- Welcome to Cook Food Good, the show where I teach you how to cook food good and do other things good too. This week we’re gonna be conquering salmon. Next week we conquer your inner emotional demons, the tip is, you broil ’em! Broil everything, broil a steak, broil a salmon, broil your childhood traumas. If you’re following along at home, snag the time codes right there. Now I’m gonna show you two easy methods to prepare the salmon and both take place in your own kitchen. We’re broiling and we’re pan searing. I know some people like to grill it, like to do a little cedar plank thing, feel like you’re a seasonal menu option at Red Lobster, I don’t have a grill because I’m a young person who lives in an apartment in a big city and that Ivory Tower does not allow me to have live fire and smoke. (lively music) This is your normal grocery store Atlantic farm-raised salmon, it is absolutely delicious, it’s what most people probably eat. In an ideal world I’d be like make sure you’re getting the most sustainable fish, the world aint exactly ideal and frankly it’s a little less ideal than it was a couple months ago, get the farm stuff, it’s actually very delicious. It’s actually very sustainable and even though they add dye to it it’s like, whatever man, So we’re just gonna cut the salmon into about six ounce filets right here. If you notice we’re using skin-on salmon and the best way to cook skin-on salmon is to pan sear it because then you’re actually going to get very very crispy flesh. So you take your salmon filet and very importantly dry it on a paper towel. Moisture, though the essence of beauty is the enemy of crispiness. This whole show is a Zoolander reference by the way, I don’t know if people got that from the title. You have a pan that has about a tablespoon of light oil in it so that’s either vegetable or canola most likely. And we’re gonna crank that to medium-high, we’re gonna let this preheat for at least three minutes. While the pans heating up you can go ahead and season your salmon so I’m just gonna take about a quarter teaspoon salt and I’m just gonna rub it generously on the skin and all over the flesh. You can do black pepper on this too, I didn’t add black pepper to my steak and I got a lot of comments about that, I think black pepper scorches in a hot pan, gets a little bit bitter, and I don’t think you take anything away from the dish by just adding black pepper later. So we’re gonna make a simple little pan sauce in this, add plenty of black pepper to it, then you’re gonna get all that pepper fix that you pepper feins want. I like to cook salmon all the way through on a medium to medium-high heat and you’re gonna cook it with the skin side down about 90% of the way. If you try to cook it as much on the flesh side as the skin side, you’re gonna get undercooked skin and overcooked flesh, you’re gonna take your fish, this is very important, you’re gonna add it flesh-side down and then you’re immediately gonna take your spatula and you’re gonna press it in to hold it for 30 seconds, this is ensuring that the skin doesn’t curl up because when the skin curls you can get little air pockets under it and then that’s gonna cause it to steam. So this is the first step in crispy skin salmon. So we’re gonna let the salmon sear for five minutes on the skin side and then we’re gonna flip it and sear it for about 30 seconds on the flesh side. All salmon thicknesses differ. This is a pretty thick filet of salmon so I might drop the heat just a little bit so we can get an even heavier of a cook on the skin. If you are worried about bones in your salmon, you’re gonna take your fingers and you’re gonna run it along the line right there, should’ve checked before I started cooking it, but if there are you can just take a piece of pliers or actually freshly washed nail clippers will do the trick but this is normal grocery store salmon and it already comes pin boned, we’re just gonna leave it about another minute and then flip it, really quick sear on the other side. Wanna know some fun salmon facts? Salmon can swim upstream and to train for the Olympics, Michael Phelps actually lived like a salmon for a year he did the Daniel Day-Lewis thing. Where Daniel Day-Lewis training for There Will Be Blood only used technology that people would’ve used in that time period, Michael Phelps only used technology that a salmon would use, that’s facts, look it up. All right so this has been searing for five minutes on the skin side and we’re going to flip it, oh yeah that skin is lookin’ nice. You can’t hear it but it is shatteringly crispy. We’re just gonna count down from 30 seconds and then this should be perfectly good to pull and then we can build our pan sauce. There are some other salmon-making methods that people like they’ll do the thing where they put it in foil which is what I grew up eating which is mimicking a French technique called En Papillote Truly makes a garbage salmon, please don’t do that. Salmon has so much fat in it that it really really like a high heat cook, most of the time when salmon is steamed inside of a foil pouch, it just becomes super dry and has no texture to it and is really mealy. So salmons been searing for about 30 seconds and we’re just going to take it and this is very important, you want to let it rest on your plate with the flesh-side down and the skin-side up. If you flip it over, the steam is gonna trap under the skin and you don’t want that. So, we’re gonna turn our pan off really fast and now you are going to start the basis of the pan sauce, this is the easiest thing you can do. (lively music) You’re gonna take a clove of garlic and the way to get a clove of garlic out of its shell is to boost its self-confidence like hey, tell personal anecdotes, it’s fun. Actually no, the way to get a clove of garlic out of its shell is you punch it and then it comes right out of the skin. That is the actual method that I use. In your hot pan, you’re gonna add two tablespoons of butter, while that’s melting you’re simply going to mince your garlic. We are just gonna drop our garlic into the butter and just gonna give it a nice quick little saute, the butters gonna form the base of this sauce, you want it to get a little bit brown, it’s gonna get like a really deep, nice, rich, nutty color and then after the garlic is sauteed, you’re gonna add a quarter cup of chicken stock and then give yourself a little sprinkle salt and pepper, all depends if you’re using salted butter or very salty chicken stock and then we’re gonna crack a lot of fresh pepper in there. We’re gonna let this sauce reduce for about three minutes and when I say reduce, all that means is like cook. Like when you say reduce you mean cook. Like any time you’re cooking a sauce it’s naturally reducing. Now you don’t wanna add your lemon juice until the end ’cause that’s gonna leave all of the nice freshness. So we’re gonna take the juice of half a lemon, I just like to squeeze it with the flesh-side up so no seeds get in there. Is that a seed or a part of the clove? We’ll find out. If you have any green stuff, parsley, dried oregano, whatever add that right there, and we’re just gonna give this a nice shake. Let it cook for bout 15 seconds and then I like to take the salmon and I like to pour the sauce around the salmon and leaving the crispy skin intact. And then you’re getting this beautiful like saucy broth thing if you’re eating this with any sort of potatoes or rice that’s gonna be absolutely delicious. Let’s see how the cook on this is. All right through the center skins nice and crispy. The texture inside isn’t raw, this is lookin’ perfect. Come on, that’s a good piece of fish. It’s normal ass grocery store salmon, the sauce is absolutely what kicks it off, so much fat in the salmon, so much brightness from the lemon in the sauce, that’s delicious, but it’s not the only way! (lively music) We are doing a broiled salmon. As you know, I love the broiler, it’s such an under utilized tool in the kitchen and to me as someone who grew up eating crappy baked salmon it’s very very hard to get a high enough heat on your salmon to actually give it a good crust. So we’re gonna kinda game it a little bit. You’re gonna take a little bit of salt, spread that on our salmon and we’re gonna get some on the skin as well, even though the skins not gonna get crispy you can still eat slightly not crispy salmon skin and then we are taking a controversial ingredient and I know I’m a controversial guy, I may have talked some crap on Gordon Ramsey during the eggs episode. Oh you don’t wanna salt until right at the end, ey brov. Absolutely bogus. People had mixed feelings about that. I’m gonna take two tablespoons of mayonnaise, a half teaspoon of soy sauce and one tablespoon of honey and I am going to glaze the top of the salmon. When the broiler hits the mayonnaise since there’s egg and oil in the mayonnaise, it’s gonna create a really beautiful crust as the proteins in the egg cook and it’s gonna be absolutely delicious. It’s gonna lock in a ton of moisture and flavor, and even if you’re someone who isn’t down with mayonnaise, you’re not gonna even notice that there was any mayonnaise on it in the first place. Also, if you don’t like mayonnaise, open up your horizon, just sit down, draw a nice bath, light a couple candles, and eat a tub of mayonnaise in your tub like I do every Saturday night, perfect. Now we’re gonna take a ton of the fresh cracked pepper and put it on there, if you have sesame seeds or something that’d be really nice, I like the combination of sweet and soy with salmon. Also, black peppers fantastic. Can you see me at this angle? Do I look tough like a linebacker ready to tackle a person? Or do I look like someone whose squatting to take a poo? – [Woman] The latter. – Yeah, it’s a little bit of both. So we’re simply gonna take this salmon and we’re gonna throw this under the broiler for six minutes, keep an eye on it though. I find that if you broil salmon for six minutes, again every broilers different, it gets a perfect crust on top and a nice medium cook. However, if you notice that it’s burning, just put it on a lower rack or turn your oven to 400 degrees till it’s cooked all the way through. The internal temperature of salmon should be about 115 degrees to 120, but honestly, just cook it. Use your instincts. If it’s not done, cut it open with a knife take a peak at the middle, if it’s not don’t throw it back in, if it’s over cooked, just eat it and then like you eat roughly 85,000 meals in the span of the average life you can deal with one that’s not the best. I guess that kinda is against the point of the show. Just gonna throw this under the broiler for six minutes. Alexa, set a timer for six minutes. – [Alexa] Six minutes, starting now. – Alexa, play Push It by Static X. – [Alexa] Push It isn’t included with Prime. – What? – [Alexa] Sorry, I didn’t understand. – Alexa, stop! Next week, how to cook Alexa good. Oh, that is nice and pretty. See we got a little bit of brule action, there’s a really nice crust forming on the top of there. Ow, uh-oh, oh, don’t touch burning sugar with your hands. So we’re just gonna take this off, skin should lift up nice and easily from the foil. The skin should lift up nice and easily from the foil. The skin lifts up beautifully and easily from the foil, ow I had a tool. This is my cross to bear. Ow let me do it, ow. Just know I can do it myself, I don’t need help. All right, so the salmon lifts up nice and beautifully, you see what the mayonnaise crust did, it created like a nice brule action right there, that’s also the sugar from the honey caramelizing. Gonna squeeze a little bit of fresh lemon on there and let’s see how this baby is cooked. Yeah, that is perfect, kinda medium-rare goin’ all the way through. It’s nice and warm and hot in the middle and that’s what you want. If your salmon looks translucent but it’s still cold in the middle, that means that it hasn’t cooked, but if it’s nice and hot that means that, that’s some tasty fish. A lot of people overcook the salmon because they’re afraid of under cooking it which might be because they’re afraid of eating raw fish. They’ll think that you know the stuff you get from the store isn’t sushi-grade but the term sushi-grade, it’s really just a marketing scheme and a very good one at that. I’m not saying you should start slicing up grocery store salmon and eating it as sashimi but a nice medium to medium-rare cook on your salmon is an absolutely beautiful thing. You’re getting a cook on it with the broiler that you couldn’t get in a normal standard oven and it’s a lot easier than pan searing. You’re missing the crispy skin a little bit but it’s still a very simple way to do it and it’s an excuse to fit more mayonnaise in your diet which is always a good thing. Thank you so much for joining us in Mythical Kitchen, hit us up at Instagram @MythicalKitchen with pictures of your salmon, or your cooked inner demons under #DreamsBecomeFood. We got new episodes of our podcast Hotdog is a Sandwich every Wednesday and new food videos out every week. Thank you for liking, commenting, subscribing, we’ll see ya next time. You can cook up your own feast while wearing the Mythical Kitchen apron, available now at Mythical.com.