New Hampshire

Roasted Land Salmon with Vegetable and Tricolor Salad

Jessica B. (original recipe)

I've never been to New Hampshire so I don't have any personal experience to share. The only time the Granite State ever came onto my academic radar was for a rather dubious distinction. You see, here is a map of New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine.

You will notice the large dark green splotch in northern New York that is the Adirondacks. There are many detractors to the idea that I won't indulge here, merely to assert that some of us dream of reintroducing wolves to the Adirondacks and adjacent wilderness areas. Now let me direct your attention to Maine, which is almost all dark green, and, you guessed it, could also be a potential eastern-U.S. refuge (a homeland if you will) for wolves, and no one even lives in Maine to complain. If you aren't already thinking, could these not function as one great metapopulation of Eastern wolves, then perhaps you needn't because, wait, you say, Vermont? No one lives there either! The wolves could saunter right through and nobody would notice!

You are forgetting New Hampshire (please refer back to map). You see it there, tucked between Vermont and Maine? For some reason, people do live there, and this is a problem for wolf dispersal.

I doubt Jessica personally hates wolves, but maybe she hates me, because this recipe is going to take a lot of effort to veganize, from the protein to the sauce to the salad. When I first read salmon I was thinking tofu, but then I checked my notes from the sans-Internet years, and discovered an extremely complicated untested recipe for "land salmon" seitan. I haven't made seitan in forever and people have been asking me about it so I thought I'd give it a try, in honor of nearly-forgotten New Hampshire.

That didn't go so well. I tried two recipes but seitan simply tastes too much like seitan. It works well for strong flavors (like Cornell un-chicken) but all the delicious subtle flavors of land salmon are lost. However, my efforts were still fruitful. I don't love squash, but I decided that's good because I don't really like fish either and squash is a lot less gross than fish. I realized if I add beets for color and walnuts for Omega 3s, then a stuffed squash makes for a pretty solid land salmon! So I will make a third and final attempt. I can't work this hard for every state, but I wanted to get New Hampshire right since it is one of the earliest contests and people make such a big deal about it.

I've also decided to rework the Tricolor Salad because vegan mozzarella recipes are a lot of work and require weird ingredients. I have nothing against weird ingredients so long as I already own them or can buy them locally. Also, mozzarella and tomatoes with salmon seems like a strange combination. Instead I will pivot off the avocado (like walnuts, a good plant-based source of Omega 3s) and make a vegetarian-sushi-inspired salad that will compliment the land salmon. It's still Tricolor, if you count light green and dark green as separate colors, or if you add the optional watermelon radish.

Land Salmon

• 2 small red Beets, chopped

• 1 Delicata squash

• Walnut oil

• 1 stalk Celery, chopped finely

• 1/2" Ginger, minced

• 3 cloves Garlic, minced

• 1 stalk Lemongrass, chopped roughly

• 1/2 tsp. Tomato paste

• 1/2 tsp. Smoked paprika

• 2 Tbs. TVP

• 2 Tbs. Water

• 1 Tbs. Soy Sauce

• 1 tsp. of Orange-pineapple juice

• Dash of Nutritional yeast

• 2 Tbs. Walnuts, chopped or ground

Tricolor Salad

• 1 Tbs. Walnut oil

• 1 tsp. Soy Sauce

• 3/4 tsp. Rice wine vinegar

• 1/4 tsp. Ume plum vinegar

• 1/2 shredded, or spiralized and chopped, Carrot

• 1/2 shredded, or spiralized and chopped, Cucumber

• 1/2 small Avocado, diced

• 1/2 Watermelon radish, sliced with a mandolin (optional)

Cream Sauce

• 1 tsp. vegan Butter

• 1 tsp. All-purpose flour

• 1/3 cu. water

• 1/4 cube Vegetable bouillon

• 2 sprigs Dill, cleaned

• 1/3 cu. Almond milk

• 2 tsp. Lemon juice

To Serve

• Cooked Rice

• Blanched or roasted Broccoli

• Lemon wedges (optional)

Preparation

First bring a pot to boil with approximately a pint of water. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Cut a delicata squash in half and scrape out the seeds. Drizzle it with oil and rub oil around the surface. Sprinkle a little salt, then place squash in the oven and add the beets to the pot. Cook them both for 30 minutes, turning the squash over half way.

While the squash and beets cook, slice your vegetables. Heat oil in a pan and add the celery, sauteing over medium heat for 4-5 minutes. Then add the garlic, ginger, and lemongrass and cook for approximately a minute more. Add the smoked paprika and tomato paste. Stir to coat the vegetables, then add the TVP, water, soy sauce, and orange-pineapple juice. Allow the TVP to hydrate, cooking and stirring, for approximately 8 minutes. Pick out the lemongrass pieces and discard.

For the tricolor salad, simply combine all ingredients in a bowl.

For the cream sauce, start by making a roux: melt the vegan butter in a small pan, then add the flour and cook, stirring, for a few minutes. Now add the water, vegetable bouillon, and dill. Dissolve the roux and bouillon in the water, then add the almond milk and heat until hot but not boiling. Add the lemon juice immediately before serving.

To assemble the land salmon, start by laying down half a squash. Sprinkle with nutritional yeast and chopped or ground walnuts. Then spread some of the vegetable mixture in the squash cavity. Layer beet slices on top. Serve over rice with broccoli and slathered in cream sauce, with tricolor salad on the side.

Discussion

My first attempt at seitan looked nice, but tasted like seitan.

It's a hit! As I said, I don't love squash, but this was pretty undeniably good. Does it taste like salmon? Of course not. But the salmon will thank you. I almost forgot the avocado (hence the second photo) but it's a necessary component of the tricolor salad and provides Omega 3s. All in all, this is a pretty involved recipe for lunchtime but it's doable. It would also make a great dinner.

I was never a fan of fish but I did eat salmon once since giving up meat. It was a very memorable high tea on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. We shared a single portion while otherwise omitting meat dishes and it was pretty fancy. Obviously I don't eat meat, but a part of this reasoning is not wanting to commoditize the lives of animals. As kind as you try to be, if you are treating animals like a commodity, there will be abuses. I would hate for another species to treat us like a commodity.

The best reason for eating meat (and animal products more generally) is cultural, and I think this is a fairly legitimate concern. The animal rights activist in me would love to see the total embrace of plant-based diets, but it would be a step forward if meat consumption was comparatively rare, perhaps ritual (e.g. Thanksgiving), and the individual animals treated as individuals and with respect. It would, of course, be a gamechanger for the climate. Maybe that sounds a long way off, but each generation is born naked and ignorant and it only takes a single generation to decide so for profound change to take place. How do we get there?

Silly as it sounds, I think Meatless Monday is actually a pretty solid ask. If everyone participated, that would be better than if 10% of the population followed a strict vegan diet. As I have shown with my bravery in the face of squash and, as you will see, other vegetables to come, small steps can open up undiscovered avenues and help pave the way for more dramatic dietary changes. Perhaps municipalities can voluntarily participate in Meatless Monday initiatives, whereby food service providers voluntarily steer their patrons toward voluntarily choosing meatless specials. I used the world 'voluntarily' three times in one sentence, but this would still be a world of difference from individuals making the pledge individually without community support. The idea would be to coerce near-total participation through social pressure (save the climate! it's our patriotic duty!) and by removing obstacles to participation. Old people who are stuck in their ways will make whatever sacrifices they can, but younger people will learn to live in harmony with the Earth starting in the first place.

Animal rights activists will say, it's not a sacrifice! Plant-based diets are great! Focus on what you get to eat, not what you are giving up. But I think it is OK to ask people to sacrifice, to save the world. So if it's a sacrifice for you, then know we appreciate it.

Iowa

New Hampshire The first U.S. state to declare independence from England

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