This salmon dish basically launched my teaching career. It was one of the dishes in my first
cooking class at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education. It predates my restaurant
jobs. It’s before I knew how to do things like this or that -- you know the fancy stuff.
But in spite of its simplicity, it’s still my favorite salmon dish.
The glaze hits all your taste buttons with sweetness, saltiness, acidity, and umami.
The outside is browning on steroids and the inside is buttery soft. But what brings this
salmon completely over the top is chilling it in the fridge overnight. That’s when
the real magic happens -- when all those aggressive flavors become more harmonious and blended,
like a really good choir. The texture gets better too. It becomes denser and richer.
And what better time to give a chilled salmon dish a try than in the summer. It’s a perfect
dish to bring to a picnic, all the work is done the day before, and it goes well with
absolutely any side dish.
Set your oven rack as close as possible to the broiler element and preheat the oven to
350 degrees. In a small bowl mix together 20g of apricot preserves, 8g of balsamic vinegar,
and 20 grams of tamari style soy sauce. Let’s give it all a stir. After you make this dish
once, it’s totally fine to eyeball all the ingredients.
You want a nice fatty salmon for this dish. I am using farm-raised Atlantic salmon. King
salmon would also work, but lean wild varieties like coho or sockeye will taste dry.
Put the salmon on a foil-lined, shallow metal baking sheet. Sprinkle it with a little black
pepper and a generous amount of salt. Keep in mind that cold dishes generally need more
salt than hot one because we don’t taste things as strongly when they are cold.
Turn on your broiler. Right before putting the salmon under the heating element, spoon
just enough of the soy sauce mixture to cover its top, but not so much that the glaze forms
puddles around the salmon. Those puddles will burn, so we want to avoid them until we are
done with the broiling step.
My rack doesn’t go close enough to the heating element to give me the kind of browning that
I want. If you are in this situation, you can invert another baking sheet and use it
as a riser. In my oven, this is the difference between the top that is beautifully browned
vs dried up. Place the salmon under the broiler until the belly browns. The belly will brown
first due to its insanely high fat content. For me, this took 4 minutes, but all broilers
are different.
To brown the rest of the salmon, we need to protect the belly with foil.
This is a good opportunity to reglaze the area we want to brown more.
Back under the broiler we go, and 1 to 2 minutes later, it’s all lovely and brown. Now our
broiler’s job is done. Turn it off and set your oven back to 350F. Now that we’ll be
using much more gentle and indirect heat, we can dump the remaining sauce on top of
the salmon. As the salmon cooks, this liquidy sauce will thicken into a glaze. Since our
salmon just got a lot of heat from the top, we want to even it out with some heat from
the bottom, so I’ll place it in the bottom third of the oven.
The belly will only take another couple of minutes. At this point it should be done and
there is no need to overcook it. Sure it would be nice to keep our salmon intact for the
thumbnail, but I say screw the thumbnail. I want moist and delicious salmon. If your
spatula goes through it like butter, that area is cooked enough. If it doesn’t, put
it back in the oven and give it another couple of minutes. Slide the spatula between the
flesh and the skin and lift the belly off. See how the inside is a bit more orange than
the outside -- that’s what a perfectly done salmon looks like. There is no need to cook
it to the doneness of canned fish.
I am sure the thick part isn’t done yet, so the rest of my salmon is going back in
the oven. Let’s give it another 4 minutes and then we’ll go from there. We need to
take a look at the thickest most inside part of this fillet. Follow the natural divisions
between the flakes and open it up. Nope, I can’t open it up yet. It’s completely
stuck in the center. Let’s give it another 4 minutes and then we’ll try again. If I
could pull it apart at least half way, I’d give it only 2 minutes, but I could only get
about ⅓ of an inch in. With fish, it’s always safer to check early and to check often.
Let’s see how we are doing now? Now we are good. As soon as you can pull the flakes apart,
you are done. Yes, this orange color is a good thing. Keep in mind that the internal
temperature will continue to go up as the fish rests. Just a reminder that your heat
source does not cook the inside of your meat. It’s the outside meat that cooks the inside.
So just let it rest and do its job.
Let’s put it all back together like a jigsaw puzzle. Cool it to room temperature, then
wrap all this foil around it and put it in the fridge for at least 5 hours, though I
prefer overnight. If you need to keep it for an extra day, that’s totally fine. This
salmon is cooked and will last for 2 days with no problems.
Here is what the texture is like after cooling -- it’s dense, but super soft. So just peel
those buttery flakes off the skin and enjoy. I don’t eat the skin in this dish. We didn’t
crisp it up and even if we did, it wouldn’t taste good cold.
But what this salmon lacks in the skin department it totally makes up for in the meat.
Since all the broilers are different, let’s do a little broiler troubleshooting.
My salmon burnt. Any time you have something under the broiler,
don’t try to multitask. Sit right next to your oven, and check it every 30 seconds.
My salmon took too long to brown. This is a common problem because some broilers
aren’t very powerful. If you can’t get your broiler to brown faster even after moving
the food closer to the heating element, here are some other strategies to consider. Try
getting a really thick piece of salmon. The thicker it is, the more time you have to brown
it before it cooks through. Make sure to get a piece near the head of the fish. That has
more fat and will brown a lot faster than the leaner tail. You can also try not preheating
the oven. This way the salmon won’t start cooking with the ambient heat and your broiler
will have longer to do its job. Just keep in mind that your baking time might end up
being a lot longer than mine because I am starting from 350 degrees and you are starting
from a cool oven.
I didn’t have a chance to use all the sauce. Remember how most of the sauce didn’t go
in until the baking step to prevent it from burning. If your salmon is cooked through
by the time the broiling step is done, your sauce won’t have a chance to cook and thicken.
That’s not the end of the world. Pour it into a small skillet and boil it down just
until it starts to thicken. Pour it over your finished salmon and let it cool.
I can’t find my broiler. If you looked at the top of your oven, and
didn’t find a heating element there, it’s possible that you have a drawer on the bottom
of your oven that allows you to use the oven heating element as the broiler. Until I moved
to my current house and bought myself a fancy stove, all my cheap little gas stoves worked
like that. Those broilers can be just as good, so don’t be put off by their strange location.
Here are more culinary tutorials for you to check out and if you are ever in the Boston
area, maybe I’ll see you in one of my classes.