A Denver chef has combined two favourites to create a salmon dish that will leave diners baked.
Rosenberg’s Bagels and Delicatessen owner Josh Pollack created a cannabis infused salmon for 4/20 this year as a joke, but the recipe proved popular.
“It puts two things that people really love together… That’s why I did it.” he said.
The initial recipe was popular, but too strong (the first batch was too strong for most to finish it) so Pollack worked to perfect the ratio of cannabis to salmon.
Pollack uses cannabis, along with more traditional ingredients of salt, dill, lemon and sugar to cure the fish, being careful to follow Colorado regulations. All recreational edibles must be individually wrapped or contain no more than 10 mg of THC. Pollack infuses every 3 oz of salmon with the 10 mg dosage to meet the state’s standards.
While he’s unable to sell the dish, Pollack hopes to have it available at local dispensaries on a special order basis.
Unlike most cannabis edibles that are sugar based, like candies or brownies, the salmon isn’t overpowered by the taste of cannabis.
Pollack said infusing the fish with THC gives it a “tiny herbaceous flavour,” produced by a process that involves soaking cannabis in alcohol, straining it and cooking the alcohol out of the liquid. Pollack then lets the flavour seep into the flesh for 72 hours before its finished with lemon and dill.
“With this application, it goes really well to appropriately mask the flavour of the cannabis,” Pollack said.
The chef is currently working on more cannabis infused dishes, including a matzah ball soup.
“Anything you can cook with fat, you can cook with cannabis,” Pollack said.