Camelina Oil

I'm having fun experimenting with camelina oil, a natural cold-presssed culinary oil produced in Saskatchewan. Camelina is an oil seed in the same family as mustard and broccoli. Three Farmers camelina oil is named for the three farmers who started the company. Read more in my article in the Star Phoenix.

Advantages for the home cook: High smoke point 475F -- Use it for searing, frying and grilling -- Slow to go rancid -- Long shelf life without refrigeration -- High in vitamin E and antioxidants -- Fresh green and nutty flavour.

Camelina oil pairs wonderfully with spring vegetables such as asparagus, baby greens and fiddleheads. Here's a camelina-inspired dinner for two:

 

 

Steelhead Trout Fillets

Heat oven to 350F. Cut one fillet into 2 or 3 pieces. Season with salt and pepper. In a heavy frying pan, heat 1 tbs butter and 1 tbs natural camelina oil. When hot, place the trout fillets skin side down. Sear until the skin is crisp, about 5 minutes. Place the pan in the oven to complete the cooking process, about 4 minutes. Carefully lift the fish from the pan so the skin remains intact.

Nutty Fiddleheads

Boil a small saucepan of salted water. Add 1 1/2 cups of fresh fiddleheads, stems trimmed. Boil 2 minutes and drain well. In a skillet, heat on medium 2 tbs roast onion and basil flavoured camelina oil. Briefly sauté 1/4 cup chopped walnuts until fragrant. Add fiddleheads. Season with salt if desired. Sauté 4-5 minutes. Fiddleheads may absorb the oil before they’re cooked, so be prepared to add more oil as needed. Remove from heat. Add a squeeze of lemon and shavings of parmesan cheese. This method also works for asparagus and green beans.

Spring Salad

Make a dressing by briskly whisking together 1 tbs lemon juice, 1/2 tsp mustard, pinch of salt and 1 tbs plus 1 tsp natural camelina oil. Gently toss with 2 cups of chopped baby spring greens. The salad in the picture includes spinach, sunflower, orach, dandelion, arugula, mustard sprouts and one red spring onion.

 

Three Farmers Camelina Oil

 

Saskatchewan Menu - Fish and Biscuits

Recycle, reuse and re-enjoy! When it comes to leftovers, that's my motto. Tonight, I took leftover trout and vegetables and turned them into pure comfort food: Fish and Biscuits.

Breakfast: Homemade muesli with yogurt.

Lunch: Chickpea Fruit Salad (leftovers from Friday's Auction Dinner) and Zucchini Chocolate Cake.

Dinner: Fish and Biscuits.

Start with leftover Trout on a Bed of Vegetables. Simmer the fish skeleton for an hour in 3 cups of water with some of the leftover vegetables, adding a bay leaf and a few peppercorns. Drain, reserving the liquid and composting the rest.

Bring the fish stock to a simmer in a large skillet. Whisk in 2-3 tbsp of flour. Add the leftover vegetables -- about 4 cups -- and leftover fish -- about 1 cup. (Crumble the fish and make sure all the bones are removed.) Season with salt and chopped fresh tarragon. Add a bit of water if needed.

While that simmers and thickens, make biscuit dough. I used a recipe from Joy of Cooking. Roll the dough and cut into small rounds with a cookie cutter.

Pour the vegetable mixture into a baking dish. Arrange the biscuits on top. Sprinkle with chopped dill. Bake at 350F for about 30 minutes, until the biscuits are just slightly turning brown.

Newspaper Column - HOT MUSTARD FISH

Published in the Saskatoon Star Phoenix, 16 June 2008.

Hot enough for you? How I long to hear those words. When I’m asked, Hot enough for you? I never say yes. I love the heat and soak it up as if I’m stoking my fires for the long winter ahead. No matter how hot it gets, it’s not hot enough for me. Until recently.

Just the other day, I had to admit it was hot enough. Of course, I was not speaking of the weather because that has definitely not been hot enough. I was referring to the Droolin’ Devil Mustard Gourmet Habanero Hot Sauce that was slathered all over my hamburger. I have always been a fan of mustard, so it stands to reason I would be a fan of hot mustard, too – within reason. At 1,500 Scoville Units, this mustard hot sauce is mild, relatively speaking, which is just hot enough for my palate. But what makes it extra special is that it is – from start to finish – a local food. The mustard is grown here, the sauce is made here and it’s sold right around the corner from my house in City Park. It doesn’t get more local than that.

The mustard hot sauce is the culinary creation of Craig Lowenberg, a hot sauce aficionado who moved his business from Calgary to Saskatoon just in time to catch the wave of the economic boom. His other creations include Uncle Big’s Serial Killer Hot Sauce which, at one million Scoville Units, is the hottest hot sauce made in Canada. You might say, it’s a hot commodity in a hot economy.

“The trend is that nothing’s hot enough anymore,” says Craig, who grew up at Grenfell, near Regina.

He and his wife Lorein moved to Saskatoon in summer 2006 to escape the fast pace of Calgary, where they couldn’t afford the high price of retail space. They wanted to live and raise a family in the friendlier pace of Saskatoon. It was a good move. Their daughter was born last fall and sales of their hot sauces have jumped nearly 300%.

“It gives you more of a chance to focus on what makes you happy,” says Craig. “Since we’ve been back, the new hot sauce recipes we’ve created won three international awards.”

One of their hottest items (in terms of sales) is a green hot sauce commemorating the Saskatchewan Roughriders – it’s a big seller in Alberta, too. In fact, sales in Alberta have increased since he moved here because he has more time to focus on that side of his business. “I always thought at one point I would retire back to Saskatchewan, but I didn’t think it would be thirty years sooner,” he says, “I’m really glad we moved when we did.”

So am I. Small processors like the Lowenbergs are critical to Saskatchewan’s future as a food producing province – one that not only grows the raw product but also processes it into foods we can eat. Too often, raw foods produced here are shipped to another province for processing, and then shipped back to our grocery stores with nary a hint that they originated here.
No wonder it’s so hard to find the label “Made in Saskatchewan” on the grocery shelf. The Saskatchewan Food Processors Association has more 50 members producing hundreds of food products (listed at www.sfpa.sk.ca and sold at the Saskatchewan Made Marketplace). There are many more small food processors who aren’t members of the SFPA who sell at farmers’ markets and local stores.

I love to hunt down these locally-made products and, when I find something I like, I become a loyal customer. So, the next time someone asks if it’s hot enough for me, I’ll tell them that Saskatchewan’s food economy is just heating up.

Hot Mustard Fish
Slather fish fillets (Saskatchewan fish, of course) with Droolin' Devil Mustard Gourmet Habanero Hot Sauce. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Press course fresh bread crumbs onto both sides of the fish. Generously butter the bottom of a baking dish. Place fillets in the baking dish. Dab the top of the fillets with butter. Bake at 350F for about 15 minutes, until the fish is flakey and cooked. Baking time varies depending on the thickness of the fish, so keep an eye on it.

News Talk Radio - Favourite fish recipes

Thanks, Michelle, for having me on your radio show today. Since we talked about Saskatchewan fish, I thought I'd highlight a few of my favourite fish recipes:

Fish and potato cakes
Fish baked in salt
Fish on a bed of carrots and celery
Nice salad

Another great way with fish: Slather fish fillets with Droolin' Devil Mean Ass Mustard Gourmet Habanero Hot Sauce (produced right here in Saskatoon). Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Press fresh bread crumbs onto the fish. Turn fillets and repeat on the other side. Generously butter the bottom of a baking dish. Place fillets in the baking dish. Dab the top of the fillets with butter. Bake at 325F for 15 minutes. Flip the fish and bake another 10 minutes. Using a fork, check if the fish is flakey and cooked. If not, bake a few more minutes. (Baking time varies depending on the thickness of the fish.)

Newspaper column - NICE SALAD

Publsihed in the Saskatoon Star Phoenix, Oct. 22, 2007.

Occasionally, there is a fine line between tenacity and hard-headedness. I admire tenacity in garden vegetables, like the rhubarb that refuses to be cut back and the squash that grows out of the compost.This past spring, my garden was full of renegade spinach in places that had never been planted to spinach. I admired that spunk so much I carefully transplanted it into a proper row.

But when a full-grown tomato plant is still in the garden in mid-October, with its yellowing leaves and spindly stem, and pinkish tomatoes struggling to soak up enough sun to turn red – well, that is sheer hard-headedness. And the hard head is all mine. Perhaps a psychiatrist would diagnose me as suffering from winter denial syndrome, but I can think of no better way to stave off the commencement of winter than to prolong the advancement of the summer garden.

So, every night I go out and cover my tomatoes with an old sheet and every morning I roll back the frosty sheet so the tomatoes can bask in the sun. Somewhere in between the sheets – preferably at dinnertime – I pluck off the ripest of the red tomatoes and eat them – preferably with the salad greens I planted in August which are now at their tender peak. (Lettuce and spinach can take a bit more frost than tomatoes, but I’m not taking any chances; I cover them at night, too.)

A few years ago, my husband and I spent the winter in a medieval mountain town in Italy where, right up to Christmas, gardeners were nurturing their tomatoes on the vine. These tomatoes were usually planted in front of a rock wall and staked to a tall pole, which maximized the warmth and exposure to the sun. It didn’t matter that the stems were spindly and the leaves were almost gone, those last few delicious tomatoes kept on ripening to the bitter end – which came with the first snow on New Year’s Eve.

I decided to try this principle in my own garden here in Saskatoon. I planted a few tomatoes up against the house (grey stucco, sort of like rocks) and attached them to tall stakes. And here it is, the latter half of October, and I am still enjoying fresh tomatoes from the garden. This may be hard-headed obstinacy, but there is method to my madness. Like an Italian grandmother, I prefer my vegetables to be fresh and in season. I want to eat what local gardens have to offer, rather than defy the seasons by buying imported vegetables from other parts of the planet. So, tomatoes and salad greens only when they’re fresh here in Saskatchewan (and, I hasten to add, you can still get both at the Saskatoon farmers’ market).

Here’s a great salad based on the French original called Salade Nicoise (nee-swaz), named for the city of Nice. I made it last week with tomatoes, salad greens and baby fingerling potatoes fresh out of my garden. The French version calls for tuna, but I use leftover Saskatchewan fish when I have it. It turned out so pretty and delicious, I called my version the Nice Salad. This recipe is a meal for two or a first course salad for four.

Nice Salad
3-4 cups of salad greens
Several thin slices of onion
(or 2 sliced green onions)
Two handfuls of baby potatoes, boiled
(or larger potatoes, cooked and quartered)
2-3 small ripe tomatoes, in wedges
3 hardboiled eggs, in wedges
1/2 green pepper, thinly sliced
(or steamed green beans/asparagus in season)
1/2 cup cooked fish

Dressing:
Juice of one-half lemon
2-3 tbsp vegetable oil
1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
Dash of salt and pepper

Whisk together the dressing ingredients. Toss half of the dressing with the salad greens and onion. Arrange the potatoes, tomatoes, eggs and other vegetables around a platter. Drizzle with the remainder of the dressing. Mound the salad greens in the centre. Top the greens with the cooked fish. Serve with a big spoon and two salad bowls.

Isn't that nice - NICE SALAD

The French make a salad called Salade Nicoise (nees-waz), named for the city of Nice. It’s usually made with tuna, but since that is not a Saskatchewan ingredient, I made it with trout. It turned out very nice, and that is why I’ve called it the Nice Salad. This recipe is for two. You can double and triple it if you like.

2 small boiled potatoes, peeled and cubed
½ green pepper, sliced
10 thinly sliced rounds of onion, or more to taste
Small handful of fresh basil, thinly sliced
2 red tomatoes, cut in wedges
2 hardboiled eggs, cut in wedges
½ cup cooked trout, flaked

Dressing:
Juice of one-half juicy lemon
An equal amount of olive oil
½ tsp Dijon mustard
Dash of salt and pepper

In a bowl, mix together the potatoes, green pepper and onion. Make the dressing by mixing the lemon juice, mustard, salt and pepper. Drizzle in the olive oil, all the while beating with a whisk to form a creamy dressing. Toss the dressing into the potatoes. Let marinate a few minutes or longer. Before serving, mix in the basil. To serve, divide the potato mixture onto two plates. Place the wedges of tomato and hardboiled egg around the edge of the salad. Mound the fish in the centre. Eat! (A Salade Nicoise often includes green beans, but since they are not in season yet, I’ll leave them out my Nice Salad until later in the summer.)

Crusty as salt - POTATO FISH CAKES

This article first appeared in the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix on 23 Oct. 2006.

Saskatchewan may be a long way from the sea, but it’s just a little less than a mile away from sea salt. We could walk there if it weren’t straight down. But, since it’s buried 1.2 kilometres in the earth, we have to get our Saskatchewan sea salt from the grocery store.

Now, don’t go looking in the gourmet food section. This ancient sea salt is not pricey or rare. In fact, if you’ve purchased Sifto salt chances are you’re already using it. Sifto’s salt mine at Unity, in west central Saskatchewan, is tapping into a salt deposit more than 350 million years old. The salt was left behind after the evaporation of a huge inland sea, part of the same geological formation that produced potash. Put that in your salt shaker!

When I heard about the salt mine at Unity I called the manager, John Goschok, and asked for a tour. The first thing I noticed is that the place smells like salt. If I had been plunked down blindfolded, I might have guessed we were near the sea rather than the wide open plains. At the mine, hot water is forced down a pipe into the crusty salt below. The salt dissolves into a brine that is pumped up to the surface where it is heated in huge evaporators to remove the moisture. The result is pure white unadulterated salt.

"I chuckle to myself when I go to a health store and people are buying sea salt because it’s ‘natural’ and they’re paying a ton of money for it. Well, it all comes from the ocean at one point in time," says Goschok.

The mine produces about 50 different products from table salt to kosher and pickling salt, to road and water softener salt, to salt licks for livestock. Imagine the furor that would have caused in the Middle Ages, when so much salt was worth a king’s ransom. For most of human history, salt was an expensive commodity, often subject to state taxes. In fact, salt was so valuable throughout the ages that the Latin word ‘sal’ is the basis of our modern words salvation and salary.

Early one morning, shortly after my visit to the salt mine, I turned on the TV to a cooking show from France. I couldn’t understand much of the dialogue, but I could understand the pictures.
The chef took a whole fish, filled the cavity with herbs and sliced lemon, put it in a long narrow baking pan and covered it completely in rock salt. He baked it in a moderate oven (325 degrees C) for an hour or so.

I had a 2kg box of Sifto pickling salt and a northern pike from our friend, Ed. So, I decided to try it. Believe me, as I was pouring on that salt, I feared it was going to be a waste of both.
But when that fish came out of the oven 1.5 hours later, it was the most delicious and flavourful northern pike I had ever eaten. The salt had formed a crust like clay. The texture of the flesh had changed; it was moister and meatier, and it lifted right off those nasty bones. And it didn’t cost me an arm and a leg.

Here’s a good recipe for leftover fish.

Potato Fish Cakes
2 cups cooked potato
2 cups flaked cooked fish
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 tbsp. mixed herbs, chopped
(parsley, tarragon, thyme)
Fish stock or white wine
1 egg
Flour for dusting
Fresh breadcrumbs for coating
Canola oil for frying

Mix the potato, fish, onion and herbs. I used a blender until they were the consistency of breadcrumbs. However, you could use a potato masher or even your hands. Add enough fish stock to moisten the mixture so you can form it into patties. (If you don’t have fish stock or white wine, use chicken stock or water.) Make 8 patties.

Dust each patty with flour. Dip into the egg. Then press each side into the breadcrumbs. Place the patties on a plate and refrigerate at least 30 min. This is essential to prevent them breaking up in the oil.

Heat the oil on medium high heat. There should be enough oil to rise half way up the patty. Fry the patties on each side until golden brown and drain on paper towel. Serve with lemon mayonnaise or your favourite sauce.

A fish tale - FISH BAKED IN SALT

I was watching a French cooking show early one morning when I saw something truly fascinating. I couldn’t understand much of the dialogue, but I could understand this simple technique:

Take a whole fish, head off. Stuff the cavity with lemon and herbs. Place it in a narrow baking pan, completely cover the fish with kosher salt and bake it. I had a fish and I had the salt so I was game to try it.

I started with a Saskatchewan northern pike caught by our friend Ed. A lot of people don’t like filleting northern pike because they have a lot of bones. This technique eliminates that problem. I stuffed the cavity with lemon slices and fresh thyme from my garden. I placed it in a long baking dish and covered it with Sifto Pickling Salt (from the salt mine at Unity, SK.). I used almost a whole 2 kg box; the fish was completely covered but for a bit of the tail. I baked it for 1.5 hours at 325 C. When it came out of the oven the salt was rock hard. I cracked it open with a knife, peeled off the skin of the fish and lifted out the flesh. It came neatly off the bones.

I have to admit, JB and I took our first bites with trepidation. Then we looked at each other and said Mmmmmmm. It was delicious! The flesh of the fish was transformed – it was meatier, tastier and less fishy than usual. Those French...

Gifts of food - STEELHEAD TROUT WITH CHERRY TOMATOES

One day not too long ago, I got a phone call out of the blue from a woman who reads my column in the newspaper about Saskatchewan food. Her name was Genevieve. She said she had a gift for me. It was two big bottles of her marinated vinegar – one with garden herbs and the other with saskatoon berries – and a jar of pesto. What a treat! She told me to wait awhile before opening the vinegar. So, my first taste was last night. Here’s what I did with it:

STEELHEAD TROUT ROASTED WITH CHERRY TOMATOES
Steelhead is a type of trout raised at the Wild West Steelhead fish farm on Lake Diefenbaker near Lucky Lake, Saskatchewan. I purchased some trout while on a visit to the farm. It had been caught, cleaned and packaged within the hour. And cooked just a few hours after that! Any other fish fillets would work just as well in this recipe.

Heat the oven to 425. Take two handfuls of cherry tomatoes and cut them in half. (Red and yellow tomatoes would make a pretty mix.) Toss them with some shredded basil, a pinch or two of kosher salt and a good dousing of herb vinegar. Marinate for an hour.

Rub the bottom of a roasting pan with olive oil. Place two fillets of trout in the oil, skin side down. Season with salt and white pepper. Arrange the cherry tomatoes on top of the fillets. Drizzle with a bit more olive oil. Roast in the oven uncovered for about 15 minutes, until the fish is flaky.
Top the fish with some grated white cheese – parmesan, mozzarella or gruyere for example. Turn the oven to broil and bake until the cheese is melted. I served the fish with boiled fingerling potatoes and just-picked corn on the cob.

Catch of the day - TROUT ON A BED OF CARROTS AND CELERY

My friend Jennifer was ordering fish from Lake Diefenbaker so I put in an order, too. I didn't know you could buy fish there -- and it was beautiful. It was steelhead rainbow trout weighing about 5 pounds with beautiful pink flesh. The fish arrived in a big styrofoam box -- whole, cleaned and so fresh they hadn't yet been frozen. I cooked one for dinner and out the rest in the freezer.

Every day, I am trying to eat something I picked with my own hand and I managed quite well today. The applesauce muffins we ate for breakfast were made with apples I picked and processed last fall. For lunch, it was a herb fritatta. And for supper, the a baked steelhead trout baked on a bed of carrots and celery, with wild rice and a tarragon sauce. Of course, I picked the tarragon in my garden.

(The recipe for the fritatta posted is at 4 May 2005).

TROUT BAKED ON A BED OF CARROTS AND CELERY
Start by chopping equal amounts of carrots, celery and onion in a small dice. You need enough to form a thick "mattress" in the base of your roasting pan. The vegetables cook down considerably, so put in twice as much as you think you’ll need for dinner. Dot with several tablespoons of butter. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and fresh thyme.

Put the whole fish on the bed of the vegetables. Tuck the cavity full of lemon slices. Kiss with salt and pepper, and pull up the lid. Whisper "I Love You" as you slip the roaster into the warm oven (300 degrees). Set the alarm clock for about one hour (nap time may vary depending on the size of the fish).

In the meantime, melt 1 tbsp. of butter in a saucepan. Stir in 1tbsp. of flour. Flour should completely absorb the butter. If not, add more flour. When the butter and flour are completely incorporated, add 1 cup of milk. Stir vigorously to dissolve the flour and butter in the milk. Drop a sprig of fresh tarragon into the milk. Cook, stirring frequently, until the sauce thickens to a consistency that appeals to you. If it gets too thick, add a bit more milk. Remove tarragon. Add salt and white pepper to your taste.

Rouse the fish. Place it whole on a large platter. Scoop the vegetables into a bowl. Serve with the tarragon sauce.

A riot of herbs - FISH CAKES

Yikes, the herbs are rioting. Well, they're growing like crazy. This is welcome news, because I have a new Saskatchewan food challenge -- every day I will eat something picked by my own hand. This time of year, that challenge is easily filled with the snip of the scissors! Tonight for dinner we had fish cakes with chives, thyme and sage from the garden with horseradish and a green salad. The ground fish and the salad greens were purchased at the Saskatoon Farmers' Market. The horseradish was grown and ground by our friend Bill down in Burns County.

HERBY FISH CAKES
about 1 lb. nicely ground raw Saskatchewan pickerel (or other fish)
2 tbsp. corn starch
4 tbsp. chopped fresh herbs of your choice
1 tsp. salt and a few grinds of pepper
one egg, beaten
fine fresh breadcrumbs
lottsa butter

Mix together the fish, corn starch, herbs, salt and pepper. Form into four big patties. These patties will feel much gooier than those made of ground beef. Dip each patty on both sides into the egg. Press into the breadcrumbs to coat. Melt butter in a frying pan until it is hot but not brown. Set the patties into the butter so they sizzle and brown. Flip to brown the other side. Cooking time will depend on the thickness of the patties -- mine took a few minutes on each side.