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Polish Salmon Spread {Pasta Rybna Łososiowa}

In support of our sandwich addiction, we’re coming up with many ways to continue on the love quest without getting bored with the same old ham sandwich. I’m not even that big of a fan of store-bought ham here in the US. It’s just not that flavorful. Don’t get me wrong, an occasional super-fancy-organic-no-nitrates-all-natural-100%-super ham does make it onto our table, or in despair, we smoke our own once in a while, and enjoy the true flavor of what smoked ham should taste like. Unfortunately, there is just not enough hours in a day to do that all the time.

Today, I’m whipping up a quick sandwich spread, that can also be enjoyed with crackers as a dip. It takes all of 15 min to make, and if you have some cooked fish leftover from a cookout, time is cut in half. If you know anything about me, you’ll know I love leftovers. I look at leftovers as ingredients, ready to be transformed into another dish, which I know our grandmothers and great grandmothers did all the time. Food was just too expensive and too hard to come by to trivialize its importance and not re-utilize every little bit of it. As a matter of fact, a lot of traditional Polish cooking is based on leftovers. Prime example, everyone’s favorite: meat pierogi. Leftover meat from cooking soup or roast is used as filling; kopytka (potato dumplings), leftover potatoes used to make a dumpling; sałatka jarzynowa (traditional Polish vegetable salad) and galaretka (chicken in gelatine) both made using ingredients left over from cooking real chicken soup. That’s just the tip of an iceberg.

Back to fish… Salmon was not a super popular fish in Poland when I was growing up, in the 80s and 90s, but it was quite accessible if you had a chance to visit any of the Scandinavian countries. Living close to the Baltic Sea, other fish was available and plenty, so we did cook perch, mackerel, herring, sprat, cod all the time, and made spreads or dips, fried them or made into soups. Now, you can buy any type of seafood you dream of, local or not, and Poles continue to consume large amounts of seafood each year. Store bought fish spreads are normally made with, aside from other “fillers”, mayo. I like a bit more substantial and updated version, and I’m using cream cheese. I like the mild and creamy texture of it, and how it carries the other ingredients in a spread form. In combination with the other components of this recipe, it creates a smooth and soft paste, slightly fishy with a definite garlic and dill tinge. Delicious.