Just another Day on the Farm

The Jan topic is fish and seafood, and my mind jumped to my time living in Iqaluit, Nunavut and being able to buy locally caught Char along with many other kinds of freshly caught seafood and wild game at the local hunters store.

Inuk drying char the traditional way

(I found this awesome photo from ronwassink blog, sadly no link working)

I knew the spot as soon as I saw the photo, I have hiked down to that area many times with my husband and my hounds.

We were there for five years and I bought a goodly amount of Char over those years, Char to my taste buds is northern Salmon. The time of year can effect the color of the flesh which can be a lighter to darker pink to an almost deep red color.  Its flesh to me is a touch softer than B.C. Salmon. Strangely on the flip side, I find the dried and smoked Char to be firmer and of a stronger flavour then B.C. Wild caught dried and smoked..

They can be quite big fish and I was able to buy them whole or cleaned, or if you want to spend the money all freeze wrapped in portions. ( I never bought them in portions or pre-seasoned or such while I lived up there) I bought them whole, ideally gutted if I was lucky. But since moving down south to the Ottawa area, I have been lucky enough to have the portioned ones come down with friends. Below is one of my favorite ways to serve it.

Smoked Pan Fried Char on a bed of cabbage and mushrooms

In town, we did fish fry and bake as well as dried and smoked but I had to pick a recipe for this post. This proved more difficult for me then I thought it would.. I wanted to do some research and make sure that the recipes and ways I was taught by the local ladies I befriended while I lived there were a good reflection of the norm.

As I read recipes on the net, I started to laugh.. and I know that it’s not nice to say this but many of those recipes did not come from the north, I know this because when they start writing about using fresh peppers, onions and top with chopped with fresh green onion or chives.. then I truly started to giggle.

The food costs in the north and the distant that food is flown in.. no one I knew made dishes with the type or style of fresh food that I was reading, One winter I was wanting to make a stir-fry, I had my meat and my dried and then soaked foods ready and I send my hubby to the North Store for a green pepper, I wanted one fresh pepper in this otherwise, local meat, dried food stir-fry to be put over baked rice. He came home with a good sizes purple onion? I was like.. really they didn’t have a single pepper in the store.. o they did.. but that single pepper was 18 dollars and my hubby was not willing to spend that, he bought me the 8 dollar single purple onion.

So I am going to share with you a recipe that was taught to me from a lovely 20 something born and raised Inuit who lived a few doors down from us. This dish was a great way to use up the scraps that would be left over from the bigger dishes and or if you were preserving the larger pieces.

Char Patties to be served with Bannock

• One large portion of Char skinned and deboned (2 cups approx.)
• 1 cup of instant Potato flakes (add half water to rehydrated them)
• Salt, Pepper to taste
• Lard for the pan
• Flour with salt-pepper-dried garlic powder