Summery Salmon Salad

Mmm, fresh salmon might be my new favorite thing about living in Oregon (or maybe it's the blackberries...it's a toss-up).  A friend from church was here helping my husband with some work the other day and stopped by to give us a whole salmon he had caught.

After doing a rather shoddy job of filleting the salmon, I was left with a heap of delicious meat clinging to bones and the salmon spine.  According to the lady in the "filleting salmon" YouTube video, this meat is the fattiest and tastiest.  So I gently simmered the bones, let them cool, then carefully picked the meat off them.

I came up with about 2 cups of "extra" salmon meat just begging to be eaten (actually, Einstein was the one doing the begging.  "Mommy, can we please eat some of that fish right now?").  So we had a little salmon salad for lunch.

Thanks to Paula Dean for the inspiration for this recipe.  Paula, I love butter too.  Now please, stop giving butter a bad name and making oodles of money promoting pharmaceuticals.  Thanks.

Anyway...

Summery Salmon Salad

Ingredients:
2 c. cooked salmon
2 hard boiled eggs, chopped
1 bell pepper, finely chopped
1/4 c. onion, very finely chopped
3-4 Tbsp. mayonnaise
dash lemon juice
salt and pepper

Directions:
Combine ingredients, seasoning to taste with salt and pepper.  Enjoy on rice crackers, or "dip vehicle" of choice.

Miss Euler just ate this with a spoon (the very finely chopped onions help make it more kid-friendly, so they're not getting a big spicy bit unexpectedly).  Einstein ate it with rice crackers, then a few organic tortilla chips.  We were having a picnic out in the yard, and the dog was being very good and keeping his distance.  But when I ran back into the kitchen for 30 seconds, he seized the opportunity, bullied his way onto the picnic blanket, and stole the rest of the Salmon Salad right out of Einstein's hands.  I heard yelling and ran back out to discover a happy dog and a crying, trying-to-be-brave 4-year-old.

"Mommy, I tried to push him away, but he wouldn't stop.  He took my last bite!"

It is that good.


Posted at Fat Tuesday and Hearth and Soul