Alaskan-Style Salmon Stuffed Halibut

This recipe was taken from Alaska Roadhouse Memories published by, The Milepost. Robert Siter of Gwin's Lodge at Mile 52 on the Sterling Highway, is the creator of this recipe. We modified it just a little. Leah always gets shake happy with her spices and she added bacon to the stuffing.

 Serves 4

1/4 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup chopped celery (we didn't have celery so substituted 1 tsp. celery salt)
4 tbsp. butter, divided
0.5 lb. cooked salmon, flaked (we used 2 cans of our Cooked Canned Sockeye Salmon)
1/4 cup dry bread crumbs (we used Panko)
1 tsp. grated lemon peel (we used Meyer lemons)
1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp black pepper
1.5 lb halibut fillet, halved
1/8 tsp. paprika (we used smoked paprika)
1.5 tbsp. flour
3/4 cup half and half
1/4 cup white wine

Plus we modified and added:
handful of raisins
sprinkling of garlic salt
sprinkling of chili seasoning
3 slices peppered bacon


TO PREPARE stuffing, sauté onion and celery in 2 tbsp. butter. Stir in cooked salmon, bread crumbs, lemon peel, 1/4 tsp. salt and dash of pepper. Place half of halibut in a buttered baking dish, sprinkle with paprika and spread salmon stuffing evenly over top. Place the remaining halibut on top of the stuffing. Cover the dish and bake at 425ºF for 20-25 minutes.

MEANWHILE, prepare sauce. Melt 2 tbsp. butter in small saucepan and stir in flour, a dash of pepper, a dash of paprika, half and half, and white wine. Stir until thickened.

WHEN halibut is finished cooking, top with white wine sauce and serve.

Unexpected Visitors

Hi Readers!

Yesterday brought rain, funny falls, and unexpected visitors. That's what is great about working at J-Dock. Each day brings something new and interesting. If you had a chance to watch the highlights on the weather channel recently (I know, how exciting), you may have seen Seward! It has been raining for two weeks, maybe more, and has resulted in flooding and landslides. Resurrection River overflowed it's banks and left about quarter mile of Seward Highway under 1-2 feet of water, as well as swamping homes and businesses. The road out to Lowell Point was destroyed and covered in rock, dirt, and trees, from a massive landslide, leaving many residents without access to the mainland. On one of the heaviest days of rain, Leah, the general manager, ventured up to the Anchorage airport with a friend with plans of returning the same day. So much for plans! In the few hours after their departure from Seward, the rain dumped on the southeastern Kenai Peninsula and made road impassable for their return journey, forcing them to stay at a Motel 6 in Anchorage. One of J-Dock's main concerns, especially following such erratic salmon fishing this past season, is what effect the flooding will have on future fisheries. As Bob Clark, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game's chief scientist for sport fish explains:

Fish production could dip if fast-moving water scours spawning sites of eggs. Fewer juvenile salmon may survive if those that wind up in flood plains don't find their way back into rivers once flooding subsides.

Not sure when this rain will let up, but it has made winterizing J-Dock quite the unpleasant experience. Today, I was moving the last of the dock carts to our storage unit, an arduous chore and worse in the beating rain. Many of the carts still had fish slime and guts on them, so I used a the handy dock hose to rinse them, when I rediscovered one of childhoods greatest past times. If the water hose has half pressure, and I hold the hose about 3 feet behind the nozzle, it will hover above the ground, looking much like a cobra. Of course I thought this was neat, and proceeded to strut around in front of the hanging station, covertly glancing up to see if Leah, who was working at the desk in the upstairs apartment, could see me showing off my skills. Finally she looks over and I decide to get fancy and walk the dog (with the hose). Everything goes wrong. The hose whips around and sprays me in the face. I panic and drop the hose which wraps my leg and sprays me up the side of the leg, so I make a break a for it, but my legs are tangled in the hose and I am sent sprawling across the deck. At this point I am soaked to the bone... As Leah describes in the J-Dock Seafood Co. Facebook status update:

Please tell me someone was just watching the LIVE WEB CAM....Basically it was one of the funniest things ever on this dock... Alexis Campestre was having a dancing war with the water hose...& end of story the hose won & soaking wet man down!!!!!!!

I head back to the Grande Alaska Lodge for a change of clothes and to catch up on emails, when Leah phones me with dinner plans. She has invited a middle aged couple from Greenville, South Carolina, two complete strangers, over for dinner. She is about to explain herself to me, over the phone, when the power goes out and the lines go dead. This being a regular occurrence in Seward, I go downstairs to eat a boiled egg, reflecting on the abrupt conversation I just had. Later, Leah explains how the couple had shared a heartbreaking story with her about them eating canned pasta sauce for lunch, so she just had to invite them for dinner. Before long Leah and I are preparing Alaskan-Style Salmon Stuffed Halibut, a recipe borrowed from a recipe book we sell in our store at the top of J-Dock. We modified the recipe slightly, to cater to what we had available, and it came out perfect. The couple enjoyed every last bit of what was on their plates. Meanwhile, we shared stories and learned about each others backgrounds. The couple turned out to be winners of the famed Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes, and had once been selected for America's Funniest Home Videos. They proudly showed us pictures of their 6 kids and told us about their thrifty adventures and family vacations. The night ended with FunFetti cupcakes, an exchange of contact info, pictures, and a warm feeling of doing something good. We hope to be included in their next annual Christmas newsletter!

Our first post!

Dear Seafood Lovers,

Thank you for joining us for our first blog post. There is always so much going down "on the dock," that we felt compelled to share the good times with you and now that the season is winding down, we are finally getting a chance to do just that! In this first blog post I will briefly summarize the summer events and then go into greater detail of events both past and current, in future blog postings.

Last winter it snowed hard, here in Seward, which was evident to any of those early bird fishermen that visited us in early to mid May as the mountains were still heavily blanketed and there were snow mounds along the side of the road.

The fishing started slow this summer, which was bittersweet for us. We always are in need of more business, but we also needed the time to clean-up the facility, fix busted pipes, paint, and other basic maintenance. The slow start also gave us an opportunity to do something we have been trying to do for some time; open up the hot dog cart! One of our newest additions to J-Dock this summer was the Weeny Buggy, serving pulled pork sandwiches, Hebrew National Kosher hotdogs, reindeer sausage, smoked brisket, all with unique homemade toppings, such as pickled red onions and watermelon relish.The cart became a quick, cheap, and tasty lunch/dinner option for employees at J-Dock, captains and deckhands, and tourists alike. Nothing like chowing down on a pulled pork sandwich and sipping on a cold beer while your captains hang your fish for pictures!

The annual Seward Halibut Tournament started off slow too. Although the charters brought in many nice sized halibut throughout the fishing season, there were no halibut over 150 pounds for the first half of June. This created an air of anticipation for the BIG CATCH and the whopping $10,000 first place prize! To be completely fair, there were a few halibut over 150 pounds. In fact, there was one that was close to 230 pounds and would have been a tournament winner, had the fisherman purchased a tourney ticket! Better luck next year and remember: BUY A TICKET!

Regarding seafood sales, we began the summer with a blowout sale of last season's harvest of sockeye salmon; we dropped the price down to $10/lb., including shipping and handling for all of our previous customers. The fish was sold in less than a week, which is no surprise. It is impossible to beat that kind of price/quality for wild Alaskan sockeye salmon and since we process, vacuum pack, and flash freeze all of our seafood in our state-of-the-art facility, the quality is maintained near 100%. 

This sale segued into taking advance orders for the King Salmon and Sockeye Salmon run that typically begins at the end of June on the Kenai Peninsula. June 25th was when we expected our first catch of these delicious fishes, when the news came... Alaska Fish and Game had shut down the Kenai River to commercial fishing! This was a nightmare, as you may expect. We had already advance sold hundreds of pounds of king salmon and sockeye salmon! We notified all of our customers of the situation as soon as we could, either via email or phone, and most of them were just glad enough to be kept in the loop. After two weeks of hand wringing and night sweats, we finally got a catch of sockeye and king salmon and were able to fulfill most of our advance orders or exchange those that we did not.

About mid-season we were lucky enough to be featured on iAmAMomandPop.com for being a great, unique place to work and live. Alexis describes what he likes most about working at J-Dock:

 "What is especially unique about J-Dock Seafood Co., aside from exquisite seafood in a jaw-dropping setting, is the people that work here. Almost every employee travels from someplace else to work here in the summer, including the lower 48, Europe, Asia, and Canada. During the height of the season (July-August) we become family. We work together, live together, eat together, and celebrate successes together."

This was quickly followed by a blog review by Sammi, author of Word Search Puzzle Dreams where she featured products such as our smoked sockeye salmon. We are glad she tried out our products and that she liked everything we shipped her. Sammi writes, "Wouldn't it be nice if you could have a selection of fish shipped to you so you always have it at the ready for cooking? J Dock Seafood makes that a reality!" It seems the more and more people learn about J-Dock Seafood Co. and our premium wild Alaskan seafood, the more people want what we are delivering, straight from our dock to your doorstep, overnight!

In August we had a historic event during the week long Silver Salmon Derby. Michael Rogers, a 64-year-old who was born and raised in Seward, caught a $50,000 tagged fish. According to many local fishermen and captains, the silvers seemed to be scattered around Resurrection bay, rather than in schools as they normally are, making the fishing difficult. The only charters having any serious luck fishing for salmon were those that were trolling with down riggers.

As the 2012 season comes to a close J-Dock prepares for winter and for HUGE upgrades, with plans to build a brand new, energy efficient, blast freezer, as well as expanding our processing room to more appropriately accommodate the thousands of pounds of fish we process daily. We are also making plans on extending the deck in front of our weigh stations all the way out to the fillet stations, to make room for tables and chairs, in hopes of serving beer and doing a "grill-your-catch" outdoor restaurant. More on that to come soon...

Stay tuned to our blog throughout the winter. We will be updating regularly and are looking forward to customer comments and reviews, and answering any questions you may have.

As usual, we will be proudly delivering, certified sustainable, wild Alaskan seafood, year-round, straight from our dock to your doorstep, overnight

Thanks,

Alexis
J-Dock Seafood Co.