Mike Sanders is our General Manager at Deneki Outdoors. He’s pushing 19 years with Alaska West, and he knows his salmon. We asked him to write up his family’s favorite salmon recipe, and he was happy to oblige.
Salmon at the Sanders House
The Sanders family eats a lot of salmon. We eat salmon as frequently as pizza, actually we probably eat more salmon than pizza – salmon is on the menu at our house at least once a week. Salmon is a big part of our lives. Our 3 sons Ryan, Dylan and Robby all learned the ethic of working for their food when they were very young. They have been involved in harvesting fish for our family since they could stand stable enough to not be pulled into the river while fighting fish, even when they were so small that we tied their life jackets to the shore.
We put up a lot of fish each summer – between 150 and 200 pounds of processed sockeye fillets. We can it, smoke it, vacuum pack and freeze it. We eat more salmon that any other form of meat not just because we have to – we really do enjoy it. The boys being such a big part of the process may have affected their taste for salmon – but whatever, we all love it and we prepare it a ton of different ways. This is one of our family favorites.
Deep Fried Salmon
- Chunk up skinned salmon that has had the pin bones removed into 1 to 1½ inch cubes.
- Dust the chunks in flour.
- Dip the salmon in your favorite fish batter. We have tried a lot of different batters from tempura and panko to traditional fish and chips batters – they are all good. This recipe from the Food Network includes the batter Rob and Dylan like best. You can use club soda instead of beer – I can’t taste the difference.
- Drop the battered salmon into a hot Fry Daddy
deep fryer (we have graduated to a larger fryer now but a Fry Daddy works great for small batches) and cook it until the batter is light brown. It doesn’t take long and depends on the chuck size, but it’s normally 2 to 4 minutes per batch.
- Serve the salmon with home made fries and your favorite dipping sauce. Ryan likes anything, Dylan prefers tartar sauce and Robby’s favorite is mayonnaise with a little soy sauce stirred in.
Thanks Mike,
We eat salmon two to three times a week. Our favorite recipe is Agave baked salmon.
In an oven at 385 for 20 – 22 minutes.
I generally use 3/4 to 1 lb skinned filet.
* wash and dry
* lightly salt and pepper
* spinkle plenty of celery seed
* on occassion I will add either basil or oregano
*at this point I rub the spice the spice lightly into the meat using a butter knife or spoon
* now pour agave sauce on the fish and rub to cover the meat… use just enough to put a light layer over the fish, kind of like the way you’d put Hershey’s chocolat on ice cream then spread it out.
* Sprinkle on enough Italian bread crumbs to stabilize the agave
* Thinly slice a schallot and put a small layer on the bottom of your baking dishing
* Adding celery is a nice touch on occasion.
* put the seansoned side of the salmon down
* now season the top side
Bake
Yo Mike Sanders! If you are the Mike Sanders aka “Heavy Hitter” from the old Fewmets softball dynasty, I sure would like to come over and say a hearty Hi! Drop me a line skippmatthews@gmail.com
Skip Matthews
Fewmets Shortstop