I see plenty of recipes for accra in West Indian Cookbooks but often they bear little resemblance to Trinidad Accra. My Jamaican mother tells me that what she knows as accra is a saltfish fritter, flat, fried brown. Here in Trinidad however accra is a puffy fried dough ball, made of a highly seasoned dough into which shredded saltfish has been mixed. I’ve had it at weddings, gatherings, and of course bought it from street vendors. This recipe comes together quite quickly once the saltfish has been boiled and picked. For those of you who hate the time-intensive shredding I found that after the initial picking apart to remove the bones (and boneless saltfish is also available) by adding the chunks to a food processor/chopper for a few seconds of pulsing I was able to get a bowl of perfectly shredded saltfish, and no one is any the wiser. Aren’t shortcuts great?

February 20,2009 ETA: Need to be gluten-free or cooking for someone who is? I’ve now adapted this recipe for gluten-free flours. Enjoy!

Trinidad Saltfish Accra
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INGREDIENTS:

1 egg
1 small onion, finely chopped
1/2 lb boneless saltfish
1/2 cup water
1 tablespoon pepper sauce
1 1/4 cup flour (1 cup rice flour + 1/4 cup gluten-free white flour for gluten-free version)
1 tsp vegetable oil
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup water (inc. to 1 cup for gluten-free version)
1/4 cup finely chopped spring onions
1 tsp italian seasoning
Freshly ground black pepper
Pepper and salt to taste

METHOD:

1. Boil saltfish in sauce pan for a few minutes in 6 cups of water.
2. Throw out the water and boil for a second time in a new 4 cups of water for 30 minutes

3. Check to see how salty the fish is. If it is overly salty you will need to boil it a third time
4. Use a fork to shred salt fish, you can also use your fingers or a food processor

5. Mix all the ingredients in a bowl and stir vigorously until the batter gets thick. Let batter rest for 30 minutes.

6. Teaspoonfuls of batters should be deep fried over moderate heat, until golden brown

7. Ensure that the inside of the fish cakes are well-cooked and the outside is not burnt before it is cooked
8. Carefully monitor the heat
9. Use absorbent kitchen paper to drain the fish cakes on

10. Serve hot with pepper sauce.

For more Caribbean Recipes check out the Caribbean Cooking section of Veni Mangé – the Trinigourmet Amazon Bookstore.

Makes 6 servings

This post was originally published on February 2nd, 2007. It has been updated twice since then.

Alternative terms: acra, akra, saltfish cakes

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From Epicentre.com:
Ginger is one of those ingredients that can be many things to many people. Not only is it used in cuisines around the world, but it also comes in a variety of forms fresh, pickled, dried, and crystallized among them
.
People who bake may immediately call to mind the ground ginger they use in gingerbread or the jewel-like crystallized ginger they add to holiday cookies and cakes. Others think first of ginger’s savory contributions: the brightness that minced fresh ginger adds to Chinese stir-fry, or the refreshing tang of pickled ginger served with sushi.
.
Rarely used as the sole flavouring in recipes, ginger combines particularly well with the warm spice notes of cumin and coriander in savory preparations. Garlic, mustard seed, turmeric, and the whole palette of Indian seasonings would shine less brightly without ginger’s glow. In sweets such as quick breads, muffins, and preserves, ginger is part of a classic triumvirate along with cinnamon and cloves.
.
In each of its incarnations, however, ginger makes its simultaneously hot and refreshing presence known.

Top 10 Recipes Featuring Ginger on TriniGourmet.com

	1. Carmen’s Jamaican Ginger Beer (recipe) My mom’s traditional family recipe for Jamaican Ginger Beer
	2. Carrot, Ginger and Cumin Salad (recipe) The following is my take on a very popular Middle Eastern salad. The parsley and lemon juice give the carrots much needed brightness, while the cumin deepens all the flavours, creating an exotic side that complements most dishes
	3. Sarina’s Sparkling Ginger-Lime Shandy (recipe) Bubbly and sweet with a slight tang of lemon and beer. An unusual refreshment that is sure to garner raves!
	4. Sarina’s Spinach-Ginger Salad (recipe) This quick and simple salad is perked up by the addition of slivered stem ginger. Stem ginger is an ingredient that doesn’t get as much love as I think it should. It’s usually found in the baking aisle, but at times I have seen it hiding rather uncomfortably in the aisles that house ‘international ingredients’ and/or random salad dressings.
	5. Sarina’s Bubbly Guava-Ginger Ale (recipe) A light and refreshing non-alcoholic cooler.
	6. Butternut Squash Soup With Ginger (recipe) Adapted from a recipe in Bon Appetit magazine, this warm and creamy soup became an instant classic in my home and graced the table at last year’s Passover Seder.
	7. Fresh Ginger and Chocolate Gingerbread (recipe) Rich, coffee laced chocolate icing forms the perfect counterfoil to the sweeter chocolate gingerbread base. Studded with slivers of fresh (as well as crystallized) ginger and chocolate chips this gingerbread has no problem staying light, moist and vibrantly flavoured. It’s without a doubt the best gingerbread I’ve ever made, and the best gingerbread I’ve ever had!
	8. Fruit & Nut Cookies (recipe) Gingerbread fruit and nut ‘cookies’ are colorful, festive, and not-too sweet. Perfect for any gathering from formal to informal.
	9. Iced Lemon Ginger Tea (recipe) This drink is wonderfully refreshing and has a soft muted tone, thanks to the use of honey. Not only does the honey take the sharpness off the ginger flavour, it also makes this drink especially soothing on the throat.
	10. Get Your C Ginger-Lime Tea (recipe) This recipe for Ginger-Lime tea comes from Everyday With Rachael Rayand is chock-full of goodness. Fresh lime/lemon juice provides a boost of vitamin C, and grated ginger brings powerful antioxidants and anti-inflammatory agents. The combination of citric sweetness and spicy heat is not just good for chilling out on an afternoon but the health benefits also make it the perfect pick-me-up if you are feeling queasy, or like a cold is coming on.

5 More Ginger Inflected Recipes from my favourite Food Blogs!

1. Ginger Beef Patties with Lime Noodle Salad (sidewalk shoes) 2. Bajan Sweet Potato Pie Ice Cream (Vegan In The Sun) 3. Iced Ginger Chai (elana’s pantry) 4. Fresh Ginger and Basil Pasta (Kahakai Kitchen) 5. Asian Salmon Burgers with Tangy Ginger Lime Sauce (Mommie Cooks)

Have questions about Ginger? Tweet me! I’d love to hear from you

Want more ideas? Here are 5 Ginger Intensive Cookbooks, picked for your enjoyment

	1. Spoonful of Ginger Part cookbook, part primer of Chinese medicine, Nina Simonds’s A Spoonful of Ginger offers dietary advice, herbal home remedies, and lively, unintimidating Asian recipes for the American home cook.
	2. Ginger and Ganesh: Adventures in Indian Cooking, Culture, and Love The recipes shared in this collection are far from ordinary; they are treasured family recipes from vegetarian homes in India — from homemade cheese cubes in a rich cilantro and almond curry to coconut-stuffed okra and luscious potato-curry dumplings. Power’s recipes and stories pave the road to understanding a culture that is at the same time ancient and so very much part of our modern world.
	3. Blue Ginger: East Meets West Cooking with Ming Tsai Blue Ginger offers many ways to spice up family meals and dishes to surprise guests without too much effort. Cooking from this book is an opportunity to take Asian ingredients you may have eaten in restaurants and master using them in your own kitchen.
	4. Ginger (The Basic Flavoring Series) A collection of 30 ginger recipes from around the world.
	5. Ginger: A Book of Recipes (Little Recipe Book)

This post was first published June 9, 2010. It has been updated once since then.

It often happens that culinary inspiration hits me late at night. Although this is great for my confidence, it’s not so great for my waistline The other night, as I was relaxing to a new episode of Jersey Shore (don’t judge me!) I started to get a craving for fried goodness. Maybe it was the boardwalk scenes, maybe it was the platters of home fries, but before I knew it I started to think about what I chomp on with little more than some tins of tuna fish and salmon on hand.

The result was this – French Toast Tuna Sandwiches! As soon as I mentioned it several people on Twitter asked me to share the recipe. I rarely post the snacks I make for quick consumption because I figure they are not really ‘recipe-worthy’, but maybe I’m wrong? Either way, here it is. The recipe reflects my current fascination with combining sweet and savoury flavours. As with most snacks, treat this recipe as a template and go ahead and make it your own. It’s infinitely flexible and will work with whatever you have on hand with regards to seasonings, herbs, even the type of tinned fish!

===============
Sarina’s French Toast Tuna Sandwiches
SERVINGS: 1

INGREDIENTS:

1 egg
1/4 cup evaporated milk
1/4 cup water
1 tablespoon sugar
2 slices bread (you want a sturdy bread that won’t disintegrate upon soaking)
1 7oz. tin tuna
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 tablespoon grated parmesan cheese
butter
salt
pepper
1 teaspoon honey
finishing salt or sea salt (click here to see my favourite)

METHOD:

1. Combine egg, evaporated milk, water and sugar
2. Butter both slices of bread
3. Combine tuna, parmesan cheese and mayonnaise.
4. Season tuna mixture with salt and pepper to taste
5. Spread each slice (on buttered side) with about 1 tbsp tuna mixture per side (save the extra for other sandwiches )
6.Pair both slices to form the sandwich.
7. Preheat a small frying pan or skillet over medium heat and melt 1 – 2 teaspoons of butter
8. Dip both sides of sandwich in egg & milk mixture (about 8 seconds per side – use a spatula to help you turn the sandwich, it keeps it from breaking!)
9. Transfer sandwich to pan. Cook about 90 seconds per side – it’s ready to turn when heated side is crisp and has lovely dark brown streaks running through.
10. Transfer sandwich to plate and drizzle top with 1 tsp of honey
11. Sprinkle with a slight dash of finishing sat or sea salt (table salt will work too but the flavour won’t be as complex).
12. Slice diagonally.
13. Enjoy!
===============

This recipe is an exclusive TriniGourmet original. Please do not share it or post it to your site without crediting TriniGourmet.com and linking back to this site

I have 3 large folders of cutouts y’all. You know the folder I’m talking about. The one where you have stashed all those pages you’ve torn out of magazines through the years. All the recipes you’ve clipped out of the newspaper. Yeah that one. I have 3 of those folders and I’ve decided that now is the time to actually start preparing them. Well actually I decided that several years ago when I let my subscription to Cooking Light Magazinelapse because I had so many recipes still untried, but nevermind that!

Last Friday I actually got to try one of the recipes from my ‘folder files’ and it came from one of those ancient copies of Cooking Light Magazine. Titled Salmon Kalia in Panch Phoron Sauce I loved everything about it (I guess that’s why I saved it? ) . One problem though, I didn’t have many of the spices on hand for the Panch Phoron Sauce. Do you think that I let that dissuade me? Hellz no! As I’ve said before, I don’t think there’s anything that a pinch or two of ras-al-hanout can’t fix, and that’s exactly what I did.

I am not sure if my spice change nullifies this recipe as a ‘Kalia’ but it sure did taste good, each mouthful a veritable explosion of contrasting textures and flavours. To be safe though, I’ve put the term in brackets and hope that it won’t offend any

From Cooking Light Magazine:

A favorite of the Bengalis in eastern India, kalia is traditionally made with the local, strong-tasting, freshwater fish called rui or katla, which belong to the carp family.

Salmon “Kalia”
Adapted from a recipe in Cooking Light Magazine
Makes 6 servings

Ingredients

6 (6-ounce) salmon fillets (about 1 inch thick)
1 teaspoon salt, divided
3/4 teaspoon ground turmeric
1 tablespoon vegetable oil, divided
2 teaspoons ras-al-hanout
4 cups thinly sliced onion (about 1 large)
8 ounces peeled Yukon gold potato, cut into 1/4-inch strips
1 pound tomatoes
2 cups (1/2-inch) cubed zucchini
1 cup water
2 teaspoons paprika
1 teaspoon minced peeled fresh ginger
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons plain low-fat yogurt
1 scotch bonnet pepper, halved and seeded
1 medium tomato, cut into 1/2-inch thick wedges (about 8 ounces)
1 teaspoon Garam Masala
3 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro

Preparation
Rub salmon fillets with 1/2 teaspoon salt and turmeric; cover and refrigerate 5 minutes. (Being Trini I also rubbed the fish fillets with lime juice to start)

Heat 1 teaspoon oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add fillets; cook 1 minute on each side. Remove fillets; cover and set aside. (Fish need not be fully cooked.)

Combine 2 teaspoons oil and Panch Phoron Blend in pan; cover and cook for 30 seconds, shaking pan constantly. Add onion and potato; stir-fry for 6 minutes or until vegetables begin to brown, stirring frequently.

Place 1 pound tomatoes in a food processor; process until pureed. Add 1/2 teaspoon salt, tomato puree, zucchini, and the next 4 ingredients (zucchini through garlic) to pan; bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 10 minutes or until vegetables are tender. Stir in yogurt until well blended.

Return the fillets to the pan, carefully nestling them into the vegetable mixture. Arrange the pepper and tomato wedges on top of the vegetable mixture; cover and cook 20 minutes or until fish flakes easily when tested with a fork.

Sprinkle with Garam Masala and cilantro.

This post was originally published August 12, 2007. It has been updated once since then.

This post was originally published on August 25, 2007. It has been updated once since then.

A simple fish dish. The flavours weren’t as assertive as I would have ordinarily liked but the relative mildness means that it can be paired with bolder side dishes that may not usually see the light of day. The inclusion of cilantro in the salsa provides the only real ‘zest’.

I often mention that I pick my culantro (known locally as chadon beni/shadow benny/bhandhani) from a patch outside my home. As I used some of that herb in this dish, I thought that now would be a great time to show you all it growing in ‘the wild’.

Pan Fried Snapper with Tomato Salsa
Makes 4 servings

INGREDIENTS:
1 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste
4 ½ teaspoons olive oil
4 ½ teaspoons unsalted butter
4 red snapper filllets, about 6 ounces each, pin bones removed
freshly ground black pepper
⅓ cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon sliced pickled jalapeno peppers or 1 fresh jalapeno pepper
1 small sweet onoin such as Vidalia or mild red onion, about 4 ounces
1 lb ripe tomatoes
10 sprigs cilantro

DIRECTIONS:
1. Put the oil and butter in a large, heavy skillet over medium-high heat.
2. Season the fish with salt and pepper
3. Put the flour on a pie plate or wax paper
4. Dredge the fish in the flour, shaking off any excess.
5. Add the fish to the skillet, skin side down, and cook for 4 minutes
6. Reduce heat to medium and cook for 4 minutes on the other side, or until the fish feels springy to the touch.
7. While the fish and rice cook, drop the jalapeno down the chute of a food processor with the motor running.
8. peel and quarter the onion.
9. Add to the processor and pulse a few times to chop very coarsely.
10. Core and quarter the tomatoes.
11. Remove the leaves from 6 of the cilantro/culantro sprigs
12. Add the tomato, cilantro, and salt and black pepper to taste to the proessor.
13. Pulse until the salsa is fully combined but still somewhat chunky.
14. Divide the fish among four plates and garnish with the remaining cilantro sprigs.
15. Spoon some of the salsa over the fish.
16. Put the remaining salsa in a small bowl for the table.

Want more recipes like these? Check out the General Cookbook section of Veni Mangé: The Trinigourmet Amazon Bookstore!

Top 5 Fish Recipes on TriniGourmet.com

	1. Trinidad Saltfish Accra (recipe) Puffy fried dough balls, made of a highly seasoned dough into which shredded saltfish has been mixed.
	2. Fried Bake ‘n Fish (recipe) Fied dough and highly seasoned fried fish. That probably does not sound all that amazing or innovative but it really is all in the execution, and of course the accroutements!
	3. Trinidad Buljol (recipe) Buljol is without a doubt one of my favorite breakfast foods. I love the way that the saltiness of the dried shredded cod plays off the cool wetness of the tomatoes and the spicy shreds of scotch bonnet peppers. It is a simple topping that needs little accompaniment.
	4. Caramelised Onion and Anchovy Tarts (recipe) This dish has converted many a person who swore they hated anchovies!
	5. Trinidad Hot Baked Fish (recipe) This dish was very simple and economical, and even better it pleased the palates of my parents who have very divergent benchmarks of appreciation.

5 Fish Recipes from my favourite Food Blogs!

1. Tilapia with Peppers and Olives (sidewalk shoes) 2. Salmon Fish Stew Vietnamese(simply vietnamese) 3. Steamed Fish, Asian Style (80 breakfasts) 4. Sesame Salmon(whisk:a food blog) 5. Homemade Halibut Fish Sticks with Pickle Caper Tartar Sauce (cafe coco)

And, if you want even more ideas. Here are 6 Fish-Centric Cookbooks, picked for your enjoyment

Chef's Table: Ciabatta-Wrapped Sea Bass (ABC News)

Combining the flavours of a saffron sauce with a tomato-fennel stew, and easily adaptable to kosher restrictions, this will definitely be gracing my dinner table in the near future (I’ll probably be leaving out the capers though, can’t stand those! )

Ciabatta bread is still relatively unknown here in Trinidad however gourmet stores and bakeries are increasingly including it in their offerings (I personally buy mine at Peppercorns when in a rush – the holes are not as large as one would like but the crust is wonderful).

Even better, why not try making your own?

This post was originally published on February 18, 2009. It has been updated once since then.

Prior to last year I had never heard of Yu Sheng (also known as Yee Sang), indeed I only became aware of its existence thanks to research done for a blogging event. As this year the Chinese New Year falls on Valentine’s Day it seemed only fitting to repost this recipe, which is one I’ve fallen in love with

According to Wikipedia:
Yusheng , yee sang or yuu sahng (simplified Chinese: 鱼生; pinyin: yúshēng) is a Chaozhou-style raw fish salad. It usually consists of strips of raw fish (most commonly salmon), mixed with shredded vegetables and a variety of sauces and condiments, among other ingredients. Yusheng literally means “raw fish” but since “fish (鱼)” is commonly conflated with its homophone “abundance (余)”, Yúshēng (鱼生) is interpreted as a homophone for Yúshēng (余升) meaning an increase in abundance. Therefore, yusheng is considered a symbol of abundance, prosperity and vigor.

Fishermen along the coast of Guangzhou traditionally celebrated Renri, the seventh day of the Chinese New Year, by feasting on their catches. This practice is believed to have started in Chaozhou and Shantou as far back as the Southern Song Dynasty.[citation needed] In Malaya’s colonial past, migrants imported this tradition; porridge stalls sold a raw fish dish which is believed to have originated in Jiangmen, Guangdong province that consisted of fish, turnip and carrot strips, which was served with condiments of oil, vinegar and sugar that were mixed in by customers. The modern yusheng dish originated in during Chinese New Year in 1964 in Lai Wah Restaurant and was invented by master chef Than Mui Kai (Tham Yu Kai, co-head chef of Lai Wah restaurant)as a symbol of prosperity and good health amongst the Chinese.

As I always do, when preparing a completely unknown dish for the first time, I decided to plow through as many blogs and articles as possible, featuring this dish. I wanted to get a sense of its personality, components, what elements people included time and time again and which components lended themselves to personalization and preference.

Many of the initial recipes that I discovered led me to believe that this dish leaned towards the sweet side, thanks to deep fried wonton skins and liberal amounts of plum sauce. Boy am I glad that I didn’t stop there though because it wasn’t until I reached an entry by EatingAsia that I felt that moment of recognition, where I finally felt I understood what this dish was supposed to be about.

Lamenting the fact that so many commercial Yu Sheng’s underwhelm the palate, EatingAsia praised the dish as prepared by a Kuala Lampur restaurant called Sek Yuen.

From EatingAsia:
Sek Yuen’s yu sheng is a textural marvel – the combination of six fresh and pickled ingredients, cut to almost exactly the same shape and size, culminates in one big, satisfying crunch. It’s sweet from the plum sauce, but also boasts varying shades of tartness from pickles, lime juice, and fragrant lime leaves. The overwhelming flavors are of fish and vegetables, spiced up with ginger two ways (pickled and fresh) and white pepper. The cinnamon adds a subtle warm note. Won ton crisps (most other versions use colored crunchies of unidentifiable origin) – sturdy, grease-less, and wheaty – are delicious enough to eat on their own. Kudos to the restaurant for its light hand with the dressing and for its use of sesame oil; I’ve had more than my share of yu sheng drenched in plain old cooking oil – blech!

The words were evocative, the photos breathtaking. This would be the formula that I would use as the base for where my own whimsy would take me!

Next on my agenda, was to determine how to handle the raw fish component. I do not follow a vegan raw diet so fish is not a problem for me. I adore sashimi, but with two days to go before the event deadline I had no idea where to get sashimi grade salmon locally and figured that cold-smoked salmon could be a suitable substitute, but was this permissible? Again, I turned to the internet where I learnt that an Italian restaurant in Singapore offers a smoked salmon Yu Sheng, and that Singapore Airlines does as well for passengers. Not only that but in recent years some Singaporean restaurants have been radically reinterpreting Yu Sheng with great success. Smoked salmon was a go.

Only one more obstacle stood in my way, but this time it was a self-imposed one. I was determined to make this recipe as raw as possible. This meant no commercially bought plum sauce, and definitely no deep-fried wonton skins. PIckled ginger can be prepared in a raw fashion, but again time was working against me, chopped raw ginger would have to do. I made a raw plum sauce from scratch, and in lieu of wonton skins I prepared dehydrated almond crackers using some leftover almond pulp that I had frozen after making a nut ‘milk’.

Although I was nervous putting this together, as I started to see it coming together my anxiety started to be overcome with excitement. I always get this way when trying something new!

After all was done, J and I tossed the salad together until everything was well-blended! This technique makes sure that all the essential components of the yu sheng, get to take center stage with each bite. The hot and spicy, the crunchy, the slightly sour, the sweet. The warmth of the oily marinated salmon, and the cool crisp vegetable shreds. It ends up being something so much above and beyond the sum of its parts. I know that this recipe is only supposed to be served once a year, but it’s going to be very very hard for me not to make it a semi-regular habit

To learn more about Yu Sheng:
• Chinese New Year 2009: Yu Sheng with a Twist
• Yu Sheng Rituals and Meanings
• The Dish: Yu Sheng (Wall Street Journal)
• Yu Sheng on Flickr
• Oranges, yee sang and a beast: Myths and facts about Chinese New Year!

Yu Sheng/Yee Sang “Rainbow Raw Fish Salad”
Serves 2

8 oz smoked salmon
1 tablespoon nama shoyu
2 carrots, shredded
1 sweet potato, peeled and shredded
1/2 avocado, cubed
4 tbsp chopped chive
3 pimiento peppers, sliced thinly
2 inches ginger, peeled and julienned into thin matchsticks
2 leaves pak choi (bok choy)
sesame oil
1 tablespoon sesame seeds
1/4 peanuts, chopped
3 or 4 chadon beni leaves or cilantro
rice wine vinegar
1 lime

1. Tear the smoked salmon into large irregular pieces
2. Marinate in sesame oil (enough to almost cover), 1 tsp nama shoyu, and 1/2 of the julienned ginger. Turn occasionally while assembling the rest of the recipe.
3. Sort shredded carrot and sweet potato into separate mounds. I used 2 mounds of each and arranged around the perimeter of a circular plate or dish, alternating with chopped avocado, and a mound of combined chive, pimientos and the remainder of ginger. Be sure to leave a hole in the center for the fish!
4. Once assembled drizzle the assorted vegetables with one tablespoon rice vinegar, one tablespoon of sesame oil
5. Next, sprinkle the sesame seeds, chadon beni and cilantro
6. Around the perimeter sprinkle the chopped peanuts and cracked dehydrated almond crackers (feel free to use fried wonton skins if non-raw)
7. Place half of the shredded bok choy in the center of the plate
8. Add the fish and marinade to the center of the plate
9. Top fish with the remainder of the bok choy
10. Squeeze half a lime over the fish and bok choy
11. Drizzle plum sauce (1/2-3/4 cup) over the shredded vegetables. (here is a recipe for raw plum sauce if not using commercial )
12. Toss to combine at the table!

This recipe is an exclusive TriniGourmet original. Please do not share it or post it to your site without crediting TriniGourmet.com. A link back to our site is not necessary but always appreciated

Originally made to break the Yom Kippur fast last year, this photo (and recipe) for Smoked Salmon and Scrambled Eggs has languished for quite some time in my Drafts folder. Thankfully, Kochtopf’s ‘Smoking Allowed’ event has encouraged me to bring it into the light of day Inspired by a recent No Smoking ban which is taking hold in German restaurants she has encouraged food bloggers to prepare and post recipes using smoked meats (or other smoked ingredients). For me the use of smoked salmon was a no-brainer. Smoked salmon is one of my favourite meats. I eat it plain, or with a drizzle of olive oil and sprinkle of black pepper. If I’m feeling ‘jazzy’ I’ll roll it up with cream cheese, and a basil leaf. I’m always finding new combinations for it. My favourite brand of salmon that is readily available here in Trinidad is Mirsa.

From their corporate website:

With our roots in smoking since 1990, Mirsa has achieved worldwide respect through its dedication to quality control and choice of only premium farm-raised salmon.

Our clientele is devoted to Mirsa products because they respect our high quality standards. Nothing leaves our plant without complete and thorough approval. In other words, if it’s not good enough for our precious families, it is not good enough for our clientele. We at Mirsa are proud to guarantee supreme quality. All of Mirsa products are strictly kosher under the supervision of the OK Laboratory.

Mirsa’s cold smoked salmons come in a variety of flavours, many of which were hitherto unknown to me. Right now my favourites are the Vodka Tri-Peppered Salmon and the Basil Pesto Salmon. Yum!

Since Smoked Salmon is ready-to-eat out of the pack it’s a traditional part of many post-Yom Kippur menus. Trust me after not eating or drinking for over 24 hours the last thing you want to do is wait even longer for food! Using a recipe from my then newly acquired (Entertain). I was able to whip up these creamy scrambled eggs in a matter of minutes. Piled high on honey-apple bagels they were the perfect counterfoil to my hunger!

Scrambled Eggs with Smoked Salmon
Source: Party!: Simple and Delicious Party Food
Serves 4

Ingredients:

8 eggs
1/3 cup light cream
2 tsp chopped fresh dill, plus extra to garnish
3.5 oz/100 g smoked salmon, cut into small pieces
2 tbsp butter
8 slices of rustic bread, toasted

Method:
1. Break the eggs into a large bowl and whisk together with the cream and dill.
2. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
3. Add the smoked salmon and mix to combine
4. Melt the butter in a large nonstick skillet and pour in the egg and smoked salmon mixture.
5. Using a wooden spatula, gently scrape the egg away from the sides of the skillet as it starts to set and swirl the skillet slightly to allow the uncooked egg to fill the surface.
6. When the eggs are almost cooked but still creamy, remove from the heat and spoon onto the prepared toast.
7. Serve immediately, garnished with a sprig of dill