Salmon Patties

Here's a great recipe for Lent.  It uses canned salmon which is frequently on sale during Lent and it's a nice change from tuna casserole.  We like to eat them on buns like burgers.  This recipe makes about 8-12 patties.  I based it on a recipe from the Food Network, but made a few changes.

Ingredients

• 3, 6oz cans of salmon
• 1 1/2 cups of crushed saltine crackers (about 1 row of crackers)
• 1/2 red bell pepper chopped, stem, seeds and membrane removed
• 3 green onions sliced, whites removed
• 2 tablespoons of fresh or freeze dried dill (or 2 teaspoons of dried dill weed)
• 1-2 teaspoons Tabasco sauce (more or less to taste)
• zest of 1 lemon (juice reserved)
• 2 teaspoons of Old Bay seasoning 
• 2 large eggs
• oil for frying

Start by getting all your ingredients ready.  First, crush about one row of saltine crackers.  You can use a food processor like I did here or you can put the crackers in a closed plastic bag with all the air removed and crush them with your hands or a rolling pin.

The crushed crackers will look something like this.  You should end up with about 1 1/2 cups of cracker crumbs.

Next, wash the red pepper and cut it in half.  You will be using one of the halves so you can save the other half in the refrigerator for later use.

Remove the green stem, the seeds and the white membrane from the inside of the pepper.  I usually just tear out the stem, seeds and white membrane with my hands.  It seems to work fine.  If you like, you can always use a small knife to carefully cut out the stem, seeds and white membrane.  Your pepper should look something like this.

To chop the pepper I like to first slice it long ways and then chop it by cutting the slices into smaller pieces.

Thoroughly wash the green onions. Since you will only be using the green parts of the green onions, cut the white part of the green onions like shown here and discard.

Then, thinly slice the green onion like this.

Scrub the lemon well with running water and a scrub brush. To zest a lemon, I like to use a microplane like the one shown here.  A microplane is a type of grater that works great for zesting because it only grates the peel without getting into the bitter white part of the lemon.

After the lemon is zested, you can juice it.  Save the juice to use on the patties after they're cooked or you can use it in the recipe to adjust the moisture level of the mixture.

Open the cans of salmon and drain the juice well.  Put the salmon into a bowl and flake it with a fork.

 

Beat the eggs.

Now that all the ingredients are ready, you can start to assemble the patties.

Add the red pepper, cracker crumbs, green onions, dill, lemon zest (not the juice), Old Bay seasoning and Tabasco to the bowl in which you have the canned salmon.

Mix everything up really well with your hands and then add the beaten eggs. Mix everything really well again with a fork or with your hands so the mixture holds together.  It it's too wet, you can add more crushed crackers and if it's too dry, you can add some of the lemon juice.

Now, using your hands, you can start to make your patties. Press the mixture into balls and then flatten into patties.  These are about 1/2 inch thick and 3 inches in diameter.

Now it's time to fry them.  Heat about 1/2 inch of oil in a cast iron skillet over medium-high heat.  When the oil is hot and bubbly, turn the heat down to medium and place some of the patties in the skillet.  Make sure not to crowd the patties.  The skillet I used here is a 12 inch cast iron skillet and I was able to fry three patties at a time.  If you use a smaller skillet or frying pan, you might not be able to fit three patties at the same time.  Fry the patties for about 3 minutes per side or until they are nicely browned.

When the patties are cooked, remove them from the skillet and place them in a plate lined with paper towels.  Continue to fry the patties until they are all cooked.  To keep the first batches of patties warm as you continue to fry the rest, you can put the plate with the already cooked patties in a warm oven set to about 150-200 degrees.

Serve them on buns like burgers.  They're really good with a thousand island type sauce, lettuce and tomato.