Every Friday in Lent when I was growing up, our kitchen in Denton smelled like onions and hot oil by five o'clock. My mom, Carol, managed a school cafeteria for years, and she could feed a crowd out of a can like nobody I've ever met. Lent Fridays meant salmon patties, mashed potatoes and a heap of green peas, and I'm fairly sure I was twelve before I knew salmon came in any shape but round.
I still do meatless Fridays in Lent out of habit, even though we go to a Methodist church now, and Matt goes along with it as long as nobody serves him tofu. Yesterday was Ash Wednesday, so last night I made the first batch of the season. Five of us ate for about $10.
It was also one of the first real dinners I've cooked since the flu went through our whole house last week, and it felt good to stand at the stove with something sizzling again.
The recipe
Mom's version was canned salmon, saltines, egg and onion, and that's still the backbone. I've added a spoonful of mayonnaise and a little mustard, which she considers fussy, and I fry them in my cast-iron skillet instead of her old electric one. Makes 10 patties.
- 2 cans (14.75 ounces each) pink salmon, drained
- 18 saltine crackers, crushed fine (about 3/4 cup)
- 2 eggs
- Half a small onion, grated
- 1 tablespoon mayonnaise and 1 teaspoon yellow mustard
- Juice of half a lemon, plus wedges for serving
- Black pepper and a pinch of garlic powder
- About 1/4 cup vegetable oil for frying
Canned pink salmon comes with skin and soft bones. Mom picked out every scrap of both, standing at the counter while the oil heated. I pull out the skin and the big pieces of spine and mash the little soft bones right in with a fork. They disappear completely, and nobody at my table has ever noticed.
Mix everything except the oil in a bowl with your hands. (My wedding ring goes on the windowsill for this part.) Let it sit for 10 minutes so the crackers soak up the egg, then shape 10 patties about half an inch thick. If they feel too wet to hold together, crush in a few more crackers.
Heat the oil in a 12-inch skillet over medium until it shimmers. Fry the patties about 4 minutes a side, until they're deep golden brown, and leave them alone for the first three minutes or they'll break when you flip. Drain them on a paper towel-lined sheet pan, and keep the first batch warm in a 200-degree oven while the second one cooks.
What it costs
- 2 cans pink salmon: $6.70
- One sleeve of saltines: $0.42
- 2 eggs: $0.38
- Onion, lemon, mayo and mustard: $1.18
- Oil: $0.25
- A 12-ounce bag of frozen peas: $1.15
That's $10.08 for five, about $2 a person, with two patties left over for Matt's lunch today. Mashed potatoes add about a dollar and twenty minutes. Last night we had rice instead, because I was still running at about 80 percent.
How it went over
Wyatt ate three and wanted to know why we don't have these more often. Matt put hot sauce on his and said they tasted "like your mom's house," which I've decided was a compliment. Rosie ate hers in crumbs, mostly off the table, and fed a few to Biscuit when she thought I wasn't looking. Eli is the reason I grate the onion instead of chopping it, and he still found two pieces. He ate one patty plain, then asked for a cheese quesadilla, which I made. It's Lent, not a hunger strike.
The one thing I'd change from last night: I crowded the pan with six patties in the first batch, and they steamed instead of browning. Five at a time is the limit in a 12-inch skillet. I know that. I did it anyway, because I was hungry and tired, which is how most kitchen mistakes happen, professional ones included.
Fridays from here
Salmon patties are one of three Lent Friday dinners I rotate, along with the fish tacos I wrote about last April and a homemade cheese pizza night. Over seven Fridays I'll make these at least twice, and the second time there will be mashed potatoes, because Wyatt has already asked.
Mom called this morning to ask how they turned out. When I told her I'd added mayonnaise, there was a long pause, and then she said, "Well, as long as the kids ate them." Two out of three did, and the third ate a quesadilla next to them. I'm counting it.
