Today is American Indian Heritage Day. A 2010 next-day nod to offset the much touted Thanksgiving day which I call Xgiving. The romanticized history of this holiday has been taught for decades in elementary schools by having children make paper pilgrim hats and construction-paper-feather headdresses and that we all lived happily every after. The real history is much more grim.
But. Today, I’m not going there. Since Xgiving is all about food, and I do love THAT genre of food, just NOT the holiday. This diary is dedicated to American Indian ingredients and a modern way to apply them. I’ve posted some of these recipes in years past, hopefully it will be interesting for new eyes.
There are a lot of online resources for traditional American Indian recipes. I'd like to share my modern adaptation of many traditional ingredients and my photos of the process and finished dish.
First I'd like to start with my specialty, Cedar Planked Salmon from our tribes in the Northwest.
Start with soaking cedar or alder planks for at least one hour. I prefer cedar over alder for the flavor it gives to the salmon. I prefer the thin planks and use only one time. (I save the charred plank to start the next fire. We have this dish so often that I always have a plank soaking.) Build a really kick-ass wood fire and don't use briquets, gag.
Drain water from planks. Salt and pepper the plank and place skinless salmon on top, salt, pepper and sprinkle a thick layer of brown sugar on top of the salmon.
Prepare your coals to reach a the grey almost ashy stage, level them out to be very flat. You don’t want coals that are still in the igniting stage or your planks to burn up. The bottom of the planks will burn, but just to produce a little smoke, not incinerate. There’s a fine line between too hot and just right.
Place the plank with sugared salmon directly on the grill and close the lid, do not peek or the internal temperature won't rise. I remove my salmon when the outside thermometer reaches a little over 500 degrees, takes between 9 and 20 minutes depending on weather factors. Have a water squirt bottle handy for flare ups if you see too much dense smoke.
Remove finished charred plank and now lovely smoked salmon from grill, it's easier to remove from plank after it has rested a short time in a warm place in your kitchen. You can cover with foil while it’s resting for a few minutes before plating. You’ll find the taste of the cedar smoke to be a perfect complement to the rich salmon which will now have the consistency of marshmallows, IF you didn’t overcook it. The brown sugar becomes just a faint glaze, but perfect.
Here’s a traditional method of smoking salmon from our tribes in the Pacific Northwest.
“Instead of being slowly cold smoked to produce the Nova Scotia or Scottish style product, the fish is exposed to hot smoke, for a shorter period of time. The result is salmon that is succulently meaty, or more closely resembling poached fish in texture. It has a more pronounced, smoky flavor and is quite different from whitish, dry kippered or baked salmon [...]”
”The thick, meaty fillets from the 20- to 40-pound Chinook or coho salmon that the Indians catch in gill nets are rich, moist, a trifle oily at the edges with a forcefully salty, smoky tang: This type of smoked salmon cannot be sliced thin but is best cut in inch-thick slices [...]” Source.
Now that you have a bunch of leftover turkey, try my invention.
Use any squash or pumpkin. I prefer butternut squash, cut squash in half and roast until tender, 30-40 minutes. Cool so you can handle. Scoop flesh from shells and set aside. Sauté chopped yellow onions in olive oil, salt and pepper in a stock pan to accommodate potential size of your soup. The more browned the onions the more flavor you'll get. Add chicken or vegetable stock to your desired consistency and then the squash. Blend with one of those mini-boat motors or I think it's called a blending stick. Top with turkey and I like a fresh sage chiffonade for garnish.
My proportions are something like this:
1 butternut squash
2 large onions, just enough olive oil to prevent sticking and to brown properly
1 half-liter to one liter of stock, you decide...
Another adaptation of mine is grass fed lamb tenderloin with fresh rosemary grilled over hardwood coals:
Coat the tenderloins in olive oil and lots of fresh chopped rosemary, salt and pepper and grill
And finally Navajo Mutton (well, lamb…, don’t tell my relatives) Stew.
My version uses lean lamb chunks roasted with chopped onions, deglazed with good ole water, seasoned with Tibetan Pink salt and black pepper, and dried blue corn that has been soaked overnight. Simmer for 3 hours or until corn splits then add Yukon Gold potato chunks and cook for another 20 to 30 minutes. Serve with dry bread (a more healthy version of any fry bread recipe out there, grill over wood coals or on a flat grill on the stovetop) for soaking up all the broth. YUM.
Speaking of fry bread. This fry bread video demo is from the Navajo Nation:
Fry bread is like sex, when it's good it's damn good, when it's bad it's still pretty good
There are a zillion fry bread recipes for you to try. I prefer to grill it over hardwood coals to reduce the calorie content. You can use the same dough recipe as fry bread.
Here's an idea I stole from the Tuscans, a grill in my fireplace with my dry bread grilling:
Got any American Indian recipes to share?