Chia-Flax Crackers (Paleo and nut-free)

Well, it turns out I have become an Intermittent Poster. Perhaps that is because I am mostly eating recipes of things I've made before, with a little less culinary creating. But My Charming Companion discovered a new cracker recipe in the last week, and after making 4 batches, I want to preserve the recipe! It doesn't have any nut flours in it (all my previous crackers have used almond flour). This is more of a seed cracker - it's great with butter, with avocado, smoked oysters, and plain. This is the cracker I want to have when I next make gravlox - it seems a bit more rye-like and I imagine the combo to be quite delicious.

Original online recipe is here, My Charming Companion's version is below. These crackers were made on one of those flat edged baking sheets (which makes spreading the mixture really easy).

Chia-Flax Crackers
1/2 c.  flaxseed meal (we grind whole flaxseeds in a coffee grinder)
1/4 c.  chia seeds 
1/4 c. whole flax seeds
1 c. water
1/4 tsp. garlic powder
1 Tbsp.  Tamari (or twice that amount of coconut aminos)
1/8 tsp. sea salt

1. In bowl, combine ingredients. Let stand for 10 minutes to thicken.

This is the blob on the parchment covered cookie sheet before spreading.

2. Evenly spread mix on parchment lined baking sheet. This takes some time - you want a thin layer that should cover your entire baking sheet.

You can see how gelatinous the mixture is!

3. Bake at 350°F  for 15 minutes, remove from oven and "cut" into squares (you are scoring more than cutting).
4. Return to oven for 15 minutes, then flip crackers over and bake for an additional 5-10 minutes (the parchment becomes necessary here as your agent to flip the crackers). You can also break them into their individual crackers now. They are done when they are crispy. If you did not have an even spread, some of the thicker crackers may need a few more minutes.

These cool almost immediately and you can eat them right away.

Gravlax with paleo crackers

I brought homemade gravlax to My Charming Companion's family Christmas, and it was a big success: meltingly tender and the right amount of salty with really nice accents of dill and caraway. It inspired some commentary and questions about the difference between gravlax and lox: gravlax is cured in salt AND sugar for 1-3 days and includes dill, whereas lox is cured in salt only for several weeks and is often confused with cold smoked salmon. We did all agree that all are delicious, and proceeded to eat it all up. Gravlax is just sort of sparkly and lovely to bring somewhere - it's novel and special and it's cured salmon! yum.

Cured salmon filet before slicing and pressing with dill

There are numerous recipes for gravlax and I ended up searching through lots of them. The recipes vary in the amount of salt and sugar, in the ratio of the two, there is a variety of spices and flavors, and some use alcohol and others don't. What it seems from this wide range of recipes is that there are many ways to make good gravlax, so go with a recipe that appeals to you! I found myself drawn to two: one from Saveur and one from the NY Times (in an article with 3 other recipes) because they used less sugar and salt overall and the spicing seemed most interesting. The recipe I ultimately used was most based on the one in the NY Times by chef Tom Valenti, and needs to cure for about 48 hours. Below is my adaptation.

Gravlax
1 2 pound fillet of salmon, pin bones removed
2 tablespoons vodka or tequila
1/2 cup salt
1/4 cup sugar
2 bay leaves, chopped
2 bunches dill, stems and all, minced
1/2 onion, sliced thinly
1 tablespoon cracked black pepper
1 tablespoon caraway seeds, lightly toasted
1 tablespoon minced tarragon

Salmon on plastic wrap with salt and sugar

1. Place salmon, skin side down, on a large sheet of plastic wrap, and sprinkle it with the alcohol. Mix together the salt and sugar, then sprinkle onto the flesh side of the salmon. Mix together the bay leaves, dill, pepper, caraway seeds, and tarragon. Cover the flesh side of the salmon with the onions and this mixture, making sure to coat it completely (see photo below).
2. Wrap the fish well (as in several layers of plastic wrap), and refrigerate for about 48 hours. The salmon will release a lot of liquid, so be careful to have the whole plastic wrapped package in a tupperware or deep dish of some kind to catch all that liquid.
3. After 48 hours, unwrap the salmon and rinse off the cure.* Dry and filet the skin off as carefully as possible. I chopped up another 1/4 cup of fresh dill and pressed it to the underside of the gravlox so that there was dill in each slice. To serve, slice gravlax thinly with a sharp knife. I had mine with homemade crackers (see below) and it was excellent.

Pre-wrapping it up with all the herbs

*If you are not serving right away, do still rinse off the cure after 48 hours. Not rinsing the cure will make the gravlax more dry and overly salty. Store the gravlax in tupperware or wrapped up until ready to serve. I read that the gravlax keep in this state anywhere from 3 days to 2 weeks, but have not tested the longer length!

I made some special paleo crackers to eat my gravlax with - caraway dill almond ones, following my previously posted recipe but swapping out some herbs. They turned out great.

Almond Caraway Dill Crackers
1 3/4 c almond flour
1/2 t sea salt
1 T dried dill
1 T caraway seeds
1 tsp freshly ground pepper
1 T olive oil
1 egg

1. Mix dry ingredients together - make sure almond flour is nut clumped up.
2. Whisk oil and egg in a small bowl, then add to almond flour mix and stir until combined. The mixture will be wet and quite thick.
3. Roll the dough into a ball and press it between two sheets of parchment paper about 1/8" thick.
4. Remove top parchment layer and cut crackers with a pizza roller or knife into desired size. Transfer the bottom piece of parchment (with cracker dough) to a baking sheet, and bake 12-15 minutes at 350. Let cool for about 30 minutes before serving.

Paleo Crackers and Escargots

I had a lovely dinner last night that included oyster stew (post forthcoming), herring roe, crackers, and escargots. I had not made any of these things before (or eaten roe, except one time at my uncle's sprinkled on a bit of deviled egg.) The herring roe was from lake superior, and was $10, and was really fishy and lovely and pink! It felt like such a treat (though really the whole meal did).

Some time recently I became curious about making escargots. Do you buy live snails I wondered? I remembered the escargots from the french restaurant I used to work at, and how they were served in a bubbling garlic, parsely butter that smelled amazing. Upon looking it up, I learned that you actually buy snails in cans (though you can cook them in their shell too - this is just the way most snails are sold). I also learned that all snails with shells are edible - just not the slug like things without a shell. So if you live somewhere where snails are plentiful, you can just go harvest your own after a rain storm (they will be much smaller and do require a "cleansing" step and some longer pre-cooking).

Anyway, I bought some snails at Coastal Seafoods - they were $5 for 2 dozen, though there was another kind that were $15 for 2 dozen (I have been trying to learn about escargots farming, and it seems that the practices are pretty sustainable just by nature of how snails live). I am not sure the difference between the two prices - I will ask next time. In any case, the cheaper ones were delicious. Having no fancy escargots dish, I made them in a muffin tin. I will totally make them again because they tasted so good.

Snails in an escargots dish - not muffin tin

Escargots
2 dozen snails
6 T butter
1 T minced onion
(garlic is de rigueur, but I skipped it)
1 T minced parsley
1 t lemon rind
1 t sea salt
fresh pepper

1. Mix everything but the snails together to form a buttery-paste. I used a large wooden spoon to spread the butter and get the herbs mixed in evenly.
2. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
3. Put 4 snails in each muffin cup, then divide the butter mix evenly between the 6 cups to top the snails. You want the snails to sort of marinate under the butter as it melts.
4. Put in oven until butter is bubbling - about 5 minutes.
5. Serve with rosemary almond crackers out of the tin, or you can pile them all in a bowl for a slightly more aesthetic experience. : )

*I was sad to leave any of the buttery goodness at the bottom of each muffin cup (usually french bread would dip this up), so I moved all remaining butter to 4 muffin cups and the next morning I cracked an egg into each one. I topped each egg with a splash of cream, and then baked them at 350 degrees until the yolk set. I didn't time them (and mine got a bit overdone) - but remove them when just set and still a little jiggly. Eat with any remaining crackers or a bit of ham or bacon. Yum!

Almond Rosemary Crackers (from Elena's Pantry)
1 3/4 c almond flour
1/2 t sea salt
2 T fresh rosemary, finely chopped
1 T olive oil
1 egg

1. Mix flour, salt and rosemary together - make sure almond flour is nut clumped up. (My rosemary is miraculously still doing just fine in its garden bed outside - it is a little green tree surrounded by snow!)
2. Whisk oil and egg in a small bowl, then add to almond flour mix and stir until combined. The mixture will be wet and quite thick.
3. Roll the dough into a ball and press it between two sheets of parchment paper (this is very useful - I am not sure you can get the crackers thin enough without the parchment without tearing things up). Roll to about 1/8" thick.
4. Remove top parchment layer and cut crackers with a pizza roller or knife into desired size. Transfer the bottom piece of parchment (with cracker dough) to a baking sheet, and bake 12-15 minutes at 350. Let cool for about 30 minutes before serving.
*These are relatively unsalty. You may want to up the salt a bit, or sprinkle salt on before baking. I splurged and got a bit of Herring Roe to eat on these along with the snails - so they were perfect with the low salt crackers.

Smoked Trout Goo and Crackers

The other night Alex made this goo, and I made the crackers.

Goo: Mix all ingredients in the food processor.
Smoked trout (from the Smoke Haus in Duluth!)
Cream cheese (or neufchatel for less fat, eh)
Dill
Chives
Lemon juice

Crackers:
1 cup flour of your choice (I used 1/2 whole wheat bread flour and 1/2 whole wheat pastry flour, but you could use barley flour, buckwheat, whatever)
2 Tbsp. cold butter
Plenty of salt (depending on how you like it)
Flavors/Seeds you like: I used poppy seeds, sesame seeds, thyme, and garlic salt. Nutritional yeast is nice too but we were out.
Water as needed (about 1/4 to 1/2 cup)

Pre-heat oven to 400. Mix the dry ingredients in a food processor, then add the butter. When the mixture is kind of like cornmeal texture, add the water. Once you can form it into a ball, dump it out, break it into 2 or 3 smaller balls, and roll them out one at a time on a floured surface. You have to get them very thin so that they'll bake up crispy, but not so thin as they'll burn. It took me practice to start getting consistent crackers, but it's not really hard. Once you've got a ball rolled out to the right thickness, put it on a floured baking sheet, score it with a knife into cracker-sized sections, and bake for about 10 minutes.

Like kp, I've got Mark Bittman to thank for this one as well, though I've added different stuff, and it's still hard for me not to call him Bobby Bittner. (Don't ask.)