Rice Balls!

I was telling my friend Gloria what I'd been up to that day. I said I'd made rice balls with salt salmon.

"What is salt salmon?" she asked. 

"Well," said I, "you take some salmon, and you put salt on it."

It's true. Making salt salmon is simple as anything. Simply take a side of salmon, cut it into fillets (you can leave the skin on), and cover it in sea salt or koshering salt. Let it sit for a while, then wrap each fillet in several layers of paper towel, then wrap em all up in newspaper. Set them in the fridge for several days, uncovered. Since its curing, it won't make your fridge smell.  Take them out when you're ready to make flakes. Keep reading to find out how. 

Here's how to make rice balls, and a recipe for salt salmon flakes will follow. 

-2 C freshly steamed rice
-nori
-salt salmon flakes, pickled plums, egg, and/or whatever other filling you want. Salmon is my favorite, followed closely by pickled plums with a bit of mint
-salt

Set out a few sheets of parchment or wax paper. Let the rice cool enough to handle it. Wet your hands a bit, and sprinkle salt on them. This is the prevent the rice from sticking to your hands. Take a smallish handful of rice. Cup your hand, and press a small divet in the middle. Add filling. Put some more rice on top. Press and roll firmly into a ball. Add a square of nori for decoration. Serve plain, or with shoyu for dipping. 

Makes 12-16 balls.

Salt salmon flakes!

-1 side of salt salmon
-shoyu (soy sauce)
-sake (or white wine or cooking sherry, if that's what's in the house)

Boil a few quarts of water. Add salmon fillets, and poach for 10 minutes. Remove the skin and place in a large skillet over medium heat. Using cooking chopsticks or 2 forks, fluff the fish. When it dries a bit, add a few tablespoons each of the shoyu and sake—I do 3 for each 10 oz. of fish. Stir til all the liquid has evaporated. 

The flakes will keep in a jar or Tupperware for a week or so, and you can do basically anything with them.