How to Make Salmon Cakes

Hey everyone, I'm Chef Dennis Littley and welcome to Around the Kitchen Table. I almost feel like there should be a little fanfare of music because I've been MIA for the past few weeks while we enjoyed our road trip through New Jersey and some of the southern states, eating my way across America, so to speak. But we're back and Susan is here. And how you doing, Susan?

I am doing great, Chef, and I have been watching your travels and I've been watching every single thing you've been eating, and my own meals have suffered for it because we haven't been doing our shows. It's great to be back. What a great trip you had. I bet you really had a lot of different food adventures, huh?

I did. I cooked a lot, too, which was good. We can't afford to go eat out all the time. But we ate at some really nice restaurants along the way. On the trip up, we stopped in Savannah, which was wow, but it was hot too. It was like deadly hot. And then we made our way up to my brother's, which is in Lexington, Virginia, and he took us to a Veritas Winery, which was amazing. Wines with every course, Prosecco to start with. It was just really cool. And then we got up to Ocean City and we worked our way from Cape May up to Brigantine on all the beaches. My big thrill was going to the White House sub shop though in Atlantic City.

That sounds great. I have seen you, so many images of you and Lisa on the beach, and you guys really love the beach, huh?

You know, my philosophy on the beach has always been when they AstroTurf it, I'll be much happier, but I have to say it was good. I enjoyed it, and I came back with a lovely bronze tan. You know, I look marvelous now.

I know. Yes, you do. I'm still white because I'm in the air conditioning. You know, I mean, when it's like 80 degrees, you know, in July up here on Long Island, you need the air conditioning, you know what I mean?

I know all about air conditioning. I live in Florida, but you know, in Ocean City, I had never been out during like normal hours because I was always in the restaurant working.

Yeah.

I'm out there going, is it always like this? Oh my God.

You know, and where you are, the summer really is my winter. You know, you don't go out much, at least, you know, maybe in the morning and at night, right?

Yep. And we didn't catch much rain either, which was really good. And that was the best part of it. The weather was just perfect. We had a breeze almost every night. We were spending evenings up on the beach with a glass of wine, just watching the sunset. It was a rough life, but you know, somebody's got to do it. So I figured, you know, I know.

Well, I've been doing similar things, which is what we're going to talk about today. All of a sudden, I don't know, I thought But this is July and I don't know if we've been busy or what, plus the weather hasn't been all that great. But all of a sudden we started dining out on our deck almost every night. And then I thought, wow, I better get this in. And being in the Northeast before the fall comes, so that's what we're going to talk about. But what else is new with me is that I started this, you know those sort of farmers, regional organic food shares. You know, they deliver to you weekly and it's, you know, the harvest and whatever is available, you know, regionally. So I signed up for one of those and I'm getting all these amazing vegetables. I'm not sure what to do with them, but that's new and fun.

I know. Well, I did get a spiralizer, so once I play with that a little, we'll be doing some stuff I heard about that.

That is like the hottest thing since I don't know what, right? White bread.

Yeah, since white bread. Now everybody's spiralizing, and it's a great way to get more veggies in, so we will get to that. I also got a sausage maker, too, so I'm going to be trying to make some of my own sausage. We're going to start changing things up a little bit as we move along and adding some new and exciting foods to the menu.

That's, that's great, but what I want to know, what I ultimately want to know before I buy it is what else besides zucchini can you spiralize?

From what I understand, a lot of things. Potatoes, beets, some of them are a little more difficult because they're harder, but you can spiralize a few other items. Like I said, I haven't tried it yet, but I have seen beets spiralized and potatoes definitely, you know, for curly fries and things. But green zucchini, yellow zucchini for sure. Sweet potatoes. Sweet potatoes. Now that's another really good one, sweet potatoes, because getting sweet potatoes in your diet is really important because they have so many good nutrients in them. A lot of times people don't eat them because they think of sweet potatoes as Thanksgiving, that kind of a thing. Really, you're starting to see them more and more in different menu items. Let me tell you what I had in Charleston. I had sweet potato waffles with a seared duck breast and a maple reduction.

With a seared what?

Seared duck breast, a maple reduction, and then they had these really quick-fried shredded Brussels sprouts with them.

Yeah, that sounds terrific. I may have remembered that image, but what about grits? Did you have grits?

We had grits. I had shrimp and grits. I had some really good grits. Grits were a little different. I saw people having fun with them, but not as much as I would have liked, you know. But what are you going to do? So let's say hi to a few people too real quick. Coach Moore is here and he is in San Antonio and he said it was 102 in San Antonio yesterday.

Hey, Coach! Wow.

Kim Boltman's here and she is in Oklahoma and she says 80 degrees would be a relief. They're in the hundreds there as well.

I know, I thought I'd get some groans when I said that, Kim.

Peter Falkman's here, and he's in Scotland. So, some great salmon fishing and many good places of salmon. You know, Peter, I always hear about Scottish salmon, and actually I had some just this week at a restaurant in town. It was really, really good. So as people start to wander in, we're going to say hello to them. Thank you so much for coming, and let's get started. Let's start cooking some salmon. Aye, thanks, Bob. The Orlando Sentinel is here today, so we're doing a little bit of a photo shoot with them, and they'll be in the Sunday paper. We'll let you know. Thanks a lot. Bye-bye. What we're going to do is I have my oven on. Let me switch cameras real quick. We are going to our salmon. This is beautiful sockeye salmon. It's still got the skin on it, and I've got it floating in a little water. You might see I always like to put fish back in some water. It's probably the best salmon you can eat because of the nutrients and because it's wild-caught. It's fished very sustainably. It's good salmon to eat.

Wait a minute. That's another life-changing tip. What is this about putting fish in water?

Whenever I cook fish, I always put a layer of water. This might be a little bit too much. I did it earlier. Let me pour a little bit of it out. I always put a little water in the bottom. Number 1, it's going to help get the skin off, and when I take the skin off, it's not going to stick so much to the pan. Number 2, when it cooks, the water is going to help keep it a little bit moister because there's going to be something for the heat to suck out besides just out of the fish itself. Whenever I put fish in the oven, just like if you were poaching fish, you would poach it in water. You wouldn't do it in a dry pan.

Wow, okay.

So now I'm going to hit it with a little bit of olive oil, and then I'm going to do some salt. And don't be afraid to season your salmon up. You know, people are always thinking, oh, I can't put too much seasoning on it. And, you know, it's really going to help it add some more flavor because fish by itself can be really bland. You need to pep it up with some other flavors.

Yeah, I do. I put quite a bit of salt and pepper and then sear it. Yeah. And it just brings out a nice crust.

I'm going to put a little bit of lemon in here too, just because I can. And then this is going to go in the oven for about 12 to 15 minutes because you don't want to overcook it. You don't want it to get too dry. So let me pop that in.

Yeah, I usually do my salmon, I usually sauté it, get that hard crust, and then finish it in the oven. That's it, but that's a different recipe.

That's exactly, you know, when I would do salmon, a lot of times I'd do sauté at first. This is good, let's say you're having a dinner party, or you made a little too much salmon, or someone didn't come home for dinner, right? You got cooked salmon. Well, what can you do with it? You can put it on a salad, maybe, or do something else, but now you can make these salmon cakes. Really, all you're going to do is flake just try and get some flakes.

I have cooked salmon right now in my refrigerator because I made too much.

This is just perfect. I'm actually just gonna break this up with my fingers because it's a little easier. But you can see how it's flaking apart here. That's all we want it to do, is just flake. And there were a few little pin bones, and you know, the one important thing to remember is Fish got bones. Just be careful. You can see there's a little bit of skin still there. I'll get rid of that. For the most part, the skin came right off. Bones are sticking to you. This was sockeye salmon. I actually found it at Costco. I'm telling you— I don't work for Costco. I'm not getting anything from them, but they have become quite a great place to shop for organics and for better food.

Really?

Yes, it's amazing. They've really, really started to shine in healthy products and especially in organic products. So this is beautiful sockeye salmon. Again, someone has said that is the most healthiest salmon you can get, is sockeye. I'm not really sure why, but someone from Oregon told me that and I gotta believe them. It's pretty simple. So we're gonna start with this, and if you have leftover salmon— I cooked this this morning, so it didn't sit that long., but if it's from a day before or something, you could even freeze it until you had enough if you wanted to.

Oh, good idea.

Okay. Make some cakes out of it, or have it on a nice salad too, one of the two. I'm going to put in— and I'm going to make this almost like I make my crab cakes with a few minor additions. I'm going to put some chopped onion in here. I'm going to put some roasted red pepper, and you could use raw pepper if you wanted to. Again, I want some color. I'm going to add in some chopped parsley. Let me think. I think that's it. Let me just mix this up a little bit. You can see right away we have some color and flavor going. It's good. Now we're going to add in some seasoning. I'm going to add in some Old Bay. If you wanted to take them a little bit of a different direction, you could add in something else. You could put in a jerk seasoning or a Cajun seasoning. But I want these to be a little reminiscent of crab cakes, and that's why I'm using Old Bay. I'm going to put in just a little salt, not much because Old Bay is a little salty. A little bit of pepper.

Sometimes you don't really need to look for something new. I mean, Old Bay is It's so reliable. It's so delicious. It's really the classic, right?

Yeah, but for people that might want to change, might want to change things up a little, you have that option. You can try— if you made them and then say, "Hey, I wonder how they would taste with a jerk seasoning. I want to change up my remoulade a little bit." We're going to get to that and show you how easy that is, too.

Just a quick one. Mjj Namal Diaz is asking, "What about canned salmon?" Yes, absolutely.

You can use canned salmon. Works wonderfully. Just try— when you drain it, try not to squeeze it because you want it to still have a little moisture in it. You know, you want to get the excess water, but you don't want to make it overly dry. So yeah, that works fine. So here I have some Dijon mustard— trying to find which way the camera goes— there we go. Dijon mustard and mayonnaise. So that is the difference in How I normally make my imperial sauce for my crab cakes is I don't use the Dijon. Salmon's a little stronger flavor, so I'm going to try and see if that'll help it out some. Putting my egg in, and that's a binder. Okay, I'm going to put another little squeeze of lemon in here. All right, and I'm also going to add in a little bit of Worcestershire.

So you have a few ingredients that will offer a little kick.

Yeah, well, you know, again, salmon— with crab, you want to just taste that crab. With salmon, you know, I think sometimes you want to really get that to shine. And I've got a Florida hot sauce here, shaking it up. You can use Louisiana hot, you can use whatever you want, but this has got just a little bit of fruit base in it too. I don't want it to be too hot because I'm kind of a wuss, but this will work. I'm going to mix this all together. You could have made your imperial sauce separately and then put it all in, but I'm just showing you that you can do it this way too. Usually when I do crab, because with crab I'm always afraid I'm going to make too much and it's going to get too wet. Then I'm going to add in some breadcrumbs.

I was just thinking, where's the breadcrumbs?

All right, and we're just going to let this sit and absorb for a few minutes, and maybe you could show us your slideshow.

Yes, yes, so I put together the slideshow for you, for everyone, and I'm just so inspired by outdoor dining, so here we go. Let me Yep, here we go. Okay, some of these images I've shown before, but since we're on the topic of outdoor dining, let's look at them again. And you know, I mean, pattern— here we have pattern and color and texture, and of course, you know, the stripes, but then we have the simple, we have the simple whites and the glasses, just some clear glass, and then the food will be able to really shine. So there's a lot we can take out from some of these. And of course, the blue and the green, you know, and the white, just perfect. That's all you need in some of these table settings. And the beautiful wicker, you know, so many options. And of course, doesn't everyone have a sofa outdoors? But, you know, if you have some Sumbrella fabric. I have a sectional on my deck which has the Sumbrella fabric, and I don't know, nothing happens to it.

We just got a whole set of Sumbrella, and I'm telling you, that stuff, they say you bleach or use bleach on it, nothing hurts it.

It's— I know, I know, I'm finding that out firsthand. And again, we have the color, we have repetition in the design here, we have repetition in the blues, in the in the flowers, and that can be just such a strong design element. And then of course we have the blue oranges, and here, and you know, in this case this is a tree with some herbs planted on the bottom. Certainly you can use them most of the year depending on where you're located. This is a little more austere, a little more modern, minimalist. There's a different sort of pattern on the floor, which really doesn't have to be expensive. This is something you can, you know, DIY or get cheap tiles and just put together any sort of pattern. So more minimalist. Here, this is a little table with a tablecloth, and, you know, I can see that outside in the outside area, maybe put your beverages on there or or something else, or dips, or something delightful. Here's an image I've shown before, and look at this boat filled with shrimp and oysters. And again, we have a lamp outdoors. Who would think of that? I wouldn't think of that, but it's interesting I saw it. And another plain, simple outdoor area, but of course the star is the landscaping. And don't we all have an outdoor Another outdoor structure where we can just do dining with the doors open, you know, wouldn't that be nice?

Yep.

Wouldn't that be nice? So different, you know, a cover. Here's a picture, an image with a cover on the— which you can't really see very well, but you see the curtains. You know, maybe there's a way to protect yourself from the weather, things like that. So Again, color, the bright, the strong red tablecloth. You can just bring out your everyday serveware, your everyday dinnerware, but bring out a beautiful tablecloth and wow. Then you have served just— anything looks elegant. Strawberries and cream, it looks elegant. You know, I was also inspired by restaurant, outdoor dining in restaurants. We can certainly get ideas from that. The table and chairs, they certainly look like something you can maybe pick up at Target or someplace like that. But what we have in the back is ivy on the walls. We have some sort of ceramic. I just put up a ceramic mural outside on my deck. It's only 3 feet by 2 feet, but it just It's such a different feeling. So, you know, and here are some very modest planters there. I guess galvanized steel planters, blankets hanging over, you know, things like that, and wonderful areas for little pots with herbs. You know, how lovely is that? And also more images of, you know, outdoor dining, and use your Good china, bring out your good china on your target tables. Do it, do it. Get a little glass with wonderful herbs and flowers on it. These are actually some images from Copenhagen, which there is so much style. You know, I mean, wouldn't I love, wouldn't we love something like this in outdoor area? You know, but maybe there's a part on your outdoor siding where you can put a shelf. And you can put plants. Why not? Who thinks of that? Who thinks of that? So I wanted to share that. It's just magnificent. And again, the pattern, the simple, very simple, modest white, pure white dining table with all the textures surrounding it. So think about smooth versus textural surfaces, and that can also give you some hints of contrast. Contrast textures. Here, this is— okay, what you're seeing on the top is, it's called a sail, and I think we got it from Amazon, and that adds shade.

I've seen those, they are so— and some of them are printed as sails and have the numbers on them and everything, really cool.

Wonderful way to add a shade. Here's another little part of a secret garden. You may not see a table here, but bring in you know, the small Target tables and put some, you know, use it for coffee, having a coffee break, or, you know, I like different parts of the yard, and this is a very small yard I had, the other side, this is my other house, but there's always multiple places to dine will make it special, and it will just kind of mix it up, and of course here, I think we are in France, and of course the French bistro chairs I mean, come on, how beautiful are they, right?

Yep. You know, we just had dinner in Orlando Monday night at John Rivers Chicken Restaurant called The Coop.

Uh-huh.

He bought all of his tables and chairs in his dining room. It's like a patio, almost outside but it's not, kind of dining room, all different, all off of eBay and Craigslist, and none of them match. And let me tell you, that dining room looked great.

Love it. I love it. It's interesting. It makes things happy and interesting. And here, this chair is very chic black with, you know, the organic feel of wood. And over here, I mean, this isn't something we all may want to do, but I just had to show it. You know, why not put some sculptures together? I mean, I don't know, Chef, this may cost $5,000, $10,000, $20,000.

You know, I saw something very interesting and I don't have the picture, but when on the travels they had lights inside of wire whips hanging from the ceiling.

Wow, lighting, absolutely, you're right about that. You're right about that and colorful tables, add the color. Here's just a simple— this is actually one side of my home, this is not my— this was before we bought the house. It's where we're living now, but see the table on the other side. So, you know, tables can really help. It can, you know, add for buffet, add for prep. If you don't do a whole outdoor kitchen, why not? So that's what I had to show you today, and I hope you got inspired like I did. And here we go. So let me— we should— okay, we're back.

Cool. And my timer just went off. Here's the salmon coming out of the oven. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to let this cool outside of the heat for about, you know, outside of the oven for about 10 minutes, let it cool off. I'm going to transfer this to a small plate, put it in the refrigerator, and let it finish chilling. And mine was actually in there for only about an hour, and it came out perfectly. You could probably, you know, I tend to think it may flake a little easier if it's not completely gelled and together. So if you're making it specifically for this, you might want to break it up after about an hour or so because it might be easier. I haven't done this with leftover salmon yet, so that'll be something else to try. But in any case, it's a good way to use up other salmon and get some other tasty options. So that's it, it's done. And if you were having a dinner party You could do this all ahead of time, make your salmon cakes up ahead of time, and then put them in the refrigerator even after you sauté them to pop in the oven to finish cooking. So that's that.

I think that looks great.

Susan, Kim had asked about the hydrangeas, and I love them too. That's one of the things we miss about the Northeast is the hydrangeas.

Oh yes, we have so many kinds of hydrangeas, you know, up here in the Northeast. I don't know where else they grow, but they just say it's such a lushness, and some of the colors are just, you know, really wonderful. So yeah, I'm glad you like those.

One of the things was along the hydrangea trail, and that was in Atlantic City, and I remembered that as a kid, they used to take tours, because they went like through Ventnor and Margate, and when Atlantic City was a little nicer, before casinos, and that was just lovely flowers, and we had I think 3 or 4 different kinds planted in New Jersey, different colors, and I didn't know that the soil changes the color, the pH of the soil.

Yes, yes, yeah, well in this new garden and on our deck we've put, for example, a few trees and a few large plants that are annuals. For example, hibiscus is an annual up here, and you know, they sell them in the nurseries, and you get one, and then they have these big— in the beginning of the season, they have these big beautiful flowers, and they add such an ambiance and a color that, you know, you can't get naturally from a perennial. So those, I like those, some, just a few of those bigger flowers for the season.

Well, I'm going to start with these, so I'm going to turn my induction cooker on, and I'm just going to grab a little handful of this and make a cake, a little out of it, and then I have some bread crumbs here. Move this out of the way so you can see. Oh, lovely.

Let me add one more thing while you're doing that. One thing I didn't mention I should have, this This year we bought a taller, a bar-height table and 4 chairs. And it's quite small, but we happen to have a view. And oh my God, there's something about sitting taller, and especially if you have a view, or even if the view is down the hill or a quarter of an acre, a little patch of land down the hill. There's something about dining at a higher height as an option, maybe not everywhere, but again, this may go on another side of the house.

Well, you know, I really like the higher tables, especially in the morning for coffee, and sometimes for dining they're okay, but not all the time.

No.

They do make a nice break. It depends on where you are too in a restaurant.. But I want one for our porch because I want to go sit out there and enjoy my coffee with my computer and sit up higher. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I'm a big kid now. I can sit up higher. So anyway, here are the salmon cakes. And what I did was I let them sit, and it's amazing how the moisture— so the breadcrumbs soak up the moisture, and they do firm up quite a bit. I just dredged them in a little bit of breadcrumbs, not a big coating, but enough. You can do these in the oven if you want to, too. If you're saying, "Chef, I don't want to fry them. These are beautiful. I don't want to get any more fat on them." That's fine. Do them in the oven the same way you would do a crab cake. This would be a pretty good stuffing. I hate to say it because I haven't tried it yet, but stuffed shrimp with salmon. That might be pretty cool.

Nice.

Yeah, so I mean, it's the same to me. I'm thinking of it the same as crab meat. So we'll see how that works out. Okay, so let me drop these in here, and I'm just gonna let these cook on both sides for a little bit. And while they're cooking, I'm going to make a remoulade sauce. And a remoulade sauce is basically a fancy tartar sauce.

That's okay, you can call it that. I think it's— you call it that and then you bring out your white china.

There you go. You know, it always sounds— I'm having a remoulade, okay, that sounds good. And the restaurants are starting to pick up on it. So in here I have mayonnaise, Dijon, and let me tell you, I can taste that Dijon in the salmon and it's wonderful, and that little bit of heat. I'm excited because I've actually not made these before. This is my first time. I hate to tell you.

Wow.

This is experimenting with the chef. I don't know.

I think Dijon in almost anything makes it better. I really, really do.

Especially with the salmon. I think it might be too much with the crab meat, but with the salmon, it's perfect. Wow. So for my remoulade, I'm mixing together a variety of ingredients. And you don't have to use any of them. You can make this like you want. But I've got some olives in here.

Olives!

Chopped olives. I have some chopped capers. I have some pickle relish. Wow. I have some scallions. And there were a little bit of red pepper in the olive, but I'm going to add just a little bit more. And some parsley.

Oh man, I feel like I could just eat that by the spoon.

I'm telling you. And now we're gonna add in just a little bit of hot sauce. Just a little, because I want it to complement.

I was waiting for that, waiting for that hot sauce.

I'm a little bit of a wussy with that, so I don't put a lot in. You could put more in. And a little Worcestershire. A little more squeezed lemon, and let me turn these cakes. These got just a little bit overcooked, but not bad. All right, so everything in there, and then we're just going to mix this up.

You know, the whole thing sounds like sort of a South of France sort of, you know, sort of dining, South of France kind of ingredients, the olives and, you know, or else that or a little bit of puttanesca maybe.

And I'm going to add probably a little bit more mayonnaise to this, but that's basically it. You know what you could add into it too? You could add a little sour cream or— let's see if I can get this a little better— or a little bit of yogurt.

Oh, look at that!

Greek yogurt to it.

Huh, nice.

But that's, you know, instead of just a plain tartar sauce. Yeah. This was just a little bit too hot. I will make some more so you can see. Okay.

And what else would you use that remoulade Any fish you want to serve.

You know what it's really good on is if you're making sandwiches. If you're making like a crab slider or a salmon slider or fish, flounder.

Peter Feltham says he recommends the green Tabasco sauce.

I saw that.

I haven't seen green Tabasco sauce. So look at this.

Again, there are little— a little bit dark. I'll make some more.

Not for me. I like it more brown than light brown. That looks terrific.

Salmon is, you know, we'll serve it when we go to serve with a little bit of sauce in the corner.

I'm making that tonight. I have the salmon cooked. I'm making that tonight.

And you know, easy enough to put together. You put a little bit of sprig of parsley on it or even around the plate, dress it up with a little bit of scallion.

And Peter Feltum says he likes horseradish with salmon too.

You know, one of the recipes I saw for remoulade had horseradish in it. So if you want to take it in a little bit other direction, you know, you can add what you want into it. You know, you could put a little horseradish into it and make a little bit of different flavor for it. So have fun. You know, think of, like I said, it's a fancy tartar sauce. Also would be good on sandwiches. When I was growing up, I remember a sandwich spread which was basically tartar sauce, just a little bit off of tartar sauce. But we used to use it on all kinds of sandwiches, and I don't see it out as much. But I think someone said, you know, hey, we got too much tartar sauce, let's try calling it something else and sell it. So, you know, use it— if you use mayonnaise, or if you put enough Dijon in here, you know, we always call it Dijonnaise. You know, ooh, another fancy sauce, mayonnaise and Dijon together. So it's a Dijonnaise So, you know, live a little and change it up and put some other ingredients in it, you know. If you don't like it—

But all of those ingredients, it takes a short time to prepare. I can see that. And it's just different than the weeknight. It's not a typical weeknight, you know, meal, but exciting.

Yeah, and again, you can use whatever salmon. You can use canned salmon, you can use whatever salmon you find in the market. Just be a little careful about the salmon you're buying. A lot of this Atlantic salmon from our side of the pond is not always something you want to eat all the time. It's farmed. I think the Scottish variety is better, but some of our salmon, it just contains the levels of some of the things it contains are a little high. Whenever you can get Pacific salmon, that is definitely the way to go.

Good advice. Oh, and what did you put a little bit of parsley around it too? A little garlic?

A little parsley, a little bit of scallion on it. Again, stuff I had already.

Looks great. Looks really, really— I mean, that's ambitious but easy and exciting. That's what I see this as.

Again, it's learning to play with things and binders. You could do this with leftover whitefish. You could make tuna patties. You can— any fish, rather than just try to eat it because you don't want to throw it out and it's dry, or put it on a salad, do something else with it. You could mix potato into this. We were talking about sweet potato. You could probably mix a little sweet potato into these, and they would be be very nice, too. I was even thinking a little corn mixed in there might have been interesting.

Oh, yes, love that.

Think outside the box a little bit. Have fun with your food, and you're just really going to enjoy eating more. People are going to go, "Oh my God, I wouldn't have thought of that. How did you come up with that?" You must have spent all day. Really, it wasn't a great deal of prep. I chopped up a lot of things here.. But it's something, make use of them. So when I made my remoulade, I used a lot of the same things in my sauce. So don't be afraid to experiment and have fun. And like I said, you can make these, you can freeze them. So I would sauté them a little on both sides if you're going to freeze them, then freeze them and take them out when you want to eat. Just don't cook them too long. Or if you're doing a dinner party, like I said, you can make up 20 of these ahead of time very simply. And finish them in the oven when your party's here.

That is all good. I think we have a creative meal, and I think we have creative dining, creative outdoor dining.

Very cool. And these would be wonderful outside at dusk with a glass of wine.

Of course.

And you could go, "We are in Paris." Yes, with a white linen tablecloth.

Why not?

Yep, just invite me over, I'll bring the coat, okay?

Oh good, okay.

Well, thank you so much for coming around our kitchen table. Susan, thank you for a lovely slideshow and sharing some ideas for outdoor dining with us. And we're back, and we'll see you again next week.

Have a good week, everyone.

Bye-bye.