Smoked Salmon Smorgasbord

This week the Fairmount Neighborhood had a new vender, the Salmon People, who offer fresh-frozen and smoked Alaskan salmon.  The smoked salmon, a loaf of Eugene City Bakery multigrain bread, and a couple of salads made with fresh produce from SLO Farms, came together in a delicious Smorgasbord.  My husband's heritage is Swedish, and from him I've acquired a taste for smoke fish paired with pickled salads.  The SO Farm this week offered majestic beans in shades from burgundy to deep purple.  They looked magnificent next to the dark red of the cherry plums.  

I had recently been thinking about pickled plums used in Japanese cuisine, which inspired me to try pairing the beans and plums with a hot vinegar dressing, then layering them on to a bed of SLO Farm lettuce.  

 

The beans lost some of their purple color during cooking, but the plums flavored and colored the vinegar dressing, adding an interesting layer of sweetness to the sour, lightly pickled beans.

I also used some delicate SLO Farm fingerling potatoes to prepare my new favorite potato salad made with yogurt and horseradish, inspired by the food blog, the Wednesday chef.  This salad is creamy and rich, without an overwhelming dose of mayonnaise, and a faintly indulgent taste resemblance to baked potato with sour cream.

The sweet and sour beans and plums with the creamy and spicy potatoes were the perfect pairing for salty and smoky salmon on hearty multigrain bread.

Pickled Bean and Plum Salad

For the vinaigrette

1/4 cup rice wine vinegar

2 Tbsp water

1 Tbsp sugar

1/2 tsp salt

pinch of red pepper flakes

1/2 lb green or purple beans, cooked until just tender

About 10 small plums, halved or quartered, with pits removed

Lettuce leaves

Heat the vinaigrette ingredients in a small sauce pan until the sugar is dissolved.  Pour hot vinaigrette over cooked beans, then mix in plums, and let sit for at least 10 minutes. Layer over lettuce and serve. 

Potato Salad with Yogurt and Horseradish

For the dressing

3 Tbsp plain yogurt

1 Tbsp olive oil

1 tsp horseradish (or more if you like it very spicy)

chopped chives

1/2 lb fingerling potatoes

Boil potatoes until just cooked.  Drain and cut into bite sized pieces.

Mix together dressing ingredients and pour over hot potatoes and stir to coat.