More Like Salmon-Cilantro Crumbles

Over the past year, practically everyone here at Chez Boeckman-Walker--humans and felines alike--has come to love salmon patties, or salmon cakes (call 'em what you will, Gentle Reader). I have a curried salmon cake recipe that I like to whip up when I can score pouches of salmon on the cheap (double the called-for amount of curry if you want to taste it, by the by), and the husband and I love the salmon and Hatch chile patties I find every now and then at Central Markup and HEB.

It's that latter love that had me excited to receive a recipe for salmon-cilantro burgers from MyRecipes.com shortly before Memorial Day. Since we're not a family that does the typical holiday things, I thought trying out these burgers might be a fun thing for the three-day weekend.

Fresh Salmon-Cilantro Burgers1/4 C reduced-fat mayonnaise
1 T chopped fresh cilantro
1 T fresh lime juice
1/8 t salt
1/8 t freshly ground black pepper
1-lb. salmon fillet, skinned and cut into 1" pieces
1/4 C dry breadcrumbs
2 T cilantro leaves
2 T chopped green onions
1 T chopped seeded jalapeño pepper
2 T fresh lime juice
1/2 t salt
1/4 t freshly ground black pepper
4 1.5-oz. hamburger buns with sesame seeds, toasted
12 1/4"-thick slices English cucumber
4 leaf lettuce leaves

1. Combine the mayo, lime juice, chopped cilantro, salt and pepper in a small bowl, cover and chill.
   
2. Place the salmon in a food processor, then pulse until coarsely chopped.
   
3. Add the breadcrumbs, cilantro leaves, chopped green onions, chopped jalapeño, lime juice, salt and black pepper to the pulsed salmon, then pulse four times to combine or until well blended.
   
4. Divide the salmon mixture into four equal portions, shaping each into a 3/4"-thick patty.
   
5. Heat a grill pan over medium-high heat.
   
6. Cook the patties 2 min., carefully turn, then cook 2 more min. or until done.
   
7. Spread about 1 tablespoon of the chilled mayonnaise mixture over the bottom half of each hamburger bun, then top with a salmon patty, three cucumber slices, a lettuce leaf and finally the top half of bun.

Yield: 4 (1 burger is one serving, obviously)

Nutritional Info
Calories: 341
Fat: 11.5g
Sat fat: 2 g
Protein: 31.6 g
Carbs: 30.9 g
Fiber: 1.8 g
Cholesterol: 66 mg
Sodium: 816 mg

The Faudie's Futzings
I should have paid closer attention to the recipe when I first followed the link to it. Instead, I glanced merely at the list of ingredients and formed a certain impression of the final product. Only when I jotted it down before preparing it did I realize that the recipe is for the entire burger, not just the patties. Needless to say, I was a little disappointed and futzed accordingly.

• I totally skipped the special mayo, even though I'd bought a new jar of fat-free Miracle Whip just to ensure I had enough, not realizing at the time of purchase that I didn't actually need it for the patties but as a garnish. Bully!
  
• While I do still have some salmon in the freezer from the big slab we bought a few months back at Central Markup, I used pink salmon from a can that I'd bought on sale a few weeks ago. Once I'd sworn never to use canned salmon again because it's just...incredibly unappetizing right out of the can, but, hey, beggars can't be choosers, y'know? Plus the kitties outside loved chowing down on the bits and pieces from the can I refused to use in the patties.
  
• Instead of regular dried breadcrumbs, I used panko. I've yet to find breadcrumbs that have as little fat and as much protein (even thought the amounts or negligible) as panko.
  
• The jalapeño pieces came from a can of diced ones. The can was cheaper than buying fresh ones, and right now I'm more about saving money where I can so long as I'm not sacrificing much for nutritional content.
  
• Forget the English cucumber slices (I don't do cucumber slices unless they've been transformed into bread and butter pickles, and I didn't even bother to discover what might set an English cucumber apart from the ones grown locally, which look just like the ones Dad grew and Mum pickled when I was a kid), forget the leaf lettuce (I only buy iceberg in all its tasteless, watery goodness, thank you very much) and forget the toasted, sesame seed-covered buns. I'd found some whole wheat buns on the discounted bakery rack at Wally World, so that's what I used.

As I was mushing together by hand the salmon, lime juice, cilantro leaves, jalapeño chunks and pepper (I skipped the salt since the canned jalapeño pieces had a small amount of added salt), my faudie senses were telling me that I was setting myself up for disappointment. Something's missing, my faudie senses, sharpened by many a culinary misadventure, told me. This isn't going to work,, those senses told me as I was attempting to shape the patties, which just didn't want to stick together.

Sure enough, when I started cooking the patties on my Circulon grill pan, the damn things started crumbling at the edges. When I tried to flip them, the patties lost their cohesion big time. And don't even get me started on the fiasco that was attempting to serve the cooked patties. All I can say is this: Thank the FSM I had the boys' burger buns slices and open and ready to receive their protein patty because those salmon patties would not have survived any further movement from one surface to another.

I really, really don't think the ingredients combined with the salmon are sufficient enough to get the mixture to hold a patty shape for any length of time. Perhaps the folks who put this recipe together used really fatty salmon, but I think if I were to try this one again, I'd add a bit of egg to it as a quasi-adhesive, just as the curried salmon cakes recipe calls for two large eggs.

As for the taste of the finished patties.... Well, I honestly didn't get much flavor aside from salmon as I was eating. Let's face it: Salmon has a very prominent flavor, and you really have to have an additional ingredient or combo of other ingredients that have a strong presence and that don't clash with the flavor of salmon to overcome that fish's very prominent flavor. Perhaps I'd have a different opinion if I'd whipped up that cilantro-lime mayo and put some of it on my patty. Maybe not.