Cooking Salmon

One of my favorite seafood's to prepare is salmon. There are so many ways to fix a great salmon dinner. In most of my blogs, I talk about grilling a lot because I like my indoor grill as my choice of cooking.  I love using salmon for fish tacos.  I cook it on top of the stove in lots of onions, jalapeno peppers, cilantro, salsa, and my favorite seasonings.   I was preparing dinner one day when a friend came over and I invited her to stay and eat with us. Not knowing what I was cooking, she was glad she stop by because she loves salmon. When I had finished cooking and we sat down to eat, the first thing she said to me was, "wow, your salmon dosen't taste fishy. What did you do?" I told her I removed the skin from the fish. Sure this skin helps keep the fish moist when you cook it because salmon can be very dry if you don't keep it moist. I just don't like the that taste from the skin so I prefer to take it off and rub in some EVOO all over it and season it up real good and let it sit for 20-30 minutes in the refrigerator before it hits the grill. 

There several varities of salmon to select from and they vary in price.  The most common salmon is pink salmon which can cost $6.99 a pound to the more expensive wild salmon and sockeye salmon at a price of $10.99 a pound.  The difference is the taste and the price.  So whatever your preference, you won't be dissappointed. 

Another way to cook salmon is using cedar planks when you are grilling.  These planks provide lots of moisture to your meats when cooking on the grill.  Be sure to follow the instructions when using planks.  They really do make a difference and add flavors to your cooking and can be found in most major grocery stores.  

We can get a lot of valuable nutrients from our food sources as we can in our supplemental vitamins and fish is a good source of your daily vitamin needs.  But that's another topic for another blog!   Check out some of the websites for nutritional information about the health benefits from eating salmon. 

http://www.ehow.com/about_5509018_benefits-salmon-oil-vitamins.html

http://www.livestrong.com/article/30253-vitamins-salmon/

http://www.goldseal.ca/health/nutrient_fsalmon.asp

http://www.ehow.com/info_7847849_nutritional-fresh-salmon-frozen-salmon.html

Grill Salmon Recipes

http://allrecipes.com/recipes/bbq--grilling/seafood/salmon/

http://www.great-salmon-recipes.com/GrillingSalmon.html

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipe-collections/grilled-salmon/index.html

Removing the thick skin from salmon.  There is a little trick to do that I learned several years ago.  It works very well the more you do it.

• Lay the salmon on a flat surface using parchment paper or foil  or you can lay it in your kitchen sink.

• Get a knife with rigged edges.  Start at either edge of the fish and hold the edge with one hand and the rigged knife in the other.
• Put the knife between the thick skin and the flesh part of the fish and do a press scraping on the flesh part and lift the thick skin at the same time.

• Keep the knife moving in a press scraping motion and you should start to see the thick skin separating from the flesh.  You will have to adjust your hand that is holding the thick skin as more of it is separated from the flesh.
• If some of the flesh is torn and is still on the thick skin, just scrape it with the knife; it will come off.
• Once all the thick skin has been lifted, rise the fish and pat dry with a paper towel.  Its ready for some oil and seasoning.