Grilled salmon is a popular dish that can be enhanced with a short marinade before cooking. Cooking times and styles vary, with marinating for too long making the fish tough. Salmon is best grilled over medium-high heat for a few minutes on each side, and taking it off the grill just before it’s fully cooked allows residual heat to complete the process. Cooking salmon on a cedar plank imparts a smoky flavor.
Grilled salmon is salmon that has been cooked over coals or a gas flame and is one of the oldest known fish preparations. Although salmon has a strong, distinct flavor, many recipes for grilled salmon use a short marinade beforehand to help accentuate the taste of the fish. Cooking times and styles vary by cut, with using the whole fish involving an entirely different method. One of the challenges many cooks face when trying to make grilled salmon is the delicate nature of the fish, which can easily burn and stick to a grill or fall apart and fall onto the coals. The finished grilled salmon is often served with lemon wedges or a dipping sauce such as aioli.
Some grilled salmon recipes call for marinating the fish before cooking. Not only does this help create a unique flavor, but it helps develop a crust on the fish as it cooks and the sugars in the marinade caramelize. One of the differences between marinating salmon for grilling versus marinating other meats is that salmon cannot be left in the marinade for a long time. The flesh of the fish will begin to cook chemically the longer it is in an acidic liquid, which can make the final grilled fish tough.
In most cases, salmon is only grilled over medium-high heat for a few minutes on each side. This helps keep the inside of the fish moist while also browning the surface. The leather is often left active to provide structure to hold the shape of the cut. A whole broiled salmon is not cooked this way, but instead is slow roasted over low heat to allow all of the dense fish to cook through. Salmon is a type of fish that greatly benefits from being taken off the grill just before it has completed cooking, allowing the residual heat in the cut to complete the process.
One of the main problems with grilling salmon is that, as it cooks, the fish becomes lighter and more tender than when it is raw. If any of the salmon sticks to the grate, then it can be peeled off and begin to break down the meat, leaving it to burn or fall right into the grate. Several cooking methods are used to combat this problem and give unique results, including cooking salmon on a cedar plank which imparts a smoky flavor as it cooks.
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