On returning home {Apple & Fennel Stuffed Salmon with Cider Sauce}
by Aimee
I crammed my hands in the pockets of my jeans to keep them warm as I followed my brother along a narrow path that paralleled a creek.
It was mid-October and the chill in the air confirmed that fall was well advanced in Northern British Columbia. The woods were vibrant with reds and oranges, one last festival of colour before Winter would wave her wand and transform the scene into a world of white.
Josh and I walked over mossy logs and slippery leaves until the brambles of wild roses and clumps of willows parted to show the stream. The water tumbled white, then quieted into a narrow creek bed lined with small, smooth stones.
I stepped down from the leaf-strewn riverbank and onto the gravel of the creek bed. The water lapped my boots, curiously flecked with crimson salmon roe floating among fallen leaves like tiny secret jewels.
Groups of salmon rested in the shadows. At first we only spotted a few, then dozens. Below the rapids they pooled by the hundreds, each waiting their turn to leap. They had returned to their home creek from the sea; an absolutely staggering journey without rest or food, fighting the river all the way.
A pair of Coho salmon made their way within a few feet of where I stood and drifted in the shallows of the redd, almost like ghosts. The female flicked her tail back and forth to make a hole in the gravel; the male moved in closer. They were spawning, right there. With the scent of their birth creek only a distant memory, they had followed an urge to return home and begin a new cycle of life and I was witnessing the apex of their journey.
As I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the water, my heart thudded under my down jacket. The scene was so utterly moving I blinked back tears and caught a ragged breath in the cold air. All day I had been feeling a similar pull: in the hugs of my nephew as he wrapped his chubby arms around my neck; the way my stomach flopped when I caught a glimpse of the Hudson Bay Mountain peeking through the morning fog; the scent of apples and hay, earth and pine; the sights, smells and feelings of home.
Why had I waited five years to return? Why was I leaving again so quickly? I couldn’t even ask myself those questions for fear I would break down completely. What’s the point of questioning past decisions, anyway? Looking ahead with new resolution is how I renew each day, no matter how many mistakes the previous one held.
The significance of watching the salmon return to their birth creek was not lost on me. I vowed to soon return with my family to the Valley where I spent my teen years. The longer I stayed away the less I remembered the beauty of the landscape, the warmth of the people. I wanted to remember it all afresh, and etch it in the memories of my children too. We’d stay a good long while, canoe down the rivers I paddled, hike the peaks I once scaled. We’d run through hayfields and hurl ourselves off lakeside docks.
Back in Josh’s homestead, he lit a fire in the grate and then pulled out a bag of crimson salmon from the freezer. Earlier in the summer he had stood mid-thigh in the river and cast a line for what would now be our dinner. We stepped back outside and pressed fresh apple cider for the rest of the afternoon. We raised our glasses of cider in a toast:
“To family. To coming home.” And to the salmon.
Home is the scent of cedar and creek.Home is the journey’s end.~ Salmon Creek
| Apple & Fennel Stuffed Salmon with Cider Sauce | Print |
- 3 cups fresh pressed apple cider (not hard cider)
- 1/2 teaspoon fennel seed
- 1 teaspoon mustard seed, divided
- 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper, divided
- 1/2 teaspoon salt, divided
- 2 Tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1 small fennel bulb
- 1 medium Honeycrisp apple
- 1 medium salmon filet, deboned, skin on
- Pour cider into a medium saucepan and bring to a boil. Add fennel seed, 1/2 teaspoon mustard seed, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Keep at a low boil for about 30 minutes or until cider has reduced into a sauce about the consistency of gravy.
- Strain cider reduction into a bowl and whisk in 1 Tablespoon of butter. Keep warm.
- Wash, core and slice both fennel and apple. Melt remaining butter in a large skillet and add the fennel and apple. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, for 6-7 minutes. Produce should soften, but still retain a bit of crunch. Remove from heat and cool.
- Preheat oven to 350F. Line a rimmed baking tray with parchment paper.
- Using a sharp knife, slice salmon in half from top to tail. Lay it open like a book and brush both sides with a little of the cider reduction. Season it all over with salt and pepper.
- Place the side without the skin onto the parchment paper. Heap the sauteed apple and fennel onto the top and spread it out evenly.
- Top with the second piece of salmon, placing it skin side up. Wrap the stuffed salmon a few times with kitchen twine and place in the centre of the oven.
- Bake salmon for 20-25 minutes. Remove from oven, snip twine and serve at once with the cider glaze.
How to help protect wild Canadian salmon
Wild Pacific salmon are an essential part of British Columbia’s culinary scene and a local delicacy I grew up eating with gusto. Wild salmon are becoming increasingly rare, but there are steps we can take to help protect the fish and the natural world they inhabit. Here are just a few:
- Write to government officials to let them know you are concerned about wild salmon.
- Go pesticide–free in your lawn and garden.
- Learn which seafood to buy, selecting items that are fished or farmed in ways that have less impact on the environment.
- Join the Pacific Streamkeepers Federation with your kids, stream and wetland care for volunteers of all ages.
- Pick up garbage or debris you find in streams or creeks.
BONUS: Here are 10 ways for US readers to help save wild salmon.
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