How Alaska eats: Cozy up to salmon pot pie and copycat Olive Garden pasta e fagioli soup

Newsletter #14: It's pieday

What do you know about pirok, Russian-style salmon pot pie? I didn't know a thing until I started reading old Alaska cookbooks. Turns out people have been making regional versions across coastal Alaska for at least 100 years. And so I started to experiment, making various crusts and layering salmon, rice and vegetables until I came up with a very Alaskan pot pie recipe that made my family swoon.

Friends: This crust, made with Parmesan cheese, is pretty killer. And with this pie, as with many things, the secret is bacon. That came from a recipe from 1920.

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Maya Wilson and I were in similar fall moods as we wrote our recipes this week. She's making a copycat Olive-Garden pasta e fagioli. You can totally sub in moose meat. And, it's actually way better than Olive Garden, and not just because you made it. (Though, your bread sticks probably aren't unlimited.)

Kim Sunée is capitalizing on farmers market bounty with her recipe this week for roasted beets and carrots with an almond-coconut sauce. Market columnist Steve Edward reports that farmers markets are going strong longer than usual thanks to our record warm fall. Still time to stock your garage fridge cold drawer with roots, potatoes, onions and shallots.

[Read previous newsletters here. Find more food and drink content here.]

Join the Alaskana recipe test kitchen on Facebook to help me test these recipes and talk Alaska food things. Right now I'm going hard on reader-submitted Alaska Native donut recipes and looking for someone who will teach me to make fish-head soup. Anybody? Write me about that or anything?

And, if you don't already, think about subscribing to the paper. Online subscriptions power our ship these days. (And, for those of you who keep a recipe binder like me, if you get it delivered, you can cut out all the recipes!)

Here's hoping you find yourself looking into the happy faces of your family while you all eat something warm.

Thanks for reading.

ALASKANA RECIPE: SALMON POT PIE WITH PARMESAN CRUST

PS: If you're in the market to learn more about traditional Pirok recipes, here's an ambitious one from Susie Jenkins-Brito in Dillingham and another, published in the New York Times, from Alaska chef Kirsten Dixon.