Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Plank Salmon

Elizabeth was kind enough to introduce our "Bales dinner competition" in her post about her toad-in-the-hole entry.  In this post I will describe an entry I made about a month ago, but remains our favorite to date.

The story starts in May 2010.  Elizabeth and I were adventuring on Vancouver Island with some friends when we decided to stop into a local winery.  We ended up at Cherry Point Winery where I found a Pinot Gris which I immediately though should be paired with Salmon.  Fast forward two years, in May 2012, and that bottle of wine became the inspiration for my weekly entry.

Inspiration
Not to be outdone by Elizabeth's British food paired with British beer, I decided to pair my Canadian wine with a very Canadian dish: ceder plank roasted salmon with maple syrup sauce.

The recipe used for the salmon and sauce is from Epicurious, though I did not make the mustard mashed potatoes.  In the morning I started soaking my cedar planks in a baking sheet full of water, and threw together the glaze.  I let the glaze simmer while I read my email and scanned Google News.  Before dinner, I drained the water from the baking sheet, and assembled the green onions, salmon fillet and glaze on the baking sheet, and cooked as directed in the oven.  The time given at Epicurious was perfect for the thick end of the fillet, but too long for the thin end.

Cedar planks to add a wonderful smokey flavor

On the side, I sauteed asparagus, carrots, and cherry tomatoes.  I wanted to keep the side dish colorful and light while not taking the spotlight off the salmon.

Sauteed vegetables on the side
Various commenters online have different opinions on how many times you can use wood planks for cooking fish.  We used our planks twice with good results, and may be able to use them even more.  Enjoy!

Full spread

2 comments:

  1. Nathan, that sounds awesome. A whole new (and better) meaning to "planking."

    If they had cedar here, we could make that.... if they had salmon. We'll have to try this one when we get to the land of such ingredients.

    -Bill

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  2. Hmmm, yeah it's hard to do plank salmon without planks or salmon.... What sort of fishes do you get over there?

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