Spruce Tip and Jasmine-Cured Salmon, Herb and Maple Crème Fraîche, and Savoury Herb Ricotta Pancakes
Three recipes in one post! The countdown to holiday feasting has begun!
Well, everyone, we are thirteen days away from the holidays, and I owe you all a post, so to make up for my absence, I am gifting you three recipes!
These ones are very well-tested, because I make this combo almost every year. I have been perfecting this cured salmon for many, many years now, spanning well over a decade. This was inspired by my old friend and former employer, Shabnam Weber, now the president of the Tea Association of Canada. I make variations of this cured salmon depending on the season, but the jasmine tea on the salmon cure is a perennial favourite in my household. I first had this divine combination at one of our staff parties back when Shabnam ran The Tea Emporium in Toronto. I was their employee back then, and I so looked forward to those staff parties with her and her former husband at their kitchen’s helm because the food at those parties were so damn good! Obviously, every course was infused with tea! Shabnam served us some jasmine-cured salmon during one of those parties and I instantly fell in love. Truly, that little bite of cured salmon became a core culinary memory that eventually led to me making my own version, if only to try and reconstruct the feeling I got when I had my first bite of that magical appetizer.
The addition of spruce tips to my salmon cure came around the time I first discovered spruce tips, back at another tea shop wherein I was employed—a couple of years after I settled into my life here in Vancouver. It was around 2012 or 2013 when a forager friend of the tea shop’s owner came in with a variety of edible evergreen tips for us to try: spruce, pine, cedar, and fir. This was one of my first introductions to foraging edibles in the wild. Having grown up in big cities all of my life, foraging the wild for edible food never really entered my periphery or consciousness until this particular moment. We brewed a variety of these evergreen tips like we brewed green tea, then proceeded to drink in this heavenly tisane. This bonafide big city gal’s mind was well and truly blown away. It was like drinking in the forest.
These evergreen tips dry very well. I was gifted some after the tasting with this forager, and I made sure to dry them well for storage over the coming months. Evergreen tips like spruce tips are typically harvested over the early spring—around mid-April in this part of the world. They are harvested when the evergreen tips start to emerge out of their brown, papery casings. This is the ideal stage for harvest; the tips will be tender, and they will emit a bright, resinous fragrance, like that of an evergreen forest. Their flavour—equally resinous in taste, with bright, citrus notes—is truly unmatched. If you ever encounter some young spruce tips, chew on one to taste. I promise you, they are delicious.
Why am I writing about spruce tips when December clearly isn’t the season for them? Honestly, the scent of evergreens is the smell of December for me. Dried spruce tips are also readily available for purchase here in Canada or in parts of the USA. Just make sure you purchase them from reputable sources. This shop is one of my favourite sources for locally and responsibly-foraged edibles here in Canada. If you cannot find any spruce tips where you live, feel free to omit this and stick with just the jasmine tea for the cure, but please use organic tea when possible.
All the components that make up this holiday-and-entertaining-friendly appetizer also make great standalone dishes. The cured salmon is definitely the star; feel free to make only the salmon and serve that with whatever you choose! You certainly do not have to make the savoury ricotta pancakes nor the herb and maple crème fraîche. You can save the recipe for these ricotta pancakes for some other occasion—maybe for a brunch! You can also make the sauce for a different dish—say, roasted potatoes, roasted squash, or roasted fennel! Drizzle this herb and maple crème fraîche over those roasted veggies and you will have made a winning side!
Another hot tip: you can make the ricotta pancakes well in advance! Cook the pancakes, cool them, then transfer them into an air-tight freezer bag or container, making sure you line each pancake layer with parchment paper. Defrost them in your fridge the night before you plan on serving them. Set your oven to 350°F. Take some parchment paper sheets, crumple them, run them under your faucet until wet, and then squeeze the water out of the parchment paper. Layer your baking sheet with a damp parchment paper sheet, then the pancakes, then another layer of damp parchment paper. Cover the entire baking sheet with aluminum foil and heat up the pancakes for around 10 to 12 minutes. Take off the foil and the top parchment paper layer and let the pancakes toast, uncovered, for another 5 minutes. No one will ever know that you did not spend an entire morning on the day of your brunch or holiday party making the batter and flipping all of those pancakes.
