The best way to cook salmon?
I came across this article purporting to compare methods for cooking salmon. Salmon can be tricky, especially to get it the way I like it: somewhat crisp on the outside but tender and not dry on the inside.
Part of it depends on the type of salmon one gets. Where I live, I find that the best kind is the farmed type, although connoisseurs probably think that’s terrible of me. But that kind is typically more moist and therefore more forgiving of a little overcooking.
I haven’t tried the methods in the article. But here’s how I ordinarily cook salmon. I put olive oil, lemon, salt, and dried tarragon (or fresh, if I have it) in an oval baking dish like this one, turn the oven to 425 and put the dish in there until it gets up to speed. Then when it’s hot and sizzly I put the fish in there, making sure both sides get coated with the liquid. Cooking time depends on the size and shape of the fish.
It’s really really good.
[NOTE: I don’t feel like writing about politics anymore today, so I’m not going to. That’s my Christmas present to you.]
That baking dish is gorgeous.
Mrs Whatsit:
Thanks! Wedding present, which tells you how old it is. They don’t make them anymore, but I think you can get “vintage” ones online. One caveat with them is that if you take them directly from cold to very hot, they might break. That’s why I put it in the oven before the oven gets really really hot.
I’m lazy… just steam frozen salmon steaks and go mad with salted butter (if it’s the real Normandy deal, so much the better for butter) and lemon. A dash of Tabasco Sauce never goes amiss.
But my culinary ambition for 2021 is to master sous vide and sous vide salmon in particular. If any ingredient cries out for this method it must be salmon.
neo: I prefer the farm salmon too.
I use sous vide for salmon. I put the salmon into a zip-loc plastic bag with soy sauce, brown sugar and a sliced clove of garlic, seal the bag, and cook for 40-50 minutes in a pot of water maintained by the sous vide immersion tool at 134 degrees.
Then I remove the bag from the water, dry the salmon with a paper towel, then sear the salmon on both sides in a hot pan. Serve with rice. My sister loved it when she visited last month.
It’s easy to make and easy to clean. A bonus with sous vide is that you don’t have to worry about overcooking. If you leave it cooking another 20 minutes, no worries!
The article points out the single most important thing about fish: Overcooking ruins it, and it happens very quickly if you’re not paying attention.
My favorite method for all high-oil fish like salmon (halibut too):
Large cast-iron skillet, medium-heavy weight, heated on a gas range until it’s quite hot – where a drop of water skitters. Oven on High-Broil, rack on top slot.
Season fish with fresh-ground blackpepper, no salt, garlic, tarragon and/or herbes fines. Pat it dry. A nice alternative to the herbs is fresh dill, for a lovely flavor, on the top.
Pour some light olive oil into the skillet, enough to give about 1/8″ puddle; allow it to come to temperature for a few seconds. Lay in the fish, skin side down, cover. Pan-fry the fish thus for just a few minutes (depends entirely on the thickness) but you want to aim for slightly more than half the expected cooking time.
Uncover, add a few pats of slightly chilled butter on top of the fish, then slide the open skillet under the broiler for a few minutes to crisp up the fish, melt the butter, activate the herbs, and finish the cooking. The nice thing about using cast iron is this method allows immediate use of the broiler and also uses the thermal inertia of the cast iron (stays hot). Halibut cooked this way is truly wonderful, as well. It does take a little practice to perfect; the best way is always to cook it less than you think it needs. Should it need a little extra, the skillet will still be hot.
The best in Holiday Cheer to all.
I pan-fry it in oil, in a hot skillet, and sprinkle dill and butter on the top as the underside finishes.
Cheers to all, and a blessed Christmas, to all those celebrating.
Aggie,
That is almost exactly the method I use and have found that it is the best tasting salmon. The family agrees. The only differences are, I season with black pepper and sea salt. I also add butter to the olive oil and sometimes, a couple of drops of Worcestershire sauce.
I used to bake my salmon with a dry rub, often in parchment (en papillote, to the foodies) but found the cast-iron skillet to be easier and tastier.
By the way, Merry Christmas everyone!
Neo;
If you have the chance and are not to adverse to opening your wallet try Copper River, White King Salmon or Kalgin River salmon; all Alaskan salmon.
But ANY Alaskan King or Sockeye is tops.
Alaskan Sockeye is the best deal; not too expensive, very tasty.
Recently I have been pan-frying Alaskan Salmon in lieu of oven baking..
I melt butter with chopped garlic cloves, olive oil and some salt in a skillet. I then place the salmon – skin side UP/meat side down – on the skillet, very , very briefly; just long enough to “seal” in the juices in the pinkish/red “meat” side. Then I flip the salmon – so the skin side is down – allowing it to cook and all the while spooning the butter/garlic/olive oil atop the salmon.
Take it off the skillet while inside is still buttery looking; if it’s “white-ish” you have over cooked it.
There really is no fish as tasty (and healthy !) as wild Alaskan salmon.
I used to order online Alaskan Salmon until a local grocery began selling it. Buying it at my local grocery is actually less expensive than online.
I blast it on high in the gas grill for a couple/few minutes, then turn it down to medium, skin side down. Flip, remove the skin, and repeat. Marinate before hand, with lemon, garlic, maybe with a hint of brown sugar or molasses. Mine is good, but I’ve had better in local restaurants, before Our Year of Living Covidly.
Our next door neighbor pulls it out of the bay, and it cost a bloody fortune, but he sold the farmed version too. Occasionally, he would drop off some free grenadier or some other fish I’d never heard of.
Overcooking is the sin, but that’s exactly the way my wife likes it.
The best fish I ever had was some halibut at a fast food grill my friend took me to in Seattle. It was on the water near the U. of Wash. I believe.
Coho straight out of the bay caught by my wife from her Hobie Pro Angler fishing kayak and prepared by me like this:
https://www.thefoodblog.net/planked-salmon/
Gracias querida. Feliz navidad.
Have fillets at room temperature. Cast iron fry pan, bacon grease. High heat.
Sear on each side. Ready in less than five minutes.
Smoke it.
JohnTyler is right. When I lived in Alaska, we were allowed to take 40 sockeye (red) salmon and 5 king salmon from the Copper River using dipnets. Though not the most aesthetic method of fishing, it is effective, and very delicious when cooked on the beach. My own preferred method of cooking salmon at home was to brown garlic in butter and soy sauce and then pour that over the salmon and put it on the BBQ (or on broil in an oven) if you don’t like BBQing at -40F.
We’ve been getting frozen salmon–small filets with skin on one side — and cooking it in a way pretty similar to what some of you describe: several minutes on a side in a hot skillet with various oils and seasonings. It has been at very best ok, and at worst bordering on awful, with an excessively “fishy” taste, especially on the skin side, even though the skin comes off easily after a minute or two in the pan. So–are y’all talking about fresh salmon only?
@ Mac 11:27
I am. It’s sometimes hard to find it fresh, but I find that previously-frozen fish is a crapshoot when cooking it, similar to you. If it’s inordinately fishy it might not have been flash frozen immediately after processing, don’t know. You can try soaking it in milk for a few minutes before cooking, some use flour too, to draw out the ‘fishiness’. Or you can hit it with some fresh lemon juice, but only for a moment, then rinse it off – it’ll cook it like ceviche, otherwise. You might try Neo’s preference for farm-raised and see if your results are different. And of course butter and fresh herbs can compensate for a lot; just make sure you’re not over-cooking it.
My local market occasionally has some fresh steelhead, and I actually like that better than salmon. Good luck!
“That’s my Christmas present to you.” – Neo
Hard to find a better one in these “Days of living Covidly”!
(a nicely turned phrase, gifted from TommyJay)
I have salmon in my freezer, and haven’t ever had any trouble making it taste good after being frozen. I will try and replicate past successes, or try some of the luscious suggestions here, and pass along any Helpful Hints (although my name is not Heloise).
https://www.aam.co.uk/handels-messiah-with-voces8/
The link in that post is to Spotify.
Here is one to YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFjQ77ol2DI
And check out more of Voces 8 – I think many of you will like their music.
That’s my Christmas present to Neo & Co. —
Merry Christmas to all, and God bless us every one!
I am a salmon snob. I belong to a ‘CSF’ (community supported fishery – similar to CSA) out of Sitka AK – https://sitkasalmonshares.com/. What others have mentioned above is true – the type of salmon matters! There’s no comparison between well-sourced types of fish. My all time favorite is king – it’s high fat and nearly impossible to overcook. Copper River – YUM! Once you taste the better fish, it’s almost impossible to go back.
My go-to recipe is oven baked, topped with a thin layer of dijon mustard covered with panko. Most recipes call for the panko to be browned, but I don’t bother with that. Cook at 400 degrees.
If I had only one way to eat salmon the rest of my life, it would be this way.
Badgers don’t like salmon, nor trout, but we will happily SNARF down large quantities of pan fried bluegills, and crispy hash browns!
Listen to some music while you eat, however it’s prepared.
https://libertyunyielding.com/2020/12/24/christmas-2020-a-concert-and-a-reveal-the-christmas-movie-of-all-time/
https://notthebee.com/article/some-not-the-bee-users-got-together-and-made-a-choral-arrangement-for-christmas-and-its-awesome
I know that my approach may be seen as too simplistic, but here it goes: I just take a stake, put lemon and let it marinate about 2 hours. Then I cook it in an electric grill a few minutes. As a side dish, baked potatoes (with a moderate quantity of salt) are appropriate. Drop a drizzle of good quality olive oil (uncooked) over the fish and potatoes. It’s ready.
Salmon; the reason God gave us tartar sauce.
I use cedar planks on the grill with the skin side up. The plank helps to retain the moisture and the skin gets crispy. The cedar gives it a slight smokey flavor. Make sure you soak the plank first.
We like salmon a lot at our house so over the years I have tried almost every method there is. Sous vide is an excellent choice if it’s available to you. The salmon gets cooked through perfectly and then seared quickly for the crispy crust.
I also enjoy making smoked salmon. I live in Texas, so it’s almost required that you know how to smoke all forms of protein.
Another method that I like and haven’t seen mentioned here is from the Chez Panisse cookbook. Season your salmon as you prefer. The original recipe uses salt, pepper, and lemon zest. Heat your oven to 200 degrees F with a pan of water on the lower shelf. When the oven is warm, lay the salmon on a pan on the upper shelf. Cook for one hour.
The fish comes out thoroughly cooked and very moist and flavorful. No crispy crust though.
The best salmon I have ever eaten was Ora Salmon from the cold waters of New Zealand. The combination of flavor and tenderness is hard to beat.
I grilled salmon for years and did a decent job but at times parts were too dry, recently I started braising the filets of wild caught salmon using a dry rub called ‘Grub Rub’ with sugar and spices, which is great on meat and fish, with fresh thyme and rosemary which I grow in my herb garden. I heat Canola oil about 1/8″ up to 300 degrees in a deep skillet and place the salmon skin up in the oil just long enough to crisp it and then remove the skillet and allow it too cool just a bit, flip the salmon over skin down then and add beef broth and white wine up to 1/2″, put it back on the stove top with the lid on over med high temp and check it after three minutes for temp and when it reaches 160 in the thickest part of the fish we are done. Simple fast and it works, cooked firm but not dry.
A little trick is to freeze it, and then cook it without it being completely unfrozen. That way, while the outside is being cooked, the inside is still unfreezing. Once done, you get a crispy outside with the inside being juicy and not overcooked.
The best salmon we ever had was a whole Wild Lachs (wild salmon) my wife bargained for in Norwegian from the fisherman in the fish market in the harbor in Bergen, Norway – we were staying with my wife’s cousins inland in Voss and went to Bergen by (very scenic) train!
While we prefer wild salmon where possible (e.g. visiting in Norway, Scotland, Nova Scotia or on the Pacific Coast), good farmed salmon can also be excellent. We have found Scottish farmed to be consistently better than Norwegian farmed.
Simplicity can be the best approach, if you can get really good fish and other ingredients.
For us, the best way to prepare salmon is to grill it on a charcoal grill with mesquite chips. A little olive oil on the fish before you put it on a perforated fish grilling pan on the grill. Serve with lemon, melted lemon butter, small red potatoes done on skewers on the grill, and a Scandinavian cucumber salad. Veggies of choice, but both green beans and asparagus are excellent. And the perfect wine accompaniment? California Zinfandel, preferably made in the traditional ‘red ripe’ fruit style (harvested at lower sugar content than is currently fashionable) and 4-5 (or ~20 if you like mature wine) years old. It’s what I grew up with in the wine country in California.
For me, the most important thing, more important than the cooking method, is to use a meat thermometer to tell doneness. The government recommends 145, but I cook salmon to 125. That’s just hot enough for the meat to be opaque.
We usually do it on our pellet smoker, but on a low-smoke setting. For seasoning, just salt and pepper.
AesopFan,
I borrowed the phrase from the old Peter Weir film “The Year of Living Dangerously” (1982). The title refers to a year of violent political upheaval in Indonesia, 1965, and comes directly from Pres. Suharto’s quote, which in turn is purportedly derived from a common Italian phrase, “vivere pericolosamente,” or living dangerously.
For those who find this of importance (not saying you should or should not) some farm raised salmon has added color to provide a more reddish look to the fish.
Also, years ago I visited a “salmon farm” on the east coast of Vancouver Island, BC, Canada. (was a business trip for me, calling on fish farms)
The small “fry” (baby fish) are first raised in large circular tanks indoors in which the water is always moving in a circular fashion. (Yes, the water must flow either clockwise or anti-clockwise – forget which direction; otherwise the fry will not do well) .
Fish “antibiotics” of some sort are placed with the fish feed to reduce/remove any chance of fish disease.
When large enough, the no-longer-baby-fish are placed in very large pens outdoors (the one I visited the outdoor pens were in the Straits of Georgia; the eastern border of Vancouver Island). These massive pens hold thousands of salmon. Here too, the fish – along with their food – are given some sort of “antibiotic” to prevent salmon illness.
When confining thousands of salmon in ocean water pens, the amount of poop they generate has to be taken into consideration in the fish farming process.
The big concern (at the time, anyway) was the farm salmon escaping and breeding with the native Pacific salmon. If I correctly recall, the basic stock of farm raised salmon were from the Atlantic Ocean, not the native Pacific Ocean salmon. For some reason Pacific Salmon did not take readily to being farmed, but the Atlantic salmon did. .
Again, my visit was many years ago and I would not be surprised if newer methods have been employed to improve – i.e., produce “healthier” salmon while reducing the amount of “antibiotics” – the entire process.
If you ever have the chance to tour a salmon farm do it; it really is very interesting and informative.
For a few years I didn’t have a proper stove, so really gave Barbara Kafka’s Microwave Gourmet a serious workout. It may sound like a philistine, but microwaved salmon is fantastic. Comes out like poached, with less hassle. Use a covered Corningware pot. Arrange fish cut in 2” steaks around edge of pot. Turn variously every 30 seconds, no more that 3 minutes. Season as you like.
I have a nice stove now, but still prefer salmon cooked in the microwave, only downside is the skin isn’t crisp and crackly. But, same can be said for poached.
Currently though, I’m on a mad salmon gravlax kick. Who knew it was as easy as covering fish with salt and sugar, maybe dill and pepper, wrapping tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerating about 2 days. Serve sliced thin with buttered black bread and capers. I’m not sure that’s technically cooking, but it makes my Viking type husband happy.
Season to taste salt pepper. Pan fry in butter skin side down to start . Flip to finish in pan. Add a few more tablespoons of butter. Baste with pan butter. tilt pan 30′ or so by liifting hand spoon puddled butter on to fish. When done plate, drizzle with pan butter, fresh lemon juice,cracked pepper and dill or preferred herbs. Consult internet for cook time per side.
Just stay away from salmon mouse or you’ll be pining for the fijords?
https://youtu.be/YoBTsMJ4jNk
I bought a Tovala and have enjoyed Aldi’s fresh farmed salmon more than 100 times over the past few years. It has a salmon setting that steam cooks and ends with a broil. 12 minutes 30 seconds total cook time. You can find the oven on Amazon. You don’t need to subscribe to their meals for it to work.
You probably mean you “don’t feel like writing about politics” any more (two words) today.
I buy skin-on at my local Sam’s Club. First, a sheet of foil on a jelly roll pan (for easy clean up, or storage of un-eaten in the fridge). Spray foil with cooking spray, sprinkle Lemon Pepper* on top. Lay down a fluffy bed of fresh leaf spinach. Lay salmon skin side down on spinach. Melt butter, brush on top side. Sprinkle again with Lemon Pepper. 350 degree oven for 20-30 minutes, depending on size. My kids always used to not eat the skin until I started putting down spinach first.
* I add 8 tsp. pepper to the small Lemon Pepper container right after I buy it at the grocery store, for a better pepper to lemon ratio.
If you can get a smaller fish – a pound or two, perhaps 14″ long – gut it and clean it. Fire up a grill. Slice 3 smallish colored bell peppers. Slice a medium onion. On a wide sheet of foil, lay down a bed of onions. Stuff the fish cavity with peppers, garlic and any hot peppers you like. Top it with some sliced peppers and onions. Dot the top with half a stick of butter. Season to taste. Most use salt & pepper. We use hot pepper flakes and garlic. Wrap the package up and put on the hot grill for 0+20. Fish cooks pretty quickly. Longer time for the veggies. Backbone will pull right out. Will have to deal with pinbones & bones associated with fins. Pretty good eat. We use coho / red. Cheers –
Poached, with some herbs, light salt and pepper, finished with some lemon juice.
For me, that is perfect.