Friday, October 30, 2009

Wood-Grilled Salmon

This past weekend Matt and I watched an episode of Cooks Country on PBS. I usually don't watch cooking shows on PBS because they are on at weird times here in San Diego, but at the moment all we do is stay in the house and take care of the baby, so we stumbled upon it. In this particular episode they grilled salmon over cedar wood chips. Both of us thought that the recipe deserved to be made by us. I have to say that we were not disappointed at all. The salmon was perfectly cooked and it had just the right amount of cedar smoke. You *must* use the cedar chips for this recipe; don't even think about using hickory or mesquite. I paired the salmon with Jasmine rice and braised collard greens with pancetta. The meal was just divine! We will definitely be making the salmon again.

INGREDIENTS (serves 4)

  • 1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon table salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon pepper
  • 1/4 teaspoon granulated garlic
  • 4 skin-on salmon fillets (each 6 to 8 ounces and 1 1/4 inches thick)
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 2 cups wood chips , soaked for 15 minutes to 30 minutes
DIRECTIONS
  1. Combine sugar, salt, pepper, and granulated garlic in small bowl. Pat salmon dry with paper towels. Brush flesh side of salmon with oil and sprinkle with sugar mixture.
  2. Make four 7- by 5-inch trays using heavy-duty aluminum foil. Using tip of knife, perforate bottom of each tray. Divide wood chips among trays and place salmon skin-side down on top of wood chips.
  3. Place trays with salmon over hot fire and grill, covered, until center of each fillet is still just translucent, about 10 minutes. Remove trays from grill.
  4. Slide metal spatula between skin and flesh of fish and transfer to platter. Serve with Jasmine rice or your favorite side dish.

1 comment:

buellersway said...

I had some of this recently as well and I loved it! I've never had salmon grilled on a cedar plank but your correct that the cedar adds a lot to the flavor. It truly is divine!