Viva la hamon!

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Is farmed salmon the swine of the sea?

Farmed salmon has become so inexpensive at the supermarket that it attracts a lot of attention.

At the fish counter, that $3.99-a-pound sign can actually blot out my memory. All the times I wanted to enjoy my salmon, but found it dry, or flabby? Poof, gone.

I’m a sucker for a pretty price tag. So it was that not long ago I found myself driving home with another bag of supermarket salmon, a hungry family awaiting.

If figured, if pink is the new white meat, why not treat it like a hunk of porcine protein? Specifically, baked ham, which also starts out fatty but can end up unpleasantly dry, even cottony, if mishandled?

I melted butter, added brown sugar and dijon mustard, and slathered the salmon hunks. Slid them onto my Weber, with all the lit coals scooped to the other side. Dropped a few hickory chips onto the heat, and closed the lid. (I parked the fillets on strips of aluminum foil so I didn’t have to worry about whether the fish stuck to the grate.)

I used coarse salt so it’d add a crunch at the end

Twenty minutes later, we had a winner. Smoky, sweet, savory. Much of the fattiness was cooked away, the fish browned around the edges, while the flesh remained moist.

But who cares what I think? The jury has rendered it verdict: The kids ate it without formenting revolution. Viva la hamon!

Dijon glazed salmon

2 pounds salmon fillet
2 tablespoons butter or margarine
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon Dijon or other prepared mustard
Salt and pepper

Melt butter or margarine and stir in sugar and mustard until completely blended. Slather salmon in glaze, using about two-thirds, and reserving the rest for a final coat. Salt and pepper to taste. Place fillets on the rack of a charcoal kettle grill with coals scraped to the opposite side. (You could also roast them in a pan in a 400 F oven, though you’ll miss the smoke.) Add wood chips to coals, if using. Replace lid, with vents open, and and cook for about 15 minutes. Drizzle remaining glaze over fish, and cook until done, approximately another five minutes.

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