My wife and I helped one of her students, an Alaskan native, on her weekend move. In return, the student gave us two good-sized pieces of salmon – one filet, one steak. I’d like to cook 'em up, and I’m wondering if anybody has some good tips or tricks.
I’ve perused the Ultimate Recipe Index, of course. (By the way, Zenster, you are one of the board’s Unsung Heroes. Hip hip…) Unfortunately, I didn’t see any salmon recipes that really called out to me. “Salmon on Black-Eyed Peas and Spinach”? Sounds delicious to me, but my wife hates spinach. (Maybe I can adapt it with rice, use red beans, make it more New Orleans-y.) “Salmon Meatballs with Capellini”? Also sounds delicious, but I don’t know that I want to do so much work. “Salmon Chowder”? This one has some promise (i.e. it’s easy), but again, it doesn’t sing out for me right now.
Normally, I just bake, broil, or grill my salmon. Butter, some Johnny’s, lemon juice, seal it up in foil, and away she goes. Pretty generic, yeah, but it’s salmon. Mmmmmmmm.
Anybody got some secret grilling/baking tips? Y’know, a splash of Pickapeppa Sauce / Jim Beam / honey mustard / something else outlandish that actually works like a charm?
Thanks in advance!
(And hey, if it turns out really well, I’ll write it up and add it to the recipe thread.)
IMHO, salmon doesn’t need much help. Grilled, with some butter and green peppercorns is the usual. The peppercorns add a nice spice.
If there’s some left over, we might do salmon pasta - grilled salmon, light cream sauce (lots of parmesan and pepper), blanched veggies (snow peas, broccoli, maybe sauteed onions, or else raw green onions and raw red pepper).
I’m with Alpine on this, I usually grill a bunch at a time with a little garlic and paprika. But for leftovers, the possibilities are endless. My favorite is fish tacos: shred & stir-fry with peppers, serve in soft corn tortillas topped with a little Monterey Jack and your favorite fresh salsa. If you’re not into hot stuff, make it green or red peppers, and tomato-basil salsa. Sounds wierd, but great stuff!
I have a wonderful recipe that I got from this book. Basically, you marinate the fillets in a mixture of 3 parts maple syrup to 1 part soy sauce for a day or two, pepper one side, and bake at 500 degrees for 7 minutes.
The dishwasher salmon recipe from the same book is also surprisingly good. I cooked it on New Year’s Eve and it got rave reviews.
I have two different recipes from my wanderings in Russia.
**
Salmon steaks with grean peas, shrimp, and french toast**
6 small salmon steaks
2 tsp. butter
salt
1 tsp flour
pepper
1/2 lb shelled cooked shrimp
2-3 cups grean peas
3 slices French toast
Dust the Salmon steaks with pepper and salt. The steaks may either be broiled or pan-fried.
Cook peas
with a very thin slice of onion, a pinch of sugar, a pinch of salt. Keep the water from the peas. You will need about 1/2 cup thickened with butter and flour. Keep 6 shrimp whole. Chop the rest of the shrmip. Mix the chopped shrimp with the peas and the thickened water from cooking the peas. Season with pepper and keep hot.
Prepare the french toast, use two eggs. Lay the salmon steaks in a ring on a hot platter. Fill the rings with the shrimps and peas, with a whole shrimp on each piece of toast. Dust with paprika and serve at once. Salmon Steaks in Madeira shrimp sauce
6 salmon steaks cut thin
salt
pepper
2 tbsp butter
1 cup Madeira wine
1 bay leaf
2 tbsp grated Parmesan cheese shrimp sauce
3/4 lb shrimp
1 1/2 cups water
3 sprigs fresh dill
2 tbsp butter
1 1/2 tbsp flour
2 tbsp minced parsley
1 tbsp lemon juice
3 tbsp sweet or sour cream
Prepare your sauce first. Cook the shrimp in the water with the dill for 15 minutes. Boil once, then simmer. Keep 1 cup of this water when you drain the shrimp. Remove shells and take out the black thread from the back of each. Chop the shrimp and saute 3 minutes in hot butter. Add flour. Cook 5 minutes more, then add the shrimp water and cook till thickened. Now add the parsley, lemon juice, and cream.
keep warm.
Rub the salmon steaks lightly with salt and pepper. Put the wine and bay leaf in a pan. Add the fish. Cover and bring rapidly to a boil, then simmer very gently for 15 minutes. Place the fish on a hot platter. Remove the bay leaf from the wine broth; add the shrimp sauce; heat; then add the cheese. Stir till the cheese is melted and the sauce quite smooth. Do not boil. The sauce may be poured over the fish or served separately in a sauce boat.
That was the longest post of mine yet!
let me know how you like them.
heat your grill really hot, or heat a cast-iron pan really hot and have your oven preheated to 450.
lightly oil the skin side. liberally s+p the other.
place skin side down on grill or pan. cover and leave it. check it after 6-8 min. depending on how rare you like your salmon, take it off if the top has turned translucent pink, or leave on a few more minutes. if in a pan, take off after 6 min or so and put in oven for 1-2 min.
this will crisp the skin so you can eat it, if you are a fan of salmon skin rolls and suchlike. if not, it’ll slide right off the skin.
i rarely eat salmon any other way; it doesnt need a sauce but any fruit salsa, or any other for that matter, or wolfgang puck’s recipe for ginger vinaigrette, or barbara tropp’s pickled ginger vinaigrette work just fine. try it w/o anything first, tho.
Actually, those recipes sound d@mn good and need to be transplanted to the recipe thread. I’ll share with you a simple and insanely delicious poaching method that I learned from a friend who worked at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California.
Take a salmon fillet and pick it over for any bones that have been left in the meat. Cover a large cutting board with waxed paper. Lay the filet flat upon the papered board. Take another wax papered cutting board and in one swift movement, whack the filet once and only once across its entire surface. You should reduce the thickness of the filet by 25%-30%. Poach the filet in a cour bullion of half butter and half fish stock or water (chicken stock may be used).
Start cooking the fish with the skin side up. After only a few minutes, turn the filet and allow it cook through without any further disturbance. It is important to turn the fish early to avoid it breaking up, as it softens considerably during the cooking process. Add some fresh chopped herb to the broth while heating it prior to cooking the fish. Marjoram, basil or a bouquet garni will do fine. Keep it all real simple while cooking and serve with some melted butter and capers at the table.
This recipe makes some of the most tender salmon I have ever had. The single impact of the cutting board disconnects the tissues and allows for better permeation of the broth while poaching. Please give this ridiculously easy method a try and you will be amazed at the results. The remaining broth serves as an excellent base for a fish chowder as well.
PS: We think alike essvee, salmon skin temaki is my favorite sushi nigiri.
mmmmm, zenster said sushi. since i moved to the west coast, zenster, i almost never cook fish, i like eating it raw so much. heres a good and easy recipe for sake, the cured salmon sushi that tastes so buttery and good.
1 4-5 salmon filet with skin
zest of two lemons or one yuzu
1 T ginger, chopped
48 shiso leaves
1/2 cup kosher salt
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup good sake
pick bones out of salmon. spread three thicknesses of plastic wrap long enough to wrap around filet onto a cookie sheet, place salmon in the middle. put lemongrass, zest, ginger, and shiso in food processor. process 3-4 min or til well chopped. mix together sugar and salt and spread over salmon. pat paste over salt mix. pour sake over everything. wrap well, place in fridge, and weigh down with 2-3 #10 cans for 2 days or so.
slice as thin as you can and pile it on toasts with maybe a little wasabi creme fraiche and some chives. or cut it thicker and make sushi.
Sweet bourbon marinade (for approx 1 lb of salmon)
1/4 cup pineapple juice
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon Kentucky bourbon
1/4 teaspoon cracked black pepper
1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 cup vegetable oil
Mix all the ingredients except the oil in a bowl. Stir until the sugar is dissolved and all ingredients are mixed. Stir in the oil.
Put the fish (skin removed) in the marinade. Refridgerate for a few hours. Grill, basting with marinade as needed. Serve topped with some fresh chopped chives.
From Top Secret Restaurant Recipes by Todd Wilbur. The recipe is based on a dish served at the Lone Star Steakhouse chain.
Wow, people, thanks – these all sound amazing. We decided to wait until tonight to cook the salmon, but now I’ve got too many alternatives to choose from! Oh, my life is such a tragedy.
Of course, I do live in Seattle, so it’s not like I can’t run down to the Market and pick up some more to use with the other recipes… Mmmmm…
FWIW, here’s an adaptation of a French recipe that orignally used mandoline-sliced potatoes:
Potato-crusted salmon
1 lb salmon fillet or boneless steaks
2-3 russet potatoes, grated (use the big holes in the grater)
1-2 sprigs fresh dill per samon piece
melted butter
salt & pepper to taste
This is an “assembly-heavy” dish, but once the prep is done, it’s actually quite quick.
Oil or grease a wide skillet and heat to medium.
Taking a wide spatula, spread or brush melted butter across the spatula, then put a thin layer of the grated potato directly on the spatula.
Place the fish on the potato, add dill , salt and pepper and top fish with another layer of grated potato.
At this point, you can either flip or slide the fish into the pan, but the point is to create a lacy, crisp potato crust.
Cook until the potato is uniformly golden brown all over.
The steaming gives the fish a lovely texture when contrasted to the crunch of the potato.
Variations I’ve tried were to mix grated horseradish with the potato, mix cheese with potato, etc. Fruit salsa or beurre blanc also go nicely.
Isn’t fresh salmon great? I bought some fresh Chinook fillets (I think Americans call it something else) last week from Granville Island. Absolutely delicious!
Put ingredients into blender or food processor and blend into a paste. Make several deep cuts in your salmon and fill with the paste. Cook on the BBQ on low heat, skin side down. The fish will slide right off of the skin when cooked.
I always find that salmon is best cooked very slowly, at the lowest possible heat. Let us know how it goes!
I have a friend in Hoquiam, WA. She has friends who catch salmon and smoke it. Mmmmm… freshly smoked salmon! It’s entirely different from the thin-sliced, goo-covered salmon you get at delicatessens or vacuum-packed in the deli section, and from the dried-out, tasteless, vacuum-packed blocks in the fish section of your supermarket. I haven’t tried my friend’s friend’s smoked salmon, but I’m assured it’s better than anything available in a store. So far, the best smoked salmon I’ve eaten is from Brady’s Oysters in Grays Harbor.
Johnny L.A.: My mother and stepfather have a food smoker at their house; like your friend’s pals, they also make smoked salmon, from fresh fish they catch themselves. Lawd, it’s tasty.
Seattle: The traffic sucks donkey balls, but the food is amazing.
I strongly recommend either False_God’s recipe or my own. I have already posted a potato jacketed fish recipe in the Ultimate Recipe Thread and it is a wonderful flavor combination. I would recommend washing the potatoes before use to avoid any gumminess (see my hash browns recipe on page one), but the dill and potatoes with the fish will be marvelous. Past that, please try my poaching recipe. Poached salmon with lemon, drawn butter and capers is one of the truly sublime dishes in the seafood world. Yes, it is a cliché, but it’s a d@mn good chiché. And at least this cliché is from the originator of California cuisine, Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse restaurant. The meal I had there was one of the finest I’ve ever eaten in my life.
Anyway, please post here with which recipe that you ended up using and let us know how it turned out.
The rest of you posters;
Please cross post your recipe submissions to the Ultimate Recipe Thread.
I would be most grateful for the contributions and the recipes all sound excellent. I’ll post my sig below for easy linking. Just click on the word Recipes and at the top of the Active Index, you will find a link to the recipe thread. Or, click on the “recipe of the week” and go to “Post Reply” at the bottom of the page.
Thanks in Advance,
Chris
PS: Cervaise, thank you for your kind words about the recipe thread.
Thanks to all. We ended up going with Zenster’s poaching recipe, though I tossed a little Sauvignon Blanc (St. Supery Gold Medal 1998, if you must know ;)) into the broth as well. And…
MMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Very tender, very subtle, and remarkably easy. On the side, almond rice pilaf with a few capers added; the starchy fiber texture with crunchy bits was a great contrast to the buttery-soft salmon. Overall, big thumbs up, a definite keeper.
Next up, the chowder, using the leftover broth. Then the bourbon marinade, or maybe the potato-crust, or maybe… Man, it took us half an hour which to choose the first recipe to try, and now we have to decide on number two?
Oh, my life is such a tragedy.