This recipe is in honour of Hardy Buoys’ BIG Community Event that they are putting on for the entire North Island February 26, 2012.
I have always loved that company’s smoked salmon and truth be told I really only ever want to eat theirs and no one else’s.
They have the perfect meld of sweet and smoke on their original smoked salmon. The fish is always lovely and moist but never mushy.
When making their flavoured smoked salmon they have perfected the ratio of flavour to salmon, meaning the flavour does not overpower the salmon but helps to enhance it.
My mouth is watering just writing about the stuff!
So I present to you the following recipe that can be used in a number of different ways.
It seems to have a split personality and doesn’t know what it wants to be when it grows up.
First, as is on good multigrain crackers, second as a spread on a bagel with roasted capers and sprouts or third as an addition to a cream sauce for pasta.
The sky really is the limit on this — let your creative side swim with the fishes.
Smoked Salmon Cream Cheese Ball/Spread
1 8 oz block of cream cheese
6 ounces of your favourite flavour of Hardy Buoys smoked fish – broken up
1 green onion, minced
1 tsp capers, minced
1 tsp fresh lemon juice (please don’t use Real Lemon, you’ll just ruin beautiful smoked salmon)
Putting it all together:
In the bowl of a mixer, place the cream cheese, capers, green onion and lemon juice.
Mix together until fully combined and smooth.
Add the smoked salmon and mix to your desired consistency.
The longer you mix it, the smaller the pieces of that luscious smoked salmon will be.
Form into a ball and refrigerate up to an hour before serving. Serve as mentioned above or whichever way strikes your fancy.
Kellie Dukes is a chef who lives in Port Hardy. Look for her as a celebrity judge at the North Island Flavour Faceoff on Feb. 26.
