baked salmon with maple-mustard glaze
So, I’ve been afraid of fish for a while. Not of the fish themselves, but of cooking them. I know it’s good for you, and I grew up with my dad cooking some really yummy fish, but I’ve not really worked up the courage to try (and possibly ruin a pricey cut of fish!) I finally tried poaching some inexpensive flounder a few weeks back, but it was so delicate that it basically came apart in the water as it cooked and turned into unintentional cioppino with floating aromatics. I fished out (ha!) most of the pieces and we had fish piles that night. Not too bad, just not super great.
Cue a few weeks later; I’d signed up for the “Something’s Fishy” class at Great News, probably the best casual cooking school and non-ripoff cookware store I know of. The class was taught by a couple of managers and chefs from Iowa Meat Farms and Siesel’s, which would be the best place I know of to get meat and occasionally seafood. (Even they admitted it was a bit weird for a meat place to do a seafood class, but it worked.)
Anyway, the other night I picked up a side of salmon (not sure what you call it) to try out. Their recipe was for plank-grilled salmon with maple-mustard glaze, which was really tasty when I had it at the class. I haven’t washed the grill in ages (I know, sacrilege, but it’s been too hot to do much outside next to a giant heat source), so I figured I’d try the recipe, but bake the salmon instead.
Here’s the salmon fresh out of the package:
The glaze is really simple — basically, you take some sweet onion (the recipe called for just a half, but I used a whole one), then sautee it to translucent, just before it starts to caramelize. (You don’t need the extra sugar in this case.) Then, add half a cup of whole-grain dijon mustard and a whole cup of maple syrup. Mix it up and bring it to a simmer; let it reduce for about 5 minutes, or more if you want it thicker. Be careful not to let it burn, since there’s a lot of sugar in there.
Brown isn’t always appetizing, but the end result is yummy.
Once the glaze is ready, let it cool down somewhat. Then brush and drizzle it all over the salmon, and put the salmon in the oven at 400 degrees. Let it go for between 10 and 20 minutes depending on the size of the piece; I added more glaze if needed at 10 minutes, and started checking it at about 15.
One of the key things about fish that I didn’t really get until now was that you can’t go off of time; you really need to check the fish and look for signs that it’s done. I started pulling back pieces of the salmon and checking to where it was touching the baking dish — after three or four times of doing that, it looked like there was only a tiny piece that was still raw-ish. This was also the point where the salmon’s fat started coming out of the piece of meat (as you can see a bit in the picture). Remembering that carryover does its thing and that it’s better to undercook fish than to overcook it, I pulled it out at this point and got a really tasty meal (and lunch and dinner the next day, too).
Here’s the final prize:
Serve it with some more of the glaze on the side.
The other things I really liked at the fish class were the bacon-wrapped margarita-glazed scallops and the steak that went with it. I have to say that I’ve been to a couple of really good steak restaurants, but none of those could match the steak at this class. It’s enough to make me want to take these guys’ beef class when it comes up next.
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