Salmon has to be one of my favorite fish of all. Fat, succulent, and bone-free if you get a filet. It requires little seasoning, just a shake of salt maybe or some Tony’s, and that’s it! What makes a filet of salmon really good is when it’s cooked properly. It can be baked or sauteed, but the real diversity is the method: it can be blackened, honey glazed, smoked, cooked in garlic butter, a Greek recipe with a dill sauce – it’s an endless list.
But for me, there is only one great way to cook salmon, and that is seared in a smoking hot pan. I am sure you have seen the TV super chefs sear salmon, and they make it look so easy, getting that perfect crust in just minutes. Somewhat misleading, because it actually isn’t easy and will take some practice to get it right.
One of the biggest problems is most home stoves are dramatically underpowered. The average home stove produces 6k to 8k BTUs. A professional stove will heat your kitchen with 30k BTU. It is a challenge to do it right without enough heat.
If you are using a home stove, do not buy salmon that is too thick. Take your time and let that pan get, literally, smoking hot. Use an oil with a high smoke point too, or your fire alarm will be going off. Also, make sure the salmon is at room temperature.
Heat the pan, lay the filet in the pan skin up, and let it sit. Don’t you dare move it around. Peek underneath, and when you have that crispy sear, carefully flip it to the skin side. It will not take as long to cook. Use the finger test – the softer the filet is to a probing finger the less cooked it is. Remember you do want it to be almost rare in the middle.
Buying good salmon might be the hardest challenge. I avoid frozen if I can (although today’s flash freezing is a better process). Your basic choices are fresh-caught or farm-raised. In faraway places, they used to place the chicken coops above the salmon pond (and you can guess what they ate), but that is not done anymore. Farm-raised salmon are fed commercially made pellets (just like American catfish), so there are no health issues at all. Some salmon are raised in cages in the open sea, and that’s not a bad idea at all. Of course, the very best is fresh caught. Where the fish was caught is also important. The best of the best is from Scotland (but you will pay a premium for it). The wild-caught off the coast of the North Atlantic is good too. The farm-raised usually come from Chile, Norway, and Canada and are better than they used to be. As is always the case, get the best your pocketbook can afford.