Cook’s Notebook: Dad loves his salmon salad

A few weeks ago, I visited my dad, Craig Lamberson, and his wife, Diane, at their home near Orient, Wash. I mentioned to them that I was taking over this column for a few weeks while food editor Lorie Hutson was on maternity leave.

So, naturally, Dad had some work for me.

Seems he found a recipe in The Spokesman-Review 10 or 15 years ago for a smoked salmon salad that he’d love to make again. He used salmon he’d smoked himself, caught on that year’s fishing trip to Alaska. The salmon was tossed with greens, most likely spinach, and a warm dressing. He also thinks it may have included mandarin oranges, but he wasn’t sure.

“All I know for sure is that I loved it,” he said.

The newspaper’s electronic archive goes back to 1994. The staff librarians did a keyword search in the system and came up empty. At this point, and without a publication date, finding the recipe would involve a time-consuming and not-at-all fun date with the microfilm.

I turned to the Internet, checking out all my favorite foodie sites before casting a wider net on Google, Yahoo and Ask. There were plenty of smoked salmon salad recipes, but precious few featured a warm dressing, and none of those included mandarins.

Sorry, Dad. No luck. Hopefully, someone out there has the original recipe and is willing to share it. If so, send it to the address below.

In the meantime, here’s a lovely salmon salad recipe from “Oregon’s Cuisine of the Rain,” published in 1993 by Karen Brooks, longtime restaurant writer for The Oregonian in Portland.

Her recipe calls for cold poached salmon, but I’ve made it with leftover roasted salmon in the past. Recently I tried it with kippered smoked salmon and was pleased with the results. Depending on the saltiness of the smoked salmon, however, you may want to reduce the salt in the dressing from 1/4 teaspoon to a little pinch, or less. That’s up to you.

Also, I used prewashed, bagged baby spinach rather than hassle with removing the stems from mature bulk spinach. Again, your call.

In her introduction to the recipe, Brooks suggests that when strawberries are out of season, use three comice or red bartlett pears, cored and sliced.

Spinach Salad with Salmon, Strawberries and Warm Honey-Bacon Dressing

From “Oregon’s Cuisines of the Rain” by Karen Brooks

For the salad:

1 1/2 pounds spinach

6 slices bacon

1 pound cold poached salmon, broken into coarse pieces

1 small red onion, thinly sliced and separated into rings

1 pint (2 cups) fresh strawberries, hulled and sliced

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

For the dressing:

Reserved bacon drippings

1 tablespoon red wine vinegar

1 tablespoon honey

1/4 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1/4 teaspoon salt

Remove and discard the stems from the spinach and dry the leaves thoroughly.

Fry the bacon in a skillet over medium-high heat until crisp. Remove the bacon and set aside on paper towels to drain; reserve the drippings in the skillet.

In a salad bowl, combine the spinach, salmon and onion rings. Crumble the bacon into pieces and add to the bowl. Sprinkle the strawberries with the lemon juice and add to the salad.

To make the dressing, reheat the reserved bacon drippings in the skillet. Stir in the vinegar, honey, mustard and salt. Taste and adjust the seasoning. Bring the dressing to a boil, remove from the heat and immediately pour over the salad. Toss lightly and serve immediately.

Yield: 6 servings.

Approximate nutrition per serving: 240 calories, 10 grams fat (3 grams saturated, 37 percent fat calories), 26 grams protein, 12 grams carbohydrate, 5 grams dietary fiber, 50 milligrams cholesterol, 340 milligrams sodium.