Pie Plate Salmon Tart (feat. faint vanilla-y-ness)

"Pie Plate Salmon Tart?" NEVER HEARD OF IT. But apparently this is one of our family recipes. Maybe from before I was born? I was really just planning on eating leftover moussaka tonight while working on editing, but when I saw this recipe and realized I kind of had all the ingredients, I wanted to try it to see if I remember eating it.

Pie Plate Salmon Tart

(Mom's notes): Delicious. Good for a brunch or appetizer, or a meal with veggies.

2 Tbsp butter
2 onions, chopped
one 7 oz (199 mL) can pink salmon, undrained
1 tsp lemon juice (or vinegar)
salt and pepper
2 slices bread, cubed
1/2 cup milk
2 eggs, beaten

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Heat 1 tsp butter in a frying pan over medium high heat. Add onions and cook until they start to brown.

Mash the salmon in a bowl. Mix in lemon juice, salt and pepper, cubed bread, milk, eggs and cooked onion.

Melt the remaining butter in a pie plate (or small pan) in the oven. Transfer salmon mixture to pie plate and bake for 30 minutes.

Note: The original recipe used margarine, because we are a family from the '80s. Does anyone use margarine anymore?

I didn't have high expectations, because I used a fortified rice beverage instead of milk, which has a faint vanilla-y flavour to it and is in general not very good.


And indeed, some of the bites had a faint vanilla-y flavour. So let this be confirmation that one must never use a fortified rice beverage with a faint vanilla-y flavour when cooking something savory.

Finally: I only had three little shallots, so I used those instead of two onions. So I don't think I quite achieved the necessary onion-y-ness. (Which was especially needed to combat the vanilla-y-ness.)

Verdict: I still don't remember this. Could the faint vanilla-y-ness have changed it that much? Possibly. Seriously. I should have just walked down the street to buy some milk.