like. But the honda ride confirmed that even though the warmth of the sun is returning, the land is still in a deep wintery slumber. The blizzard kept me indoors, antsy – I really wanted a taste of summer, even though I know it is still months away. There is nothing more evocative of Alaskan summers than berries. Last year, we picked gallons of wild berries and carefully preserved them in our freezer – blueberries, raspberries, salmonberries, wineberries and lingonberries. Lately, I’ve been favoring the blueberries to top my oatmeal or to mix in with homemade yogurt. But to satisfy my craving for a summer creation, I found myself drawn to the beautiful, multi-colored gems that are salmonberries. They have a tangy, sweet-sour flavor that pairs perfectly with almond – an ingredient I wanted to feature.

I was very happy with how this cake turned out. The diminutive dessert was just right for the two of us to share. The berries baked into the batter, retaining their jewel-like beauty. The cake was delectably moist. The flavors incorporated the lovely balance of natural sweet and sour. Each bite was complimented by the crumbly sweet almond topping. Full disclosure – it was intended for two desserts. We managed to finish the whole thing off in one delicious fell swoop.

Salmonberry Sour Cream Crumble Cake for Four (Or two. Or one.)

Ingredients

Topping

1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/2 tsp almond extract
4 tbsp unsalted butter, melted

Cake

3/4 cup + 2 tbsp all purpose flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
Pinch salt
1 extra large egg (1 1/2 large eggs)
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 tsp almond extract
1 1/2 cups salmonberries (if frozen, let thaw and drain off extra liquid)

Directions

Heat the oven to 350 degrees F (180C).
Line bottom of 7-inch springform pan with parchment paper. Grease the sides of the pan with butter. Set aside.
In a small bowl, mix together topping ingredients. Stir with a fork until mixture is crumbly. Set aside.
For the cake, in another bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
In a bowl of a stand mixer, mix together eggs, sour cream and almond extract.
Add flour mixture for cake into the egg mixture. Beat until smooth, about 2 minutes.
Pour batter into prepared springform pan.
Top with salmonberries.
Sprinkle crumble mixture evenly over berry layer.
Bake until topping is golden brown the the center is cooked, about 40 minutes. Test this with a toothpick. It should come out clean when inserted into the middle of the cake.
Let cake cool on wire rack in the pan for 20 minutes before removing springform sides.
Cut into slices and serve warm or at room temperature.

Three Cheese Dungeness Crab Ravioli

Posted on January 3, 2021 by Jack & Barbra Donachy

Dungeness Crab Ravioli Giant ravioli stuffed with creamy cheese and sweet Dungeness Crab. Happy 2021 from The Lake!

“Jack?” It was Donny on the phone. “Come down to the beach and get some crab! Bring a tote. There’s lots!”

I’d been photographing kinglets in a copse of spruce trees a two-minute walk from my house when I got the call. Crab?! I didn’t waste any time retracing my steps. Back home I went straight to the living room window. Sure enough, there was Donny talking with a man and a woman I didn’t recognize who had nosed an unfamiliar skiff into the lakeshore. On the beach near Donny were three or four large tubs. I set my camera gear aside, grabbed a bright pink plastic tote, slipped my feet into boots and made my way down to the scene.

The skiff and its occupants were with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Apparently, they’d been sampling the Dungeness Crab population in the Chignik estuary and nearby waters and with a good haul of the tasty crustaceans had made the six-mile run up the river to share the bounty. I greeted Donny, introduced myself to the ADFG crew, and surveyed the tubs heaped with crab. There were indeed “lots.”

“Go ahead and fill that tote,” Donny advised. “And make sure you get some big ones.”

They were good-looking crabs. Legal males. Clean, shells filled out, two-pounds on average, still kickin’, sea-scented.

That night, quite literally everyone in the village of Chignik Lake feasted on fresh Dungeness Crab. All 50-something of us.

Barbra and I spent a good bit of that evening steaming Dungies three at a time in our big soup kettle. We picked two that night for dinner, complimented with a bottle of Chard. The rest were frozen for later use. We did this by first freezing the crabs in regular zip-seal plastic bags. Similar to berries and other fragile items, once the crabs are frozen hard they can be vacuum-packed without being crushed. Frozen this way, the crabs are perfect and keep a long time. Which is a good thing; we ended up with a lot of crab.

The ravioli? Once you’ve got the pasta made, there’s really nothing to it.

I combined equal amounts of mozzarella, goat and feta cheeses along with a blend of Italian herbs. To this mixture, I added an equal amount of Dungeness Crab and hand-tossed the ingredients together.

Meanwhile, Barbra rolled out the pasta and cut it into nice, big three-and-a-half inch squares, filled them with the crab and cheese mixture and crimped them closed with a pastry roller. It is important to use a sharp tool for the crimping. It helps to ensure that the ravioli remains sealed.

To avoid crowding these large raviolis, I used two pots, each with a good amount of water. Once the water came to a boil, I added the ravioli. After three minutes, I gently flipped them to ensure even cooking of the pasta and the filling – a total of six minutes.

Meanwhile, in a small skillet on a back burner, I heated extra virgin olive oil over medium heat. When it was hot, I added shallots and garlic sliced as thin as I could manage along with a tablespoon of butter and a couple of healthy pinches of sea salt. This is a wonderfully simple accompaniment for delicately flavored pasta. I finished the dish with a grind of black pepper and a bit of grated Parmigiano-Reggiano.

By the way, these raviolis freeze well. Simply lay them out on a cookie sheet, freeze them solid, and then pack them in plastic bags. Cook them frozen, adding a minute to the overall boiling time.

With a surfeit of tasty Dungies in the freezer, expect more crab recipes in the coming weeks!

Salmon Cheddar Bisque with Morels

Posted on November 29, 2020 by Jack & Barbra Donachy

Salmon Cheddar Bisque with Morel Mushrooms

I’ve been making A. J. McClane’s Lobster Cheddar Bisque for quite a few years. The original recipe appears in my all-time favorite book on cooking fish, McClane’s North American Fish Cookery. Although by now I’ve strayed from the original recipe, spending time in the kitchen with an icon whose books and articles influenced me to seek the life I’m now living is invariably pleasant.

In addition to the connection with one of my personal culinary and angling heroes, I enjoy creating this bisque with ingredients that are in their own right touchstones. The Tillamook cheddar I use takes me back to the years I spent on the Oregon coast; the Coho salmon I used to catch in those days is replaced in this current iteration with Chignik River Sockeye. In Oregon, a friend’s gift of a large paper bag filled with freshly picked chanterelles inspired one version of this soup; the morels we recently came into from interior Alaska have inspired another.

The last time I published the recipe for this soup, I used lobster mushrooms. You can check out that recipe at: Salmon Cheddar Soup with Lobster Mushrooms

Here’s how I made it this time around.

Ingredients

1/2 pound pan-fried Sockeye salmon, boned, skinned and flaked or cut into bite-sized pieces
*1¼ cups or so of morel mushrooms, cut so that a slice of morel and a chunk of salmon might both fit in a soup spoon
soy sauce
part of a red bell pepper, diced fairly fine. (I used a little over a tablespoon of Penzeys dried bell pepper.)
¼ cup shallots, diced fine (I used Penzeys dried shallots.)
2 tablespoons flower as a thickening agent. (White rice flower works best for this as it imparts very little flavor. But regular all purpose flower is fine.)
1 tablespoon each olive oil and butter (for sautéing the mushrooms)
3 cups milk
1¾ cups shredded cheddar cheese
1 or two tablespoons Better than Bouillon lobster base (optional). This is salty, so if you use it, be sure to taste as you go.
⅛ teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon smokey mesquite seasoning
½ teaspoon smoked paprika

*When sautéing the mushrooms, a splash of Sherry or Chardonnay and a dash of soy sauce can be nice. It’s up to you.

Directions

Heat olive oil and butter in the pot or sauteuse pan you will use to make the bisque. Medium heat.
When the butter mixture begins to bubble, add the sliced mushrooms and toss to coat. Sauté the mushrooms for about two minutes. Add the shallots, bell peppers, a splash of white wine and soy sauce to finish. Lower heat.
Vigorously stir in flour. Add milk, seasonings and lobster base. Stir till mixture begins to thicken. Keep it hot, but don’t let it boil.
Add salmon and cheddar cheese. Taste the soup and add additional seasonings as necessary.
Garnish with a pinch of paprika. Serve piping hot with a favorite bread.

Provided the soup wasn’t allowed to boil, it refrigerates well.

The Chignik Jack: Panko Crusted Coho Jack Salmon Stuffed with Dungeness Crab

Posted on October 21, 2020 by Jack & Barbra Donachy

panko crusted salmon stuffed with Dungeness crab

The perfect marriage of River & Sea – Dungeness-stuffed whole jack salmon.

Each year we try to take a couple of char or salmon in the pound-and-a-half to three-pound range, the perfect size for presenting head and tail intact. When I lived in South Carolina, I sought Puppy Drum (small Red Drum), Speckled Sea Trout, Summer Flounder and keeper-sized Striped Bass for these dishes. If I lived in the American midwest, I’d target Walleye or bass from cold water. In Japan, small suzuki (Japanese Sea Bass), hirame (Olive Flounder) and kurodai (Black Porgy) fit the bill.

The salmon in the photo was about 17 or 18 inches in length and weighed just over a pound-and-a-half. Jack is the name given to precocial male salmon that mature early and return to the river after only a year at sea. Were I running a restaurant, I’d offer this dish as a special and call it The Chignik Jack, as in,

“What’ll it be, Mac?”
“I’ll have the Chignik Jack.”

The recipe here couldn’t be more straightforward. The stuffing is comprised of the back meat of a Dungeness Crab, steamed or boiled and lightly seasoned, perhaps a bit of fresh lemon juice added to the cleaned meat. Crab meat tends to be wet, so use paper towels to gently squeeze out excess moisture from the cooked meat. You might even heat the meat in a dry, non-stick skillet to remove additional moisture.

The fish is scaled, gilled, gutted and cleaned. Spritz the stomach cavity with lemon juice, rub in a little salt, add the crab meat and then roll the fish in panko that you’ve seasoned with salt and Italian-style herbs. This is a relatively light dish; you don’t need any batter, just the seasoned crumbs.

Meanwhile, set the oven to 400° F and put enough olive oil on a broiling sheet or pan to cover it and heat it on a center-positioned rack till the oil is hot. I use a heavy, rectangular, well-seasoned cast iron pan for this kind of cooking, but a thinner baking sheet will work. The fish should sizzle when you place it on the pan. After about 4 minutes, check the down side to make sure it’s not browning too quickly. Continue baking for a total of about 8 minutes, and then carefully turn the fish to the other side. It can help to have someone man an additional spatula to help with this.

Bake for another 8 minutes, again checking halfway through to make sure the skin and panko are browning properly. In the above fish, I set the oven to broil for the final couple of minutes to further crisp the presentation side. The tail came out crunchy as a potato chip – a delicacy in its own right. And speaking of delicacies, don’t forget the cheek meat just in back of the jaw; the scallop-like morsel has a texture unlike any other part of the fish.

Paired with a buttery chardonnay, this is a lovely meal to enjoy with your best friend.

Tomato Tarragon Halibut

Posted on October 6, 2020 by Jack & Barbra Donachy

I suppose that like many people, I grew up inculcated with the idea that dill and fennel are the quintessential herbs for fish and other seafood. Lately I’ve been circling back to rediscover the pleasant tang of dill, prompted by small bunches of the feathery stalks occasionally showing up in boxes of fresh produce sent to us from The Farm Lodge at Lake Clark. These days even when I don’t have fresh dill on hand, I’ve been making dry dill a regular part of certain salmon and shellfish recipes, particularly when I’m going for a bolder flavor than what might be supplied by, say, lemon grass.

Fennel is another matter. Neither of us have ever entirely warmed to the sharp anise taste and aroma it imparts. We like licorice, but not so much on salmon and subtly flavored seafood. When I discovered tarragon while searching for a fennel substitute some decades ago, it seemed I’d stumbled upon the perfect seafood herb. There’s an anise-like savor to it, but to our palate tarragon profiles as gentler and sweeter than fennel. It’s wonderful on steamed clams and mussels, makes an excellent a-little-something-extra in drawn butter dipping sauces, and beautifully complements virtually any white-meated fish from catfish to cod. In this recipe, tarragon brings together the flavors of garden-fresh tomatoes and halibut in a dish that is simple, beautiful and sumptuous.

Try serving this dish with very thin slices of sourdough French bread or baguette pan-toasted in butter till crisp and seasoned with garlic.

Tomato Tarragon Halibut

Ingredients

halibut fillets, patted dry to remove excess moisture. We prefer skin-on, but it’s up to the chef
extra virgin olive oil
onion, diced
garlic cloves sliced into fairly large pieces
sherry or other dry wine
tarragon, fresh or dried, to taste
fresh tomatoes, seeds removed, diced
Better than Bouillon clam base (optional) or use sea salt
soy sauce

Directions (You will need two frying pans.)

Add olive oil to the first pan, apply medium heat and add the onions. You want the onions to caramelize, so don’t stir them too much. They’ll caramelize better if you mostly leave them alone.
When onions begin to caramelize, add the garlic and stir. Cook for about 3 minutes – just until garlic begins to soften. Then add a little sherry and the tarragon. Stir and allow most of the wine to cook off. This only takes a minute or so.
Add the tomatoes. Cover with a lid and reduce the heat so that the mixture simmers steadily. You want the mixture to cook down to a fairly thick consistency.
As the tomato mixture is cooking, stir in either the clam base or salt. The clam base itself is quite salty. Don’t use too much. You want just a hint of the clam flavor. Alternatively, simply add a little sea salt. The mixture is very tasty either way.
When the tomato mixture has cooked down, add olive oil to the other pan. Heat over medium until the oil is sizzling hot. Continue allowing the tomato mixture to simmer.
Place the fillet(s) in the hot oil presentation side up (skin side down if you’ve left the skin on.) The fillets should sizzle when they hit the pan. Pour a little soy sauce on the fillet. This will impart a pleasant umami flavor and will enhance the browning color when you flip the fillet.
Cook uncovered for 3 minutes. Flip the fillets and cook the other side for 3 minutes.
Place the fillets presentation side up in the tomato mixture. Cover with a lid and continue cooking for about four minutes. The general rule of thumb for fish is 10 minutes cooking time per inch of thickness. You can test the fillets for doneness by carefully inserting a knife and parting the meat. A perfectly cooked halibut fillet will be an opaque white all the way through and will flake cleanly. Don’t worry if you don’t get this perfectly right. If the fillets are a little overcooked, they will still be very good.
Spoon out the tomato mixture on serving plates, add the fillet, and served piping hot with pan-fried toast.

Any style of Chardonnay will pair well with this dish. Dry Riesling is another white option, but there’s enough oomph here to make a Pinot Noir a good choice as well.