Dill-icious Salmon Burgers

These salmon burgers are topped with herb aioli and the fresh dill makes it sing. The recipe hails from my all-time favourite cooking magazine, Fine Cooking (issue 105, page 22) and goes like this:

Salmon Burgers with Herb Aioli (serves 4)
2 small cloves garlic
Kosher salt
1-1/2 cups mayonnaise (I buy the Spectrum brand made with organic canola oil)
1/2 cup finely chopped fresh chives
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh dill
1-1/2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1/8 teaspoon cayenne
Freshly ground black pepper
5 hamburger buns, 1 cut into large cubes, the other 4 split
1 lb. skinless salmon fillets (pin bones removed) cut into 1-inch pieces
2 tablespoons unsalted butter

Chop the garlic. Sprinkle a pinch of salt on top of the chopped garlic and using the flat side of a chef's knife, mash the garlic to a paste. Transfer the garlic paste to a small bowl and stir in the mayonnaise, chives, dill, mustard, lemon juice, cayenne, 1/4 teaspoon pepper, and salt to taste. Set the aioli aside.

In a food processor, pulse the cubed bun into crumbs. Set aside 1/2 cup of the crumbs and save the rest for another use (keep in a Ziploc bag in your freezer for the next time a recipe calls for fresh bread crumbs). Pulse the salmon in the food processor until coarsely chopped, about 5 pulses. Transfer the salmon to a medium bowl and stir in 3/4 cup of the aioli, the reserved breadcrubms, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/8 teaspoon pepper. Shape into four 1-inch-thick patties.
Heat the butter in a skillet over medium-high heat. When melted and hot (but not smoking or brown) and the patties and cook until they are firm and each side is crisp and golden-brown (about 5 minutes per side).

Serve the burgers on the buns spread with the remaining aioli.

To accompany the burgers, I served a fresh green salad with curly lettuce I purchased from a small farm over on No.2 Road. (Talk about the 100-mile diet - this is the 1 mile diet!). The remaining salad ingredients included celery, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, and red and green peppers. What I really wanted to share with you was the dressing - Maple Balsamic. Salad dressings make for a great opportunity to use flax seed oil while concealing its taste. (Try experimenting with your own salad dressing recipes by swapping out half of the olive oil or canola oil it suggests and replace with flax seed oil. This will work better in some recipes than other. It's just a question of trial and error). If there's anything I don't like, it's the taste of flax seed oil. Between the colour and the taste my imagination has me thinking I'm eating liquified ear wax - what could be more disgusting than that! So I promise this dressing recipe masks the taste of the flax seed oil while giving you all of its nutritional value.

Maple Balsamic Dressing (makes enough for 2-3 servings)
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon flax seed oil
1-1/2 tablespoons raspberry vinegar
1 tablespoon maple syrup (or use agave nectar)
1/4 teaspoon sea salt

Put all the ingredients in a tall container (I use a glass jam jar) and use an immersion blender aka stick blender to mix. (The latest immersion blenders all come with a properly sized container).