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Recipe of the Week: Favorite festivals and fair foods

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Spring is the start of festival season and two of our favorites are this weekend.

Delaware Valley University’s A-Day is Friday through Sunday, while the 40th annual Lambertville Shad Fest in Lambertville, N.J., will take place Saturday and Sunday.

A-Day is an old-fashioned country-style fair with exhibits, pony rides, pig races, arts and crafts vendors, a tractor exhibit, food trucks and live music. Students compete for ribbons with their exhibits. A highlight is milkshakes from the Pa. Dairymen’s Association. You know they will be good because they want you to see how good milk can taste.

A long-standing tradition at DelVal, the first A-Day was held in May of 1949. At that time, A-Day was a single day when students worked together to showcase various agricultural displays, farm animals and other exhibits. Today it is so much more. For more information, including parking, see the website delval.edu/community-members/a-day

At Shad Fest visitors can learn how this member of the herring family is caught in a net, eat fish sandwiches and traditional fair food, see the annual poster contest and visit a wide variety of vendors.

This is the 40th year that the return of the shad to the previously polluted river has been celebrated with a festival. For more information, including parking, see lambertvillechamber.com/shad-fest/.

If you get your hands on some shad fillets (deboning it yourself is not recommended because of the many small bones), you might consider this recipe from honest-food.net which teaches you how to smoke the oily fish.

Smoked Shad

3 pounds shad fillets (or similar oily fish)

FIRST BRINE:

½ cup kosher salt

2 quarts water

SECOND BRINE:

½ cup kosher salt

2 quarts water

½ cup maple syrup

1 chopped onion

3 smashed garlic cloves

Juice of a lemon

1 tablespoon cracked black pepper

5 bay leaves

1. Mix the first brine together and soak the shad fillets in it for 30 minutes, then drain.

2. Meanwhile, bring the second brine to a simmer, stir well to combine and turn off the heat. Set this in a drafty or cool place to chill it down fast. When the second brine is cool, pour it over the shad and brine for 2 hours.

3. Drain and rinse off the fillets, then pat dry with a towel. Air dry in a drafty place – use a fan if need be – for 2 to 3 hours, or until the meat looks a bit shiny. This is an important step; you are creating a sort of a second skin called a pellicle that is necessary to seal the fillets. If you skip this step, you will have problems with the proteins leaking out from between the flakes of the meat, forming a white icky stuff that will need to be scraped off.

4. Smoke over alder or hardwoods for 1 to 3 hours, depending on the heat. You want the shad to slowly collect smoke, and cook very slowly. Under no circumstances do you want the heat to get above 200 degrees. Remove and let cool at room temperature before packing away in the fridge or freezer.


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