Bettyq, where are you?! :) Hahaha, for regulars, Betty has been around, but her recent comments somehow ended up in my spam filters, so they never made it onto the posts… but I have retrieved her four most recent ones, and hopefully all is well. Meanwhile, in a private email, Bettyq asked if I had ever made her Tuscan Style Salmon Sardines. I did indeed, last September 2012, but for some reason, never wrote a post about them, so here they are! They turned out very nicely, and honestly, I can’t even remember where (or which post) Bettyq shared her recipe…
I prepared all the ingredients like shallots, garlic, fresh basil leaves, pickles (homemade), chorizos, carrots, fresh bay leaves, slices of red capsicum or bell pepper and some finger chiles and pickling spices.
I cut up some previously frozen salmon and extracted the excess moisture with paper towels. I wish we had access to fresh wild salmon, that is more flavorful and possesses a darker meat, but this is all I could get in Manila.
Filled the bottles with good olive along with the seasonings and other ingredients.
Closed the bottles tightly and stuck them in a pressure cooker for the required amount of time to cook the salmon, and heat all the ingredients up to a temperature that would make them last a while in the cupboards. Don’t they look really attractive?
I was a little apprehensive about using these locally made bottles in an industrial strength pressure cooker, and sure enough two of the bottles basically exploded (inferior quality, I think) but most of the bottles survived nicely, albeit in a messy oily state on the outside…
The salmon “sardines” were delicious, great refried and served with eggs, or added to other dishes, or even made into a spread. Thanks Betty for all your recipes over the years, and yes, we’ve missed your comments, and hopefully they won’t be blocked by the spam filters in future! :)
28 Responses
hi, i want this recipe………..this much be really good
oh yes, i miss bettyq too! and my husband just made a batch of bangus “sardines”. but i wonder where the recipe for this is…must search through the posts!
Oh man i need to try this!
She’s probably busy tending her summer garden and foraging the nearby forest for wild mushrooms. As long as she stays away from psilocybins we shall see her again in September.
It’s that cultural thing again, along with onomatopoetic nick names, we are used to hearing salmon sardines, bangus bistik, chicken ham, etc. It’s more of a confit actually, or a jarred Spanish escabeche isn’t it.
Will you sell these??? Let me know when you do!
Looks really good!
WOW!
Glad you liked it, MM! It is salmon season and I am so fortunate to know commercial guys and avid fisherman friends as well as kapitbahays who share their catch with me. It will be salmon canning weekend for me!
Millet, no recipe whatsoever….just dump those ingredients MM posted above on the bottom of the jar and pack you cleaned fish ….skinned fish if you prefer or not, bones as well. My favorite part?…the collar with the litid bones? and the belly! Add 1/2 tsp. in each 250 ml. jar.
Sometimes, MM I have had jars that spill over mainly because I did not tighten the rings very well as well as it too full. Sometimes there is a bit of stuff leftover and I do not want to waste it so I add a few here and there and that is what happens during the processing. It boils over!But those are the jars the contents are consumed first or given to kapitbahays who shared their catch with me….placed in a nice white new bowl from Dollar Store and with crostini plus a few jars of the processed ones that did not boil over….makes I excellent gifts in a wicker basket.
I can see this with tulingan, dulong with the same ingredients MM has above. I cannot buy the bottled dulong in olive oil….dont know which store sells it. So i figured how hard can it be to make it?!? But with dulong, I found that it needs more fish packed in the jar with just a TOUCH of olive oil. If you have it swimming in olive oil, it will turn buhaghag? Or won’t clump. The second time I made it with frozen silverfish, I got the texture, taste I was after. I bet this would be excellent as well using SMOKED GALUNGGONG…Another experiment one of these days!
Yup, Footloose! …am enjoying this weather and gardening to my heart’s content…but then again, my chores at home are tambak! BUT, I have bumper crops everywhere! But no rain means no MUSHROOMS!!!! I must be the only oddball on this side of the globe praying for rain or those porcinis will refuse to come up!
Mr. MM what a timely post, can I have the recipe. I’m hoping to preserve some of the salmon that I hope to catch in Alaska next week. I will also search through the posts… Bettyq help!!! Thanks
Betty Q – this may sound like a silly question but I’ll ask it anyway! :) The salmon that you can buy at Costco I can use that to right to make this sardines right? I would love to try this and give it to my parents coz they love sardines (filipino style) but this one is a notch higher! :)
Charly! I hope you catch lots of Kings. They rule!!!!!!!!!!!!!
There is really no recipe, Charly. You can make any combinations you want…Say you want a Greek or Mediterranean flavour…add some pitted black olives , roasted sweet red peppers…NO CHEESE!…touch of oregano along with bay leaves, garlic, shallots. For Thai flavour…maybe a bit if lemongrass, peppers (sweet and hot), a few kaffir lime leaves, eggplant?, garlic, shallots. Pinoy….make something like adobo…garlic, shallots or onions, a touch of vinegar, bit of taba ng baboy, bay leves, peppercorn, touch of soy for color.
Then prep your fish….gut, clean very well…no blood esp. along the spine. You can cut them into chunks bones and all. they will get very soft in the processing. Just make sure that you really leave an inch of headspace before sealing them. Run a clean cloth made damp with a bit of vinegar along the rim before sealing with the snap lid. iT is important that the ring is very tight so that it holds the snap lid in place while processing and won’t boil over.Then process according to manufacturer’s instructions.
Dhayl…Costco salmon is Atlantic and of course, you can use it.
EVERYBODY….PLEASE USE PRESSURE CANNER! Those in my neck of the woods who would like to try making it this summer while salmon season is here, I have 1-21 qt. All American Pressure canner , 1- 21 qt. Presto pressure canner and 3 Presto 16 qt. pressure canners. JUst holler if you want to try canning salmon before yu go out and buy a pressure canner so you can get the hang of it. It comes with a one on one tutorial on SAlmon sardines 101.
OK…back to gardening!
Bettyq Thank you!! This will be our fourth year of salmon fishing in the Kenai Peninsula, hoping to catch the last run of King and Coho salmon.
many thanks, bettyq! spent half of yesterday treasure-hunting the archives here for that recipe, but i decided later on that i could maybe just wing it. yes, have been doing pinoy adobo-style “sardines” using bangus and tamban, but your thai and mediterranean versions sound really good! can hardly wait to do these!
@ BettyQ, should consider intoning Haida peoples’ chants if only for chanterelles. We here at the other end of the Canadian shield are soaked with rain. I have been busy helping older friends (older than me, believe it or not) slowly rip off carpets from flooded basements.
Hi MM. Did you also use a pressure canner or just the regular pressure cooker? It’s bit scary to do this. Me thinks it will explode. :(
Same apprehensions as Corrine! Can I cook it without the bottle? I have no intention of doing a large batch and preserving :)
Corrine…there is a safety valve that releases the pressure when it goes over. Say for instance you want it at 10 pounds pressure and it is one of those canners that you have to adjust the heat to get the right pressure. If it goes over, that valve will open up and release some pressure. Then adjust the heat. if the canner has been sitting for awhile in your garage, test it first before using it just so you know all the valves are not plugged or the rubber gasket is still intact nd not loose. if you have to replace the rubber thingy, I found mine on e bay…bought 2 of them just in case….
My newest pressure canner acquisition…from craigslist…brand new Presto 16 qt. and the guy had the same apprehension like you. Bought a Presto canner after googling how to make canned salmon. .He told he found it too tedious to make the canned salmon and feared it will blow up too! His loss, my gain!…for I haggled the price down to practically nothing but promised to give him a 1case of my Tuscan salmon in 2 weeks!
Haaayy.. We should be neighbors!
BettyQ, perhaps we should not encourage readers of this blog who reside South of the 49th parallel north to look into pressure cookers just now. There are reports that people who have as much as googled pressure cooker have received friendly visits from agents of the NSA. Not as stupid as crazy but those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad.
Ty for sharing MM & BettyQ… makes me cringed when footloose mention the “pressure cooker”.lol. Will surely try this recipe:)
BettyQ, it rain for awhile today.. i hope you’ll get wild mushrooms.what kind of jars should i use for this? i saw alot of jars with those assembled lids.
Oh, dear, Footloose…. this gardening has taken over my life the past few months since spring that i have been out of touch for so long don’t even have time to google anything so didn’t even know about it!
Thanks for the rain dance suggestion! I must say it worked! Now, need a few more days of rain followed by sunshine but not too hot hopefully and those mushrooms will surely wake up!
Rose…are you the one who moved here? if you are, I have a motherload of jars! Come on over or I will meet you and give you a few dozens. All you need to buy is the snap lid for what the jars come with are the rings. I prefer to use the salmon jars or what they call 250 ml. wide mouth. If you buy it at stores it comes with the snap lids and the rings. 250 ml. Jars is just enough to finish in one sitting for both my husband and myself. My youngest son can chow down the whole contents of the 250 ml. bottle.
I also do have a mother load of 500 ml. jars which I use for pickling dill cukes. if you are into dill cukes, I can take you to the farm where the farmer lets me pick those tiny cucumbers. My boys prefer the cornichon size and not many produce stores carry them so I have resorted to going directly to the farmer!
hey Charly….if you catch a white chinook, turn them into this canned salmon sardines as well. White chinooks are highly prized by the aboriginals for their high oil content. I was told by my friends here that they turn them into something like butter which I have yet to try.
Yes I moved here. I saw boxes of jars with those lids from the place I go to. I even met alady whose been bottling her vveggies for years.
It would be nice to meet you.
hi Betty q and market man! How many minutes in the pressure cooker? Can I add vinegar to the recipe? ????
Thea…go on line and follow the manufacturer’s instructions for different altitudes. I process my sardines for 100 minutes. Vinegar is also added to soften the bones of the fish. BUt I use boneless salmon for most of it but since I like the collar and the belly, fins and all, I find that it gets softened without vinegar just the same.
help Bettyq., do you know a good dimsum place here in vancouver?
Hi MM! I’ve been going nuts trying to find out where I can learn how to can and where to get canning supplies here in Manila. Can you help me?
I plan to can roasted tomatoes during the summer and make tons of pickles and more. :)