Indian Week - Curried Salmon and Keeri Poryal

Curried Salmon Salad Wraps

A perfect addition to a mixed lunch, or, as we did it, a light Sunday supper salad. Makes 2 servings. If you “just happen” to have a spare 6 oz fresh wild salmon filet laying about, you could cook that, let it cool and flake it out to make the salad! This will, of course also work with canned tuna or chicken.

For us, I doubled the recipe below, using two 6 or 7 ounce frozen salmon fillets (Costco). I baked the thawed fillets for about 12 minutes @ 450F, then let them cool before removing the skin and flaking the meat. We ate the curried salmon on romaine leaves and on water crackers like a dip; there was plenty for dinner and lunch leftovers.

1 5-oz can Wild Salmon, drained (or one 6-7 oz fresh salmon fillet)

1/4 cup plain Greek Yogurt

2 tsp Curry powder (I used a Vegetable curry powder blend from my local Indian market)

1 tsp lemon juice

4-6 Romaine leaves, trimmed

Mix together the salmon, yogurt, curry powder, and lemon juice. 

Open the leaves carefully, like a tortilla, and divide the mixture between them.  

I overdid the lemon juice -- I used juice of half a lemon, it overpowered even the salmon and curry powder.

Keeri Poryal

This South Indian sauteed dish can be made with a variety of leafy greens, and really works well with kale, which keeps it's shape after cooking much better than say spinach.

1 bunch Kale

5 Cloves Garlic, sliced

1 Onion, diced

1/4 tsp Salt

1/4 cup Water or broth

1 Tbsp Oil

1/4 tsp Mustard seed

1/2 tsp cracked (broken) Black Lentils or whatever you have

1/4 tsp Cumin seeds

Red Chili flakes to taste

First wash the kale, remove the center spines and chop the leaves into 1” to 2” pieces.

Heat a large pan with oil and add the mustard seed. Once they start to snap and pop, add the lentils, cumin and red chili flakes. When the lentils start to color, add the sliced garlic and saute for 30 secs.

Add the chopped onion and continue to saute until they turn translucent. Add the salt and continue cooking until the onions turn golden brown. Finally, add the kale and about 1/4 cup of water or vegetable broth.

Continue cooking, stirring frequently, until the liquid evaporates and the kale is fully cooked. Serve hot over cumin flavored rice, or as a side to a main entree such as the chicken sauteed with Garam Masala shown above.

Another Quiche

Sally wanted me to make a duck egg quiche as “trade” with her egg lady. So I combined the short-crust recipe from my Bison Tortiere recipe with my Quiche Lorraine recipe, and threw in a handful of diced red bell pepper for added color and flavor. Here's the result:

Mango "Cream"  & Strawberry Dessert

Sally's Mum came over for Sunday Lunch -- I made a quiche and fancy salad, and this "pre-Valentine" dessert.  One whole mango, half a small banana and about a quarter cup of Greek yogurt, decorated with strawberries and whipped cream.