Our favorite recipes for fish

 ©Janet Allen
Skinless, boneless sardines

Although we've vegetarians, we didn't feel we could ignore the advice to eat fatty fish twice a week, and so we do. (So I guess that officially makes us "pescetarians," although we're just adding two servings of canned fatty fish each week, not eating fish in general.)

We used to eat mostly canned salmon, but when we discovered how delicious boneless, skinless sardines are, we mostly eat those. We didn't find any other kind of sardine to be as tasty, and we don't really like the brands with skin, bones, and tails attached.

Sardines are quite eco-friendly, though lately we see that sardines from the Mediterraen are at risk. That is the only kind we have found in CNY though.

 ©Janet Allen
Sardines on crackers

It doesn't take long to prepare meals if you keep it simple. This is one of our simplest.

Just lift the sardines out of the oil then either pile them onto a cracker and cover with mustard (Janet's method) or put into a small bowl and mash them up with mustard before putting them on crackers.

(We use crackers such as Kavli or Ak-mak that have only three or four ingredients—ingredients that, as Michael Pollan would say, our grandmothers would recognize.)

 ©Janet Allen
Salmon salad

We serve this in huge serving bowls (i.e. the bowls that are meant to be used as serving bowls) since it's mostly lettuce.

• Tear up
  • Lots of lettuce
• Drain, remove skin, and break up
  • Canned wild-caught Alaskan salmon
• Add to taste
  • A few tablespoons mayonnaise
• Add to taste
  • Some minced onions
  • Some sliced black or green olives
• Mix together thoroughly and serve.

 ©Janet Allen
(No photo yet)

This is a childhood favorite.

• Prepare a 1-lb can of salmon as desired (I remove the skin, but eat the bones, which I've loved since childhood)
• Add
  • 2 eggs, beaten
  • 1/4 cup milk
  • 1/4 - 1/2 cup bread crumbs, depending on whether they're soft or dry bread crumbs i.e. so it becomes a shapeable consistency.
• Form into patties, and pan fry in a greased pan (not deep-fried, just enough oil to keep them from sticking)
• Cook until they're brown, then flip and brown the other side.

I like to serve them with lemon juice, but you could also use mayonnaise or tartar sauce.