I made the broiled salmon with citrus glaze recipe from the Good Eats: Gills Gone Wild episode this past weekend. I have to say Alton Brown scored with this one! As usual, I altered the recipe to fit my needs. I bought a 4.5 pound salmon fillet for the task since I was having friends over for dinner. I started by grating the lemon zest right onto the fish . Then, instead of measuring out the brown sugar, the recipe only calls for 1/3 cup, I just poured out what was needed to cover the whole fillet evenly. I covered the top with some thinly sliced lemons. As directed, I let it sit for 45 minutes.
I like my salmon fully cooked (not sure why chefs are so obsessed with having everything half raw), plus the fillet was pretty think, so I started it out in a 375 degree oven for about 10 minutes or so until it was nearly cooked through. Then, I cranked up the broiler and let it sit under there until the glaze started to bubble; somewhere in the range of 2 minutes. The short stint under the broiler produced a nice crust while leaving the fish tender inside.
So how did it taste? Wonderful! It's definitely sweet, so I probably wouldn't make it like this every time, but I do eat salmon regularly and this is a good way to mix things up. I'll have to try this on the grill and see how the glaze comes out.
The recipe was easy to make and can be easily adjusted to meet your needs. I ended up using light brown sugar instead of dark because I already had some on hand, though I will try the dark next time. I also went with farm raised Scottish salmon; $8.99 per pound trumped the ocean going Alaskan variety by about $12/lb and that adds up quickly when buying a 4.5 pound side! Also, I've tried a few varieties and personally can't tell much difference in the range as I would with, say, steak. One more tip I would add is soaking up the dissolved sugar before putting it in the oven. The excess got a bit burned and would likely cause some smoke if you went with the broiler only method!
Good Eats -- Gills Gone Wild is available on iTunes
5 comments:
salmon, you magnificant bastard, i read YOUR BOOK! i read YOUR BOOK!
You liking your fish well done is why you can't taste the difference between farmed and wild. I'm the same way!
I like my salmon cooked the way Alton says, so I decided to try this recipe. Major changes were that I had a smaller piece of fish (about 2/3 lb) and I started dinner late so only got 1/2 hour of marinating. Decided to do only 5 minutes of cooking under the broiler -- way to long. Flames at about 2-1/2 minutes. Set the fish outside, aired the house and waited for the smoke alarm to clear then tried the fish. Slightly overdone but still actually quite good when we scraped off most of the coating. Next time I'll try baking slower or moving the rack to the middle of the oven.
I have made this 2 times.
1st time I used lime due to the fact that I had no lemons in the house.
the 2nd time I used lemon and I must say it was MUCH Sweeter than with lime.
I will be using limes next time
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