I was supposed to be recovering from surgery tonight, if everything had gone as expected. It didn’t. Thirty-six hours before surgery, at 5:15 Wednesday afternoon, I got a call from the surgeon’s office telling me “we’ve cancelled your surgery because we don’t like some of your lab results. You have to get your family doctor to write us a justification to clear you for surgery before we’ll do anything further.”
Well, just ducky. Call me at the last minute, and after everyone has gone home for the day so I can’t reach anyone to do anything, and yank back on the reins as hard as you can. And not just yank me around—yank around my family, and my manager and co-workers … now isn’t that a fine way to do?
So I had to take off Thursday from work, go to the surgeon’s to pick up a copy of the offending lab results, call my family doctor and ask for a work-in to figure out what to do next. Fortunately, he was able to work me in late in the afternoon. We sat down and reviewed the results: elevated glucose (the hospital shouldn’t have drawn me right after I had pho for lunch, the imbeciles), PTT clotting time a few seconds longer than normal (draw me soon after the blood bank fills me up with heparin and that’ll happen), neutrophils and eosinophils higher than normal although my total white cell count was normal (no shit, I’m asthmatic and allergic and it’s spring and everything is blooming). He didn’t seem particularly exercised by any of it, but said we’d do another blood draw for verification and if the results were within limits he’d write a letter to the surgeon politely telling him to take a chill pill and get out his knife, and put me back on the schedule.
This morning his medical assistant called and left a message: the second draw was within limits, there was nothing to worry about, and he’d write and send the letter on Monday. Of course, even after that I’ll have to wait for another OR slot to open, which means days more waiting and twiddling thumbs.
So instead of lying around tonight and taking painkillers, I ended up cooking. M is gone to a lock-in with her school drama club, so I don’t have to work around all the things she won’t eat, and I decided it was a great time to use up a dusty can of salmon I found in the back of the pantry. I was put off canned salmon when I was young, after eating some that had been badly boned and crunched down on a chunk of vertebra, but I decided that by-god I was going to be courageous and use up this stuff anyway. So I made croquettes.
Curried Salmon Croquettes
Serving Size : 4 Preparation Time : 0:25
Categories : Fish
Amount Measure Ingredient — Preparation Method ———————— ———————— —————————————————————————————— 15 ounces Canned salmon 1 teaspoon Curry powder 1 small Onion 1 tablespoon Chopped parsley 1 ounce Drained capers 2 teaspoons Lemon juice 1 Beaten egg, to bind ½ cup Dry bread crumbs Dry bread crumbs Oil, for deep-frying ————WHITE SAUCE———— 4 ounces Butter ½ cup Flour 1 cup Milk 1 cup Unsalted chicken broth 1 teaspoon Nutmeg Salt and pepper, to taste
Melt butter over low heat; remove from heat, and stir in the flour, working until smooth. Return to the heat, cook a few minutes, remove from the heat, and gradually stir in the milk. Return to the heat, and stir until boiling. Reduce the heat, and simmer further three minutes, and season with nutmeg, salt, and pepper. Set aside.
Drain the salmon, and remove the bones and flake; peel the onion, and mince it. Thoroughly mix the salmon, curry powder, onion, parsley, capers, lemon juice, binding egg, and bread crumbs. Spread the mixture on a shallow tray, and refrigerate until it is firm. Mold the mixture into croquette shapes 1” x 2”. Roll them in bread crumbs. Refrigerate at least one hour. Fry the croquettes in deep oil at 350° F. until they are golden (3 to 4 minutes); drain on paper towels. Cover with white sauce and serve.
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Per Serving (excluding unknown items): 466 Calories; 28g Fat (53.9% calories from fat); 29g Protein; 24g Carbohydrate; 2g Dietary Fiber; 166mg Cholesterol; 749mg Sodium. Exchanges: 1 Grain (Starch); 2½ Lean Meat; ½ Vegetable; 0 Fruit; 0 Non-Fat Milk; 4 Fat.
The croquettes were quite mild and not fishy at all; probably the curry powder had something to do with that. Even with refrigerating the mix beforehand, it was hard to get the croquettes to hold together, but I’m afraid that adding more bread crumbs for more binding would make it too blah. I was able to manage them by using the pierced ladle to lower them into the hot oil, and once they were fried they held together nicely.
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