Salmon likes to glom onto grill grates, and scraping the fish off can fracture it into flakes that fall into the fire. The experience is much like trying to get a piece of gum out of your hair. It’s sticky. You’ll lose some strands while prying it out.
But with these two savvy and simple techniques, you’ll be treated to fillets that release easily, flake under your fork, smell of smoke and possibly even have crispy skin.
Salmon can be tricky to cook for the same reason that it’s wonderful to eat: It’s moist and delicate, more so than steak or chicken. When any meat hits a hot surface, its proteins unravel and can fuse to a pan or a grill’s nooks and crannies. (Any bits of last night’s dinner may cause the proteins to cling, too, so be sure to clean the hot grates well with a wire brush before cooking.) Salmon’s loosely knit proteins are more prone to adhere to the cooking surface than to one another.
Only once the salmon hits a certain temperature does that bond break. Browning is a good visual clue that it is safe to move around, but a push from a spatula can cause the fish to separate into flakes that are hard to salvage. And by the time the salmon is browned, it also may be chalky and dry.
For silkier results, try one of the following methods, both of which create a protective layer between the fish and the grates, and skip the scary flip.
The New Classic Recipe: Grilled Salmon
Salmon’s skin is built-in insulation against the heat of the grill, but to keep the fish from sticking, swipe the skin with a thin veil of mayonnaise, which also gives it a chiplike crackle.
As the New York Times columnist J. Kenji López-Alt says in his article about grilling chicken, mayonnaise helps seal in juiciness, promote browning and prevent sticking and burning. It works well on lean or temperamental proteins including chicken breasts, shrimp, turkey burgers and fish. Because the mayonnaise greases the salmon, there’s then no need to separately oil the grates, which can cause flare-ups.
Cooking the fish over moderate heat and exclusively on its skin side requires little attention. Place the mayo-slicked skin on the grates, cover the grill and leave it be. The heat will gently rise for tender results, and the skin will have plenty of time to crisp and brown, which is the key to ensuring the salmon releases. This bottom-up style of cooking also works for other fish fillets.
The Time-Tested Technique: Cedar Plank Salmon
Coastal First Nations throughout the Pacific Northwest have been cooking on wood planks for centuries — especially salmon, considered a sacred food, and especially cedar, considered the tree of life by the Kwakwaka’wakw tribes that live and cook in present-day British Columbia.
The chef Freddie Bitsoie explains in his cookbook, “New Native Kitchen” (Abrams Books, 2021), that the steam and smoke rising from the planks delicately cook the fish, which, in turn, won’t fall through the grates and will taste like the wood that cooked it.
You can buy food-grade planks from a grocery or hardware store. Soak the planks in water so they don’t flare and heat them on the grill until smoldering before adding the fish. Place the salmon skin side down on the planks without coating it with oil or mayonnaise. In fact, greasing the fish keeps the smoke from snaking into the flesh. Cover the grill and let the cedar and fire do the work. Wood conducts heat more slowly than metal, resulting in tender, flaky fish that you can serve right from the plank.
Whichever method you choose, the combination of live fire and sweet salmon will lead to a speedy, succulent meal. Especially now that whole fillets will land on plates.
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