Long Island Larder: Salmon Sense

Just when you think you can't be shocked by anything anymore, along comes a real serious scandal: the great Alaska Salmon Dumping! The only "whitewater" I can get the hang of is the stuff the salmon are swimming in upstream, only to be trapped, stripped of their valuable roe, and given a burial at sea. This, while the elderly or hungry line up at feeding stations. And we are still paying ludicrous prices for the same kind of fish being dumped to avert a glut on the market.

I suppose it all depends on whose ox is being gored. When market values go down once in a while, couldn't the public get a break instead of having moderate pricing labeled a "glut"?

Every day some sanctimonious official steps up to the plate with a fresh explanation of why trashing this prized fish had to be done. Somehow, no one could possibly figure out a way to ship the excess fish in time to keep them from spoiling before they could be distributed to relief organizations.

Then how do they manage to ship them all fresh and shiny to retail markets in the lower Forty Eight in time to snag $9 to $12 a pound for them? Or why didn't they freeze them or can them? Destroying food while people go hungry is on an ethical par with the inhumane, inane position of animal activists who'd rather see deer starve to death than have them shot to feed the hungry.

I suppose feeding salmon and venison to the poor just might create a class of demanding paupers though. Can't be too careful when it comes to protecting free market pricing and voracious deer these days. Only in America.

In the unlikely event of the Great Salmon Glut continuing long enough to actually be felt in the pricing, tuck away the following recipes for the time your freezer overflows with dollar-a-pound salmon, one of the sea's Top Ten great bounties.

Freezing Fresh Fish

While frozen fish may never be as good texture-wise as fish fresh out of the water, if the freezing is quickly and properly executed, the fish can still be very, very good. The off-flavor lies not in the freezing process, but in the storage. Fish must be kept frozen below zero Fahrenheit and used within two months.

Freezers are not meant to be icy graveyards for food unlabeled and forgotten. Keeping a written inventory in a small book is a good idea for households copiously supplied by hunters and fishermen. Careful wrapping and labeling - and what is often left off, dating - are extremely important to the quality of the food, which, while it may not spoil at zero temperature, becomes less and less palatable as flavor fades with time.

Some of the best shrimp you can remember eating was undoubtedly flash frozen in the hold of the boat shortly after being netted. Nearly all the shrimp sold in retail markets all over America arrives there in huge 50-pound blocks, is thawed under running cold water and lovingly arranged on ice and no one ever thinks to ask "was it frozen?"

Truly Fresh Shrimp

A lot of it comes from off the coasts of Ecuador and as far away as China. Shrimp sold in ports like Key West are delicious and relatively cheap because the few shrimpers that still try to compete are "day" boats with neither the capability nor the need to freeze their catch.

Our great fleets of shrimpers are gone now, probably because our own resources have been overfished, but what the heck, we can buy what other nations are plundering from their waters . . . while they last. (When I was a kid in South Carolina, boiled shrimp were free at bars and fishermen used raw ones for bait. I remember my mother making "Bait Creole" one day when we were out on the water and nobody was catching any decent fish.)

Small to medium fish are best frozen by quickly dipping them in ice water, then freezing them on a rack in the freezer an hour or so before redipping and refreezing another film of ice on them prior to a final speedy wrap in thick freezer film, then in coated freezer paper. It is sturdier and is easily labeled before the final interment in the freezer.

Very small fish can be cleaned and frozen whole in half-gallon milk cartons with enough water poured in to seal up the crevices around the fish.

Gravlax

Sometimes listed on tony menus as "saumon frais" or "saumon l'aneth," this is fresh salmon cured, but not smoked, in the traditional Swedish manner. In Scandinavia, the preparation is called "gravlax," which translates to buried salmon. Buried in fresh dill, which is a lot easier to find than it used to be, but you'll need a lot more than those pathetic little packages in the supermarket. Dill only grows in cool climates, so you may find enough to make this at a farm stand or some fancy food shop.

2 matching center-cut fillets of salmon, about 3 lbs. total

1/4 cup coarse salt

2 Tbsp. white sugar

2 Tbsp. coarsely ground white peppercorns

2 really big bunches of fresh dill, about 8 ozs.

The Sauce:

11/2 cups thin, homemade mayonnaise

1/4 cup Dijon mustard

1/2 cup fresh dill, minced

Wash the fillets in cold running water and dry them well. Often there are tiny bones in the flesh, most easily removed with a pair of needle-nosed pliers (a handy implement to keep in the kitchen). Run your fingers along the fleshy side and you'll feel the bones.

Combine the salt, sugar, and ground white pepper and rub it into the cut sides of the fish. Lay one fillet skin side down on a double thickness of foil. Arrange the dillweed on top of it and cover with the other matching half. Close up the foil tightly and lay it on a platter in the fridge. Turn it over twice a day for three days. During this time it should be lightly weighted - a board of another platter with a few evenly distributed cans set on top; three soup cans would weigh about the right amount. Or use beach stones arranged the length of the fillets.

After three days, or four is all right too, wipe the fillets dry and discard the wilted dill. Carve only as much as you think will be eaten at any one time in diagonal slices about 1/8-inch thick. It isn't necessary or desirable to carve it as thinly as smoked salmon. Serve the gravlax on a plate with buttered seven-grain sourdough or some kind of bread with character and the following sauce.

Mustard Dill

Use one whole fresh egg to make a light, homemade mayonnaise. Put the egg in a blender and turn the machine on high; add one cup of oil - half olive and half peanut or canola, pouring it in a fine stream until the sauce thickens. Add the mustard and check the consistency. Add a tablespoon of warm water at a time until you have nearly pourable sauce. Whir in the dill. This will keep well in the fridge up to a week. Don't add salt as the mustard has plenty of it.

Salmon With Caviar

Anticipating a happy glut of cheap salmon on the market, I've adapted a recipe from the Michelin three-star chef Alain Senderens that I've only been able to afford a few times before. Salmon roe, or red caviar, should certainly be coming down in price too, if the free market system works at all. So luxuriate, luxuriate while the salmon flows.

Serves four.

2 fillets of salmon, about 11/2 lbs.

1 tsp lemon zest

Salt and pepper

1 Tbsp. sweet (unsalted) butter

5 shallots, minced

4 Tbsp. minced mushrooms

2/3 cup dry white wine

1/2 cup water

1 cup heavy cream

13/4 oz. red salmon caviar

Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.

Season the fillets with the lemon zest, salt, and pepper. Melt the butter in a roasting pan just large enough to hold the fish in a single layer. Add the shallots and cook, stirring, over low heat, about two minutes, then add the mushrooms and cook, stirring, another two minutes. Lay the fish, skin side down, on top of the vegetables, add the wine and water around the fish, and slide the roasting pan into the oven for eight minutes. Turn off the oven - you may need a warm spot later.

Remove the fillets with a wide, slotted spatula and turn them over onto a clean dish towel to drain. Carefully peel off the skin, divide the fillets into a total of four pieces and place them on warm plates. Keep them warm while you make the sauce, but don't dry them out or cook them further.

Reduce the pan juices in the roaster over high heat, pressing down on the vegetables with the back of a spatula, but do not brown them. When the juices have reduced to almost nothing, whisk in the cream and boil a couple of minutes until thick and creamy. Strain into saucepan through a fine sieve, mashing down on the solids in the sauce. Reheat it slightly and pour over the waiting salmon fillets. Garnish with a spoonful of red caviar.

Just a couple of little boiled or steamed jacket potatoes - such as Yukon Golds - would complete this lush dish nicely. Spinach timbales would be nice too.