Canned salmon

So I finally went grocery shopping this afternoon and had a decent time for the most part. I helped an older lady get some cabbage that she couldn't reach from the top shelf. I helped a couple other older ladies find some canned soups they had walked past. I had a panic attack while crouching behind my buggy next to a selection of Jamaican hot sauces. I was pleasantly surprised with the lower prices of fish and pork (and picked up a salmon fillet and a pork tenderloin - fuck yeah!). Fun times. 

I also decided to buy a can of salmon for, like, a buck fifty. I figured I could do something fun and quick with that for dinner (and tomorrow's lunch...), so, when I got back to the house and got the groceries unpacked, I set to it.

I figured I could do pasta with a salmon and veggie sauce for funsies. I sliced up some mushrooms and diced up some orange bell pepper, then sautéed those together in butter with some crushed garlic cloves. I seasoned with a little salt and pepper, then let it all cook until the cloves were soft enough to just fall apart when I pressed on them with my spatula.

Then I dumped all of that shit into my blender and went to town on it. Because of how soft it all was, it blended up pretty well and had a nice vomit look to it. Obviously, this wasn't going to be the finished product, though.

So I added some vegan cream to it and blended it all up more. Now it looked more like liquid dog shit than vomit, so that was an improvement?

After the blending was completed, I put my pan back on low heat then added some extra virgin olive oil with a sprig of rosemary and a little bit of dried fennel...leaf? Frond? Whatever-the-fuck it's called. I let those sizzle in there for a few minutes to infuse the oil with a little flavor, then moved on.

By "moved on," of course, I mean I dumped all of the smashed up salmon into the pan and got it heated up. Once the liquid was absorbed and the fish was acting like it wanted to stick to the pan, I dumped in the blended veggies and cream, then let that heat up to a simmer.

Once the sauce was simmering, I dumped in some sliced kalamata and black olives, a handful of crushed and chopped capers, and about another handful of baby romaine lettuce leaves. Definitely leaning into that vomit look, I let it simmer while my pasta finished cooking. I didn't do much seasoning before this point because the brininess of the olives and capers could easily end up overseasoning or contrasting too much with anything else that I had done. Instead, I opted to wait to this point to start working on getting the right flavor. It didn't take much, just a little acidity (with maybe a tablespoon or two of white wine vinegar) and a little heat (maybe a half of a teaspoon of ground cayenne). Fucking tasty.

So, like I've said several times now, it fucking looks like vomit, but it tasted fucking magical. I wasn't anticipating the salmon just immediately breaking down in the sauce, but I probably should have expected it. I'll probably play around with this recipe some more in the future to make it look more appetizing, but for real, that flavor was spot on.