X w O

Okay y'all. So. I'm making a thing and it's going to be horrible, so obviously I need to share it with Tumblr.

For context, @kedreeva recently did a fun new year's ask game where they shared recipes from a cookbook. Most of them sounded really tasty! And then I saw... this one.

(recipe image from Kedreeva's blog)

My thought process was as follows:

That sounds like an absolute abomination

But...

I like salmon (usually)

I like mousse (of the dessert variety, ideally chocolate)

I generally enjoy things with obscene amounts of condiments (though a cup of mayonnaise, admittedly, is very iffy)

I have a group of friends who will go out of their way to try literally any weird snack they can find (we've eaten durian pocky and dill pickle cotton candy, but that's another story), and they'd totally let me force this upon them, and, most importantly,

I could finally use my fish molds for their intended unholy purpose.

Yes, the fish molds. My collection of seafood-themed vintage copper pans that occasionally get used for breads or cakes but mostly just hang on the wall because I have opinions about kitchen decor and one of those opinions is that there should be copper fish everywhere. These things are literally designed for horrendous '60s savory gelatin concoctions. So I figure I have to make one eventually. Y'know, for the sake of the fish. Savory mayonnaise jello is probably enrichment for them or something.

So basically, all of this is to justify why I'm making salmon mousse tonight and liveblogging the process. I suggest blocking the tag "crow's salmon adventure" if you don't want to see... well. Gelatin. Mayo. Canned fish juices. Et cetera.

Concerns about how chunky raw celery will be after going through the blender: many!

Fish solids and liquids: separated!

Smells: horrendous!

Cat: enthralled, having the time of his life, wants to drink the salmon smoothie right now.

Gelatin: uhhhhh... looks like that. This is probably fine.

"Grease the mold with mayonnaise-"

A few answers to questions/comments from the notes:

Yes, the recipe calls for a can of red salmon and I used pink. I couldn't find any red salmon at the grocery store and figured there wouldn't be much difference, but have since learned that red salmon is actually much better quality and smells less like cat food. So I may have inadvertently made this worse for myself by choosing the wrong salmon. Whoops.

The cat's name is Timber and he belongs to @tamber-tales! He's a little menace who wants to eat everything, but we love him. He will not be partaking of the salmon mousse, sadly, due to the fact that it's full of onions and extremely poisonous for cats. He has complained loudly and repeatedly about this grave injustice.

It doesn't actually need to set for multiple days, but since my unwitting victims friends are gathering on Thursday and I knew I wouldn't have time to make the mousse tonight, mine is getting an extra day to chill in the pan. It was not ready in 3 hours like the recipe said (still soupy when I went to bed last night) but it does seem to have set decently overnight. The current firmness bodes well for getting it out of the mold but extremely poorly for any kind of pleasant eating experience.

A lot of people in the notes are talking about similar dishes that they enjoy, which I really love hearing about! I looked up other recipes and found that a lot of salmon mousse is made with smoked salmon and whipped cream cheese for a more fluffy, creamy texture, served on crackers or cucumber slices. That sounds way more appetizing to me, so maybe I'll try making that style after I've recovered from this one.

Today I prepared the cucumber-dill sauce, which was considerably less dubious than the mousse. Sour cream (no, I will not be subbing in half a cup of mayonnaise to put extra mayo sauce on my gelatinous mayo fish, no thank you), diced cucumber, lemon juice, dill, salt, and pepper.

It's pretty tasty! I diverged from the recipe slightly here and added a little bit of garlic powder. Perhaps I should have left it as-is for the proper experience, but I couldn't resist. The need for added garlic is just one of those things you feel deep in your soul sometimes, y'know?

It looks like a flayed mayo-soaked nightmare but tastes... okay actually?