Salmon on Salt

Oct 052011
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What do you buy your foodie friend who has every­thing? How about a Himalayan salt block.  For my attempt at using one, I tried a sim­ple salmon din­ner recipe. Well, maybe I should say my hus­band did. He’s the expert salmon chef around here. Accord­ing to my nephew Cameron, he’s never had salmon as good as Ryan’s!

Salmon on Salt- (2 servings)

ingre­di­ents needed:

  • 1 1/2 pounds salmon filet (cut into 2)
  • 1 clove crushed garlic
  • 1 tbs olive oil
  • juice of 1/2 lemon
  • pep­per

direc­tions:

  • pre­heat the salt block in a 350f oven
  • mix together all the ingre­di­ents in a lit­tle dish
  • rub mix­ture on salmon filets
  • place the salmon directly on the salt block and cook for 4–5 min­utes on each side depend­ing on the thickness
  • remove very care­fully and serve immediately
  • pre­pare a sim­ple side of lin­guine pasta with fresh gar­lic, olive oil and basil from the garden

 

 

 

 

Facts:

Freshly cut from ancient min­eral deposits, hand-cut blocks of translu­cent pink salts can be used for cook­ing meats, fish and more. They con­duct heat beau­ti­fully, lend­ing foods a won­der­ful depth of fla­vor. Use them on the grill, in the oven, or chill them for a beau­ti­ful way to serve sushi, appe­tiz­ers and more. Himalayan salt blocks are nat­u­rally anti-microbial and easy to clean with­out deter­gent. Just scrub the sur­face with a brush, pat dry, then air dry to use again and again.

Find­ings:
  • We did not sea­son the salmon with salt ahead of time and found the sea­son­ing to be per­fect. I’ve read a lot of reviews say­ing it comes out too salty. We didn’t have that out­come. It was perfect.
  • The salt block seemed to make the salmon more moist than usual.
  • It’s heavy and very hot to han­dle so this could be a prob­lem for those like my sis­ter. (wink, wink)
  • Clean­ing it isn’t the eas­i­est task. You have to scrub pretty hard with some­thing like a wire brush. I couldn’t get the sur­face 100% clean. I think in this case, it’s smart to have one side you cook on and the other for cold food presentations.
  • It’s def­i­nitely a cool nov­elty and con­ver­sa­tion starter for any­one who loves to cook and enter­tain. How­ever, the dif­fer­ence between cook­ing the salmon on the rock and not, may not be worth it for everyone.

Our next adven­ture with our salt block will be with some­thing chilled. I have a hunch using it in this capac­ity will be my favorite. Stay tuned…

WHERE TO BUY: I’ve got­ten a lot e-mails ask­ing where to buy one. Mine was a gift, but I know a lot of kitchen home stores carry them.

Here is a link to the best priced one I could find.

 

 

 

Share
 Add comments
  • Golfin­Gal

    Thank you for your ingre­di­ents for cook­ing the salmon; I am always on the look­out for ideas and look­ing for seasonings. I have, just today, ordered a salt rock, so I can hardly wait to use it; have only just heard about this way of cook­ing seafood/fish.  Thank you for your tips!  I love to cook salmon for my hus­band and myself, so I need lots of help to make it as tasty as some of the restau­rants!  Thank you so much!

  • Bob

    Just fin­ished our first salt block cook­ing.   We had Rock­fish filets taken from about a 4lb whole fish.  One was mar­i­nated for a short period in a Teriyaki mix­ture with some added crushed gar­lic.  The other was rubbed with crushed gar­lic and then coated lightly with olive oil.  My under­stand­ing of salt block cook­ing is that you super heat it under the broiler and take it out when you are ready to cook.  I placed it on top of the stove for con­ve­nience but to be showy you can put it on a trivet in front of your guests.  I put both pieces of fish skin side down and they imme­di­ately siz­zled and started cook­ing.  After a few min­utes I turned them over because unlike a closed grill or oven cook­ing method, the heat does not cir­cu­late so the top was very opaque.  It was cooked for a few more min­utes and then served hot along with side dishes.  The out­come was very moist and ten­der fish.  The next time I will find some­thing dif­fer­ent than the Teriyaki mari­nade because it came out a bit too salty.  It was great though as I’m a salt addict. The gar­lic coated fish was great for a basic fish.  I’ll add a lit­tle more in the way of sea­son­ings and find the bal­ance between the two cook­ing exper­i­ments tried.
     
    Now back to the kitchen to try to clean the teriyaki stains off the still warm salt rock… 

    I bought my 8 x 16 rock from a bou­tique shop called Cleo’s Fine Oils and Vine­gars in the Annapo­lis, MD Towne Cen­ter.  They have 5 or 6 sizes.  You will need the longer rock for most fish filets.  IT IS HEAVY!

    Next time…  Steak!  Maybe done with the rock on the grill.

    Quick update.  I just cleaned the block (NO SOAP!) and it looks great!  The teriyaki buildup washed right off with no effort.  I used one of those green scour­ing pads.  The only thing I had trou­ble with was that dark vein I thought gave it char­ac­ter when I bought it.  Seems it leaches some salt and becomes crusty and harder to clean.  So look for a salt rock with a min­i­mum veins and prefer­ably away from the cen­ter where you will prob­a­bly cook most foods.

  • Jen­nykyn­caplas

    one of the great­est thing that i had read just like this site  

    http://howtocooksalmon.korocook.com
     
    hope you enjoy it

  • Carey

    That is the coolest thing. I am a salt addict so I think I need to get one of these.