Does anyone else enjoy planking – that is, cooking fish on a soaked wooden plank?
Planking shad is a Virginia tradition. But the technique works great with salmon, bluefish, trout, whitefish, muskie, and bass. You can use whole fish or steaks/filets – you can even cook pike this way if you remove the skin.
Now that the weather is cold, I love firing up the grill and setting out a planked fish dinner. Yum.
Recipies on request. 
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Simplicity:
Take an oak plank and soak in water for about an hour, then grease it. Fillet a four to five pound shad or salmon. Take fillets, salt and pepper them on both sides. Put the fillets skin side down on plank. Dab the fish with butter and broil under medium flame in oven or on grill covered over high flame until done, usually 25-30 minutes. Doneness test: the meat flakes easily when touched with knife. Add more butter just before removing from heat.
Sprinkle chopped parsley over fish, garnish with lemon slices. Serve with tartare sauce.
Yum. Six hungry people can leave happy.
What’s the benefit of the plank? Why not just toss it on the grill or under the broiler without it?
Does the oak smoke the fish?
I use wood chips to put some smoke on salmon (never oak) when I grill it but have never planked it.
I might have to check it out.
Ooh, cool! For a Thanksgiving alternative (my brother-in-law doesn’t like turkey, and I don’t eat the warm-blooded) I was thinking of grilling some salmon. This sounds like fun.
So, the dumb question: assuming I don’t feel like paying $20 to buy a planking kit at the local snooty food store, where do I get an appropriate plank for this? Obviously I don’t want one that’s been treating with tetramethylpoisonamide.
Daniel
I’ve gotten untreated oak planks from the local hardware store. The snooty food store planks have small channels cut into the wood; I’ve never found that this makes the slightest difference.
The oak doesn’t exactly smoke the fish, but the oak flavor steams up into the fish. That’s why this is a good technique for fish, which generally have a delicate flavor, as opposed to beef or game meat. You could cook a sirloin steak like this, but you’d never get any hint of the flavor from the wood.
And if you’re really ambitious and starting with a whole fish, I strongly recommend a female shad, because the roe should be prepared as a tasty treat in its own right. (Again, recipe on request).
Thanks, Bricker.
I’m not quite ambitious enough to do a whole fish yet. Maybe someone else will be interested, though.
I go to my local Home Despot and buy a cedar fence board for about $3. Cut up it gives me three disposal planks for doing fish.
Her is a recipe that you will love
Soak a cedar board for at least 1 hour
Put a fresh salmon filet (skin on is fine) on said board
Coat the salmon with cajun spices (Meat magic or whatever)
A little salt
Apply a light coat of maple syurp
cook
Be careful when removing the plank from the BBQ that you place it on something that is non flamable. The bottom of the plank will be charred / covered with embers.
This sounds divine! Sometime a whole fish would be fun, but I’m going to be feeding two people off of this, so I’m going to stick to about a pound of fish for this attempt.
Thanks, Ricks!
Daniel
Whoa not a whole fish, just a filet. Or if you prefer go get a couple of salmon steaks and go from there.
Basically the same recipe. But you cover the carp with a piece of burlap.
And when it’s done…
you throw the carp away and eat the burlap.