Light Smoked Salmon Dip with Crostini

First off, I want to share with you all that my mum's fish curry recipe was trialled by Felicity Cloake of the Guardian. Holy!!! Yes, that Guardian, of which I am an avid reader and fan. I am still recovering from the honour of having my name mentioned alongside Madhur Jaffery and Camellia Panjabi.... faints again...

You can read the article here. Mum, you rock!

... recovers from faint... and on to our feature presentation...

I am not always as sunshine and roses as I tend to appear on this blog :-) But then again, who is? While a lot of the time I am exactly as I appear on this blog, there are days when its a struggle to stay happy. And weirdly, those are the days that I write my best blog posts (at least, according to me!) Simply because, when I have to force myself to be happy, it acts like a trigger to actually start being more cheerful. So I tend to write cheerful posts on the days I feel like a moody cow.

At this point, you're probably wondering what the heck I am on about, right? Well, its simple. It took me a long time to get used to Canada. And there were times when I felt that this whole move was a mistake, and what the heck were we thinking about, leaving secure jobs in order to start a whole new adventure? But having been in Edmonton now, coming up to two and half years, I've really started loving it here as well. I'll always remember England very fondly, but I am also now really happy with my life here.

Part of this happiness has to do with fresh salmon, haha. Previously when we lived in England, we would end up in Canada for at least part of fishing season. But despite Kay catching a fair amount of fish (and me eating a lot of that catch) we never really got to take back any with us.

But when we moved here, well then fish was pretty fair game. Kay didn't catch a huge amount, but his brother did, so we carted it all the way back wrapped in insulated sleeping bags and in a gigantic cool box (and no, I haven't managed to get the fish smell out of my sleeping bag, I am going to be such a temptation to bears when we go camping, sigh!!) And when my in-laws came down last week, they also brought a tonne of fish with them. Brother-in-law has experimented with some different smoking methods this time round, and I am so excited to try the fish out.

That said, Kathryn had some hot smoked salmon that she had caught in Tofino in the summer, and she passed it on to me, as it was defrosted, and she didn't want it to go bad. I made a delicious New York style breakfast bagel with one piece, stirring it into soft scrambled eggs with some spring onions and on a multigrain bagel, and with the second piece I made this super yummy dip.

I didn't want a heavy dip, so I lightened it up significantly by using plain yoghurt instead of cream cheese and a lot of mayonnaise. To be honest, I actually loved this dip even more than its calorific cousin. The yoghurt, lemon juice and light mayonnaise act as perfect foils to the sweet, smoked salmon, green onions add the crunch and freshness and chives bring the whole dip together with their lovely oniony flavour. This dip is really versatile, in that you could use a whole different set of vegetables or herbs to change it up. I served this with some beautiful garlicky crostini that Kathryn and I make very often for our classes, and it was a perfect appetizer for a warm(ish) sunny afternoon, with some Okanagan peach cider... yayyy, its cider season again (yup, summer alcoholic, that's me!)

Recipe:

(Printable Recipe)

For the Salmon Dip:

½ cup greek or plain yoghurt
¼ cup light mayonnaise
½ clove garlic, grated or crushed to a paste
Salt + Pepper to taste
Juice of ½ lemon, if required
3 spring/ green onions, finely sliced
125 g (approximately) hot smoked salmon
Small handful of fresh chives, snipped, to garnish

For the Crostini:

1, slightly stale, French baguette
Olive oil
1 clove of garlic, halved lengthwise

Method:

To make the crostini, preheat oven to 400 F.

Slice the bread into ¾ inch slices at a slight angle. Brush lightly with the olive oil on both sides, and place in one layer on a baking sheet.

Bake in the oven for about 8 minutes, turning them over once. They should be a light golden colour.

Take out of the oven, and while still warm, rub a cut garlic clove on one side. Leave to cool.

To make the salmon dip, whisk the yoghurt, mayonnaise and garlic. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Add a little lemon juice to taste.

Whisk together again. Add the sliced green onions and the flaked hot smoked salmon, and stir together, using a fork, until the dip is well mixed. Taste and adjust seasoning.

Sprinkle over the chives to garnish. Serve with the crostini.