Chilled Smoked Salmon Stacked Salad
#GiloryGarlicContest #RecipeContest #Livecookoff
Being a Pacific Northwest seafood lover I had to incorporate seafood into my Gilroy Garlic Festival Recipe Cook Off Contest
What else might you except from a World Seafood Champion? After following the Gilroy Garlic Festival and their finalists for years, I have learned that this is the time to shine. In other words, it’s ok to go a bit crazy with your recipe. Garlic, garlic and more garlic would be a great start. This is not a recipe contest that states, “we want easy to recreate recipes”, “simple recipes that any home cook can make”. Instead its about the wow factor and how well you can represent garlic.
This is my entry for the 2018 year contest. I will say that I was very pleased with the dish. Not only on how it tasted but how it looked. FYI, I googled how to make a salmon rose on YouTube. If you are interested, here is the video I watched that helped me learn how to make it. I did however add more petals of sliced salmon to make a larger rose.
In 2016, my sweet friend and food competitor Rebecka Evans won the Gilroy Garlic Contest. I am so proud of her and her gorgeous Goat Cheese Bacon with Creamy Garlic Mustard Sauce souffle she made. She is one talented lady. You can find more information and recipes she has created on her blog At Home with Rebecka.
I am looking forward to watching several of my food friend competitors who were chosen as this years finalists. I sure hope one of them will be crowned the new Gilroy Garlic Champion.
Rebecka Evan with her winning Gilroy Garlic dish. Photo by Lisa Keys
Chilled Smoked Salmon Stacked Salad
Number of servings: 6
Creamy garlic aioli is blended in with layers of shredded celery root, cooked beets and snap peas, Applewood Smoke Sockeye Salmon and shredded boiled eggs. A refreshing chilled salmon salad that can be served anytime.
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups mayonnaise
- 8 large garlic cloves, chopped
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt, divided
- ½ teaspoon black pepper, divided
- 5 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
- 32 ounces Applewood Smoke Sockeye Salmon, packaged in easy peel thin slices, divided
- 1 pound fresh sugar snap peas, blanched and thinly sliced diagonally
- 3 cups celery root, peeled and shredded
- 1 ½ tablespoon cornichons, finely minced
- 1 ½ teaspoons capers, drained and minced
- 2 teaspoons fresh tarragon, minced
- 2 teaspoons fresh parsley, minced
- 2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
- ¼ cup fresh dill, minced
- 8 boiled eggs, peeled and shredded
- 2-15 ounce can whole beets, drained and julienne cut
- ½ cup red onion, finely minced
- Garnish: Salmon roses made with remaining salmon slices, parsley sprigs, and drained capers
- 6-4 inch X 2 inch metal rings or 4 inch mini springform pans with the bottom removed
Instructions
- In a blender prepare the garlic aioli; add in the mayonnaise, chopped garlic, ½ teaspoon kosher salt, ¼ teaspoon black pepper and lemon juice and blend until smooth. Remove from the blender and measure out ¾ cup of the garlic aioli. To the ¾ cup of garlic aioli, add the ¼ cup fresh minced dill. Refrigerate the dill garlic aioli aside as well as the remaining garlic aioli.
- Prepare a bowl of ice water bath and set aside. In a large saucepan with boiling water, blanch the sugar snap peas for a couple of minutes, remove from the boiling water and add to the ice water bath. Once the snap peas are cooled, cut off the ends and discard. Cut the snap peas into small pieces at a diagonal. Toss with a ¼ teaspoon of kosher salt and refrigerate the snap peas until the salad is assembled.
- In a large bowl, mix together the shredded celery root, cornichons, chopped capers, minced tarragon, minced parsley, Dijon mustard and ½ cup of the prepared garlic aioli. Refrigerate until assembly.
- Shred the boiled and peeled eggs. Season with ¼ teaspoon of kosher salt and ¼ teaspoon of black pepper and refrigerate until assembly.
- Cut the whole beets into julienne pieces and toss with the finely minced red onion. Add in ½ cup of the prepared garlic aioli and refrigerate until assembly.
- Measure out 24 ounces of the smoked salmon and cut into small pieces. Refrigerate until assembly.
- With the remaining smoked salmon slices create the roses by rolling a thin slice to make a center. Add additional slices as petals, moving around the center as you add the slices. Slightly bend the edges of the petals outward to make an open rose. Refrigerate the smoked salmon roses until assembly.
- Begin the assembly of the stacked salads by putting each ring on a serving plate. Arrange 4 ounces of chopped smoked salmon, pressing it down onto the bottom of the ring. Top the smoked salmon with 2 tablespoon of the dill garlic aioli, spreading the sauce to cover the salmon.
- Layer the cut sugar snap peas on next, pressing them tightly in place.
- Top the snap peas with a ¼ cup of the celery root mixture. Press the mixture into place.
- Divide the shredded egg on top of the celery root mixture in each ring.
- Add the beet mixture on top of the eggs. (At this point the layered salad may be at the top, just make sure to have the beet mixture all the way around the outer edge.
- Refrigerate the rings until you serve them. Lift the rings while pressing any of the ingredients down to keep them from coming upwards. On each salad add the parsley sprigs, smoked salmon roses and the capers around each rose for garnish.
