cooking @ home

©2008 Harry Kenney

I love salmon. I try to have it at least once every month. What can you say about something that is healthy and fresh and yet something about it’s texture, it’s thickness reminds one of a steak in so many ways. Yes, silly as it sounds, in many ways I think of it as a “steak of the seas”.

Often I prepare it in the most simple and pure of ways: salt, pepper, little oil to help it cook, and maybe a twist of fresh lemon. Period. Sometimes, like now, I like to vary it with a sweet and tangy glaze. No matter what ingredients I add though, there’s only one way to cook salmon, in my opinion: Grilled.

I know, Oven isn’t bad, broiler with a fish this oily is a fire hazard, alas. And poaching? Well, poaching is probably fine but — truely, I’m more of a crunchy crust person I have to admit and not a big poaching fan at all. In the end, there’s nothing like grilled. Outdoor especially over hot charcoal; that’s the best. But when that’s not to be had, especially here in the Northeast part of the US in January, there’s always the trusty stand-by. The two-burner cast iron grill.

If you don’t have one. Get one. Now seriously how often have you heard me say that about anything? Correct. I don’t think I ever have. There’s just some things that are indispensible and not substituable. Wait you say, what about those frying pans that have the raised grill bar thingys in them? Nope. They don’t go high enough. There is no where for the fat to drain, so you are still going to be frying things in their own oils, not true grilling at all.

What about those electric grills? How about those George Forman grills? Although I haven’t actually tried them, from what I can see they probably work alright. I guess if I had a choice between the frying pan and an electric grill I would go with the latter. But a choice between a grill over the fire and a grill running alternating electrical current, gimme the stove and the cast iron anyday. Call me caveman. Call me purist. But it I can’t have my outdoor brikets, it’s indoor stove grill.

Now I have to give a big doff of the hat here to master grillsman and Iron Chef, Bobby Flay. First, this glaze definitely originates from his delicious brown sugar and mustard glaze. Hey, if I borrow or heavily base something on some else’s I tell you! Natch, I had to mess with it some and made significant changes and additions that while you could compare and no doubt tell his glaze was the “parent”, this is related yet different enough to be it’s “child”.

Another thing I about this recipe is I followed something else Bobby said on one of his shows about his personal preference when grilling salmon, that sometimes he eats the skin, and sometimes he takes it off. It depends on if he is able to get it to a certain level of crispiness. When he does, he eats it, when it’s for whatever reason not happening for him, he takes it off.

Now, I’ve always taken it off. Or to be more precise, when I’ve bought it before it was (not sure which one, but) a different type of salmon, cut into thick rectangular “steaks” and without skin. This time, I ended up getting CoHo Salmon, and instead of a steak it was the long filet. And it came with skin. Thick black and silver skin. My first thought was, ugg, take the skin off. But then I thought of what Chef Flay said, and thought, hell, I will definitely give that a try and proceed similarily, if it worked, awesome, if it didn’t work, I’ll take the skin off.

And as someone who’s been doing his best to perfect crispy skin on poultry, I managed to my delight to pull this one off as well. Yummy, crispy skin attached to a light, delicate, moist fish. You’re definitely going to enjoy this one.

Usually my photos speak for themselves, so other than the mouse-over little notes that pop up, I don’t have captions, and I rarely ever any special “notes”, but this time is an exception, so …

Important notes about the photos. The first photo of the raw fish, skin side up shows (at least it shows on the one on the right) the cross-hatched scoring I did to both. This is necessary to help achieve the crunch and crispness. Also, in the second photo of the cooking fish with the skin side up there are two notes. First, the black you see is not burn; it is the color of the skin of the coho which is silver in places and black in others. The second important note is this is the first turn of the fish, not the second, so this is only stage one of the crispy skin. And look how good it looks already.

Grilled Salmon Fillets with Crispy Skin and Asian-Fusion Glaze
©2008 Harry Kenney

2 coho salmon filets, 6-8 ounces each
olive oil
salt
pepper

glaze:

4 tbsps dijon
3 tbsps soy sauce
1 tbsp rice vinegar
1 tbsp finely ground ginger or ginger powder
1/4 tsp sesame seed oil
2 tbsp olive oil or vegetable oil
1 tsp garlic powder
3 tbsps light brown sugar
2 tbsps honey
salt
pepper

First, put all the ingredients together mentioned and create your glaze. Next, get your grill (outdoor preferably, or indoor preferably a cast-iron double burner grill or an electric one) ready and turn on to high heat.

Take your filets, score the skin on back both horizontally and vertically to make squares or a cross-hatch pattern. Rub olive oil on both sides. Season the front flesh part as you normally would with salt and pepper. When seasoning the skin side, use two to three times more salt than normally.

Put oil over your hot grill and immediately slap down your fillets skin side down. Leave about a minute more than you normally would, checking the underside occasionally to ensure cooking and browning but not burning. After about four or five minutes and right before you are ready to turn, liberally brush on the glaze all over the flesh side, then turn that over so it faces the grill.

You should see some very nice crispness on the now skin top side. Leave the flesh part down for another two-to-three minutes. Do not over cook this. Give a light brush of the glaze on the skin and turn over again. Now with the topside up, again liberally brush the glaze all over the flesh. After a minute or so more, take off of grill and serve.

Depending on how hungry your guests are this can serve two. But I found the pieces rather large and was able to feed four and still considered these nice sized servings. Myself I served this with steamed Italian flat green beans with minced onions and a helping of wild rice on the side.

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