Learning how to prep your seafood

You know you love the taste of shrimp, salmon and other seafood, but how are your prepping skills?

Marsh Skeele, Co-Founder, Sitka Salmon Shares, gives us a few tips and tells us more about Sitka Salmon Shares, a progressive company that provides consumers and chefs in the Midwest with high-quality, sustainable seafood shipped directly from Alaska.

About:

• Sitka’s fishermen owners handle each catch with care, freezing the fish at the peak of quality.
• A pioneer in the sustainable seafood industry, Sitka seeks to increase transparency with their boat-to-doorstep model. Customers can trace back their fish to the very fisherman (or woman) who caught it, keeping themselves accountable in an industry that usually offers very little traceability.
• Most customers opt to be members of the community supported fishery, receiving a box of seafood monthly, but Sitka’s products can also be found at farmers’ markets and in restaurants across the Midwest.
• For the holidays, Sitka is offering a special promotion for customers to try their product without becoming a member, a perfect gift for the foodie who has everything. The box features an array of Sitka’s seafood like fresh and smoked salmon as well as cod and includes spruce tip salt from Pure Alaska Sea Salt and an Adler plank made by one of Sitka’s fishermen for grilling salmon.

GRAVLAX RECIPE

3- to 4-pound cleaned salmon, fileted, skin on

1 cup salt

2 cups brown sugar

1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper

¼ cup spirits, like brandy, gin, aquavit or lemon vodka

2 good-size bunches of fresh dill, roughly chopped

Lemon wedges for serving

• Lay both halves of the salmon, skin side down, on a plate.
• Toss together the salt, brown sugar and pepper and rub this mixture all over the salmon (the skin too)
• Splash on the spirits. Put most of the dill on the flesh side of one of the fillets, sandwich them together, tail to tail, and rub any remaining salt-sugar mixture on the outside; cover with any remaining dill, then wrap tightly in plastic wrap.
• Cover the sandwich with another plate and top with something that weighs a couple of pounds
• Open the package every 12 to 24 hours and baste, inside and out, with the accumulated juices. When the flesh is opaque, on the second or third day (you will see it changing when you baste it), slice thinly as you would smoked salmon — on the bias and without the skin — and serve with rye bread or pumpernickel and lemon wedges.

MAPLE DIJON SALMON SKEWERS

• 1 pound salmon fillet, skin removed and cut into 1½-inch pieces
• 1 tablespoon pure maple syrup
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• ½ tablespoon Dijon mustard
• ½ tablespoon whole-grain mustard
• 2 tablespoons grapeseed or vegetable oil
• 8 6-inch metal skewers, or wooden skewers soaked in water for 1 hour
• Salt and pepper, to taste

• In a small bowl, whisk the maple syrup with lemon juice, both mustards, and 1 tablespoon of grapeseed oil.
• Thread the salmon onto skewers, and season all over with salt and pepper.
• In a large cast-iron skillet, heat 1 tablespoon of the oil until shimmering. Add half of the skewers and cook over medium-high heat until browned on the bottom (approx. 1 to 2 minutes).
• Flip the skewers-basting with the mustard glaze and turning occasionally-until glazed and nearly cooked through (about 5 minutes total). Repeat with the remaining oil and skewers.
• Transfer to a platter and serve!
• For more information, please visit www.sitkasalmonshares.com and stay in touch on Facebook and Instagram.