We’ve been going to the San Rafael farmers market for a number of years now. Besides being able to get some fresh fruit and vegetables it’s a chance to get out of foggy San Francisco and get some sun.
Depending on what I need that particular week, I also pick up meat from either Marin Sun Farms meat or Prather Ranch and fresh seafood from Santa Rosa Seafood which is owned by Mike & Trudy Svedise.
One time I had bought a striped bass and some salmon from the seafood vendor and wondered if it was farmed or wild. It took awhile and a bit of googling but I found Mike Svedise’s email address and sent him a note.
He got back to me right away with a detailed answer. In summary, he said, the striped bass is farmed from company called CleanFish which raises safe and sustainable seafood while the salmon is wild from Alaska.
He then proceeded to tell me how his family also owns one of the largest seafood companies in California supplying the Bay Area and 80-90% of Whole Foods’ seafood needs. He invited me to come visit his commercial kitchen in Santa Rosa to see how they cut, fillet, smoast ((his word for smoke/roasted) and pack seafood and if I had any additional questions to ask him or his daughter next time I was at the farmers market. Very cool.
This past visit I bought a bag of salmon collars along with two fillets. The collars are a lot cheaper than the fillets and pretty meaty.
I was pretty excited to get my hands on the collars and decided to keep it simple and try not to screw up the cooking of them. I thought simply salting and broiling them with some ponzu sauce on the side would be best.
1 bag of salmon collars
salt
1 green onion, cut into small rounds.
Preheat the oven on broil. Rinse the salmon collars and put on baking sheet.
Lightly salt both sides and broil for 10 minutes, flip at 5 minutes. You need to be careful because the fish sticks a bit on the foil which I learned quickly after tearing a few collars in two. Oops.
Place broiled salmon collars on a dish and garnish with green onion.
Ponzu sauce
3 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp rice vinegar
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1/2 tbsp sesame oil.
Mix all ingredients together in a small bowl and use as a dipping sauce for the collars.
For this particular dinner, I also made a variation on the pork with long green beans substituting chicken instead. I used my Aunt #3’s recipe from her Yan-Kit So: Food of China cookbook.
