Smoked fish salad with dill dressing and potato chips

 

The recipe was billed as an excuse to eat potato chips. I can't argue with that. Here they stand in for croutons in a salad. I had to make this one because the dill came up and tried to take over the yard.

I substituted candied salmon for the smoked trout because the trout price made me go eep! The salmon did too, but it was $4 less eep-inducing so I opted for that.

Smoked trout salad with dill dressing and potato chips

Adapted from the Washington Post as published in the Star Tribune Taste section. Serves 2.

Ingredients
5 ounces cucumber, thinly sliced (the original recipe calls for Persian)
¼ cup white wine vinegar
Dash of sea salt
Pinch of sugar
3 cups mixed salad greens
6 ounces smoked trout or other smoked fish
1 small bunch of fresh dill, divided
2 tablespoons grainy brown mustard
1 teaspoon honey
2½ tablespoons olive oil
Potato chips for garnish (I used Lay’s dill-flavored chips)

Method
Combine sliced cucumbers, vinegar, salt and sugar in a jar with a tight-fitting lid. Shake vigorously for at least 30 seconds.

Line two plates with salad greens. Flake salmon over top of the greens on the plates. Drain cucumbers, reserving liquid. Strew the cucumbers over top of the salmon on the plates.

Pour liquid back in the jar. Chop half of the dill and add that to the jar along with mustard and honey. Mix well and drizzle in olive oil, stirring as you go. If it resists emulsifying, put the lid back on and shake it.

Pour dressing over salads. Top with potato chips, breaking up the larger ones, and top with remaining dill fronds.

Rating: Nice spring or summer salad. We used some gem-like red lettuce from the farmers market and some volunteer green lettuce from the garden along with a bunch of that volunteer dill. Perfectly fine as is, and the potato chips aren't a bad touch. If I make it again I might try letting the dill infuse the white wine vinegar a tad long. 

Note: The recipe calls for shaking the cucumbers vigorously with vinegar, sugar and salt on the theory it bruises the cucumber and causes it to release liquid. Not sure if that happened or not; I used mini snacking cucumbers instead of the Persian cucumber called for because there wasn’t one in the store. Plus, when you’re using a partial cucumber you know you’re going to wind up tossing it in the compost because an opened cucumber turns from a solid to liquid even more dramatically than a cat.