How’s this for a recommendation from Alaska: how do you prepare an extraordinary salmon dinner? Let’s start with the basics. First, it is best if you only prepare fresh wild salmon. Most Atlantic salmon available in stores is farmed. Wild salmon only feed on protein, krill, plankton or other fish, never on grain pellets. Farmed salmon is pasty, softer and frankly tastes a lot like processed food.
Second, you catch it yourself. In order of preference, I prefer sockeye or red salmon, chinook or king salmon, and coho or silver salmon. Pink or humpback salmon is okay if it is very fresh and fried. Chum or dog salmon is more like farmed salmon, and best left in the water or on the seafood counter.
Over the next few months, I am to offer fish and game recipes, and here is one of my favorites for extremely fresh sockeye salmon.
Filet the salmon and heat a grill to medium heat. Flesh side up, rub the fish with a tiny bit of canola oil, fresh lemon juice, and a little salt and pepper. Rub the skin side with a little oil. Place the salmon on the grill, flesh side down for about three minutes, or until the flesh turns from red to more of a burnt orange. Flip the fish and sprinkle the flesh with a little more salt and freshly chopped dill, then squeeze more lemon juice on the fish. Continue cooking for three to four minutes, until you notice the tiny white bubbles of fat all along the edges of the filet. (DO NOT OVERCOOK.)
Remove the fish and serve with either rice, or grilled vegetables and a salad. In the pictures, the salmon is served with grilled zucchini (just oil and salt and pepper on each side…cut into ¼ inch strips it cooks at about the same speed as the fish.) A Chablis. or light Pinot Grigio goes well, but I prefer a very cold IPA beer.
Salmon is best when served in a place as beautiful as in the pictures; the screened porch of our cabin on the Iliamna River where the fish swam only an hour before. Sockeye is available in fish markets, or you can catch them in freshwater, but they are almost impossible to sportfish for in the ocean. I’m sure you have your own favorite getaway, but fresh sockeye is still as good served at home.