Erica De Mane

My Garbage Can, by Ed Stitt, 1985.

Recipe below: Salmon Cakes with Basil and Capers

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become preoccupied with waste. Waste of time, opportunity forfeited, out of laziness or, more likely, fear. Waste coupled with worrying about waste. As a cook, I find food waste a huge concern, now more than ever. Maybe I think about it too much. What happened to the lighthearted me? I mentioned my dearth of gaiety to a friend recently, and she said, “Oh come on. You were never lighthearted.” Okay. Good to know.

Anyone who has ever cooked in a restaurant or written a cookbook, spending years at recipe testing or frenetic food service, can become sickeningly immune to all the good food that gets thrown away, victim of either shortage of time to deal with it or lack of creativity about repurposing.  I remember when, ages ago, during one of my restaurant stints, I decided to make a soup from potato peels and onion skins. I felt extremely virtuous until the chef came by and told me to stop fucking around. And that was right after he gave the staff an oppressive speech about bringing food costs down. The soup was good, served hot, garnished with thyme blossoms. It was essentially vichyssoise. But maybe making vichyssoise from scraps was going too far.

Waste in a place of plenty is particularly nasty. So here I am now, decades later, always worrying about what’s rotting in my fridge. Should I have thrown that out? Did it have another day to it? Is there some way I could have used it?

I recently played a stupid dance with a slab of salmon fillet. I bought more than I wound up needing for dinner, and the rest went into the freezer. The next day I took it out, thinking I’d use it right away, but I got sidetracked while it sat defrosting on my counter. Then I stuck in in the fridge. I’d think about it tomorrow. Tomorrow I ended up having a dinner date. The salmon remained in the refrigerator, deteriorating by the minute. I was reluctant to refreeze it, but I knew I wasn’t going to cook it that night. I wound up sticking it back in the freezer. Then I worried that the refreezing would ruin it, destroying its texture and freshness. I took it out of the freezer again and defrosted it. I’m not sure why I did that. I knew that if it was messed up beyond usefulness it was my fault, and that would ruin my week. So the next morning, with much trepidation, I smelled it, expecting the worst. It was okay, even sweetly fresh, and bouncy to a press of the finger, so at 8:30 a.m. I threw it in the oven, with no plan beyond stopping the cycle of decay and neurotic worry.

After some thought I came up with a Sicilian-influenced recipe for salmon cakes. And they were delicious. Problem solved. Disaster averted, until next time.

Happy cooking to all my anxious food friends.

Salmon Patties, by Jan Jahnke.

Salmon Cakes with Basil and Capers

(Makes 4 to 5 good-size salmon cakes)

1 ¾-pound salmon fillet, with or without its skin
Extra-virgin olive oil
Salt
Black pepper
Aleppo pepper
2 scallions, cut into thin rounds, using most of the green part
2 inner celery stalks, with their leaves, chopped
1 teaspoon rice wine vinegar
12 basil leaves, roughly chopped
A few large thyme sprigs, with their leaves, chopped
The grated zest from 1 lemon
¼ cup salt-packed capers, soaked and rinsed
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
¼ teaspoon ground allspice
2 eggs, lightly whisked
½ cup good quality breadcrumbs, not too finely ground
3 tablespoons butter
Lemon wedges for serving

Set the oven to 400 degrees.

Drizzle some olive oil onto a sheet pan, and lay the salmon on top. Drizzle a little oil over the salmon, and season with salt, black pepper, and a sprinkling of Aleppo. Roast until just tender, about 15 minutes. Take it from the oven and let it cool.

In a medium sauté pan, heat about a tablespoon of olive oil over medium flame. Add the scallion and celery, including the leaves, and sauté until they’re just softened, about 2 minutes. Add the rice wine vinegar, and turn off the heat. Let cool for a few minutes.

In a large bowl, break the salmon up into small pieces with your fingers. Add the scallion mix, with all its cooking liquid. Add all the other ingredients except for the butter and the lemon wedges. Season with a little more salt, black pepper, and Aleppo, and mix everything well. Shape into four to five cakes, and refrigerate them for about an hour.

When you’re ready to serve, heat about 2 tablespoons of olive oil and the butter in a large skillet over medium-high flame. When it’s hot, add the salmon cakes, browning them well on one side and then flipping them to brown the other side. This will take about 5 minutes. Do them in 2 batches if you need to.

Serve them really hot with a big squeeze of lemon juice.  I served mine with a lentil salad, a very good match.