Salmon - Grilled wiith Soy Sauce, EVOO & Ginger

We have already grilled salmon with EVOO and lemon, and it was mouthwatering. Simplicity in ingredients and in cooking method triumphed together. The olive oil and the lemon enhanced the already delicious salmon perfectly. Maybe the best name for that would be Mediterranean Grilled Salmon. And for EVOO, click here.

Here we are taking a trip further east, way further -- to The East.

We are taking a trip to another glory, salmonwise -- to soy and to ginger and to East Asian marinade/sauce for a North Atlantic fish. Improbable match, some might think, but absolute perfection -- we know.

The grilling must be done carefully and for not too long on each side. Three minutes per side will work on most preheated grills. You do preheat your grill, do you not?

Don't be afraid of rare, since raw salmon can of course be eaten directly and without cooking, as a mainstay of sashimi or sushi. The marinade in the pan can be placed on the upper shelf of the grill where the heat is a bit lower but sufficient to blend the ingredients into an absolutely delicious sauce. Just don't leave that pan up there as long as it takes to grill the fish, or it will burn. I take the pan out as soon as its contents really start to sizzle.

(See Lee White's Department Store -- 1st Floor Food Emporium: Seafood -- for related treatments.)

As mentioned the marinade, once sizzled on the grill, will magically combine itself into a most delicious sauce. The ingredients of the marinade are (proportions are up to you --- go ahead and experiment to determine what you like best) the following:

- EVOO

- soy sauce or teriyaki

- sliced fresh ginger

- a bit of rice (or white) vinegar, especially if teriyaki was used

- coarse ground black pepper

- diced scallions

Some broth -- vegetable broth is good -- should also be added to this, if only to ensure that we have enough sauce at the end to spoon over the grilled salmon.

For EVOO, click here. EVOO.

Dip the salmon fillets in the marinade, for flavor but also because the olive oil helps prevent the salmon from sticking to the grill (not also easy, but the shortness of the time the salmon spends on either side on the grill helps).

Put pan with marinade on top shelf. Listen for it to sizzle. Remove when liquids have been blended by the sizzling and well before they evaporate.

As for the salmon fillets, a minute or two on this side, on a preheated grill. Maybe two and one half minutes if you want to emphasize the beautiful grill marks which will result.

Another minute or two on this side. Length on the grill depends on how rare we like our salmon, remembering that it is often eaten raw, as sushi or sashimi.

At this point, the marinade pan has been removed.

If you are using salmon fillets that still have skin on one side, it is a good idea to put the salmon onto the grill bare side first. That way the skin side will be down when you are ready to take the salmon off of the grill. The spatula slips under the skin side more easily that under the side which has no skin.

The marinade is now a delicious sauce for the grilled salmon fillets.

The fillets go back into the pan and are on their way to the plate.

They look and smell delicious, despite (or perhaps because of) being on the grill for so little time.

Here we have combined the grilled salmon on the plate with assorted grilled vegetables and some steamed rice from our rice-cooker, We grilled some celery, a few carrots, and some of the type of broccoli that is now called baby broccoli. The vegetables needed just a bit of EVOO before heading to the grill.

Over this we spoon the sauce.

For an incredibly delicious meal. Let's go in for a closer view.

Although we are giving the salmon fillets grilled here an Oriental treatment, it should be noted that -- as far as I can determine (please Comment if you know better) -- only one species of salmon frequents the oceans of the Orient, the Masu Salmon. This species is found only in the western Pacific Ocean in waters off Russia, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan.

Most of the salmon eaten in the United States and in Europe comes from farmed salmon, that is, salmon grown as cultured fish in a controlled environment. The largest areas where this farming is done are in Chile, Norway, Scotland, Canada and the Faroe Islands, all countries in which wild capture in the ocean was once the major way of reaping the benefits of this very delicious fish. The value of the world’s farmed fish each year is said to be about $10 billion. This makes salmon the king of farmed fish, considerably ahead of tilapia, catfish, sea bass, carp and bream.

This farming of salmon is a complicated matter. Salmon feed on other fish, and for farmers to produce enough fish for them to feed on is difficult. It is said that salmon actually consume more fish -- "wild forage fish" -- by weight than they produce in their own bodies. The extraction of wild forage fish for salmon farming thus affects the survivability of the wild predator fish which rely on them for food.

Pictures! Pictures! Pictures!

Series within series, actually. Food & Cooking, for example, then -- within that -- series on vegetables, fruits, seafood, meat, etc. Books, too. Ideas, too. Travel, too. Key virtues:. pictures, clear step-by-step text. Delicious -- whether foods or ideas! All of the series, and all of the items in each series, can be found, organized by floor, at Lee White's Department Store. Happy shopping! -- everything is free!

Real Meal. Unlike fancy food mags, where images are hyped and food itself is secondary, all pix shown here are from a real meal, prepared and eaten by me and my friends. No throwing anything away till perfection is achieved. This is the real deal --- a Real Meal.