Recipe: Salmon Loaf for 150
Our organization serves 150 meals every night but I mostly work during the day. Sometimes I’m asked to help prep a meal for the night volunteers. We have no budget for food - all of it is donated or comes from food banks. And the stars were in alignment tonight for some salmon loaf and potato salad! We had all the ingredients in house!
Depression Era Salmon Loaf
Salmon loaf was popular during the great depression because canned salmon at the time was very cheap. Can you imagine depression era Seattle in the 1930s? People living in makeshift shacks and tents out on the streets, lining up for free meals at soup kitchens. Thank goodness those days are over!
My mom used to make this dish and I loved it, especially the tiny salmon bones that come in the canned salmon but are completely tender and disappear when you chew them. I found that fascinating. And no - Ronald Reagan was not president during the great depression - this is one of those meals that gets handed down through the generations, at least in the Midwest.
Ingredients:
2 cases canned salmon (in this instance that came out to 48 14.3 ounce cans)
6 dozen eggs
8 cups bread crumbs
10 large onions
lemons and oranges for juice and zest
spices - today I used a generous amount of pepper, granulated garlic, mustard powder and MSG
optional: 8 cups instant potatoes - something random we had lying around the pantryDirections:
Open and drain salmon
Cut and cook onions in olive oil
Mix eggs, bread crumbs, squeezed citrus and zest, and spices
Gently fold all ingredients into three hotel pans
Store in fridge and cook at 150 degrees when ready
If this comes out too dry pour some chicken stock on it before serving.
I also provided potato salad for the meal: A case of red potatoes, cut and boiled. Vinaigrette on the side (made with some random salad dressing, mayo, sugar, apple cider vinegar and oregano). Fresh vegetables are hard to come by in Winter but we have plenty of canned ones available.
—Alex