Autumn is just around the corner, but here’s another recipe you can try before you put the grill away for the season (unless you live somewhere that you can grill all year round). 11-15: Grilled Salmon with Thyme uses salmon steaks which can be tough to locate depending on where/when you look for them, but if you are able to snag some it’s a nice change from the same old burgers and hot dogs.
Here where I live, it’s not only still 90+ degrees each day, it’s also salmon season, so I’ve been seeing it on sale a lot at our local grocery stores. Warm nights + fresh salmon on the grill = good times.
The TIPS mention that you can swap in salmon filets for the steaks–I had to make that swap in 11-18: Salmon Steaks with Mushrooms, but was able to secure actual steaks for this one. As you can see, there’s really not a lot to this recipe: marinate, grill, eat.
Ingredients. I have to confess that I actually made this dish back in January of this year (you can grill outside all year round in most of California) and so I was only able to get Atlantic/farm-raised salmon at that time, which is less than optimal compared to what’s available when they’re in season here. I was just so excited to actually SEE salmon steaks behind the glass at the butcher’s counter–I just went for it.
They also called for dried thyme, but even in the middle of January I still had a few sprigs of it in my garden (if you want to see more of my herb garden check out 19-6: Fresh Herbs) so I took the chance on including some fresh thyme as well.
I am OBSESSED with the roasted potato recipe from Serious Eats/J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, so I decided to serve them along with my salmon steaks. Since they take a while, I had to get those going first.
Melting my butter in my trusty butter-melter on the stove. Man, that stove has seen better days–it came with the house when we bought it a few years ago, and this was AFTER I tried cleaning it up (it was FILTHY when we moved in). I’ll admit, I’m hard on stoves but this one really seems to be struggling to keep up these days.
I had garlic already minced, since I tend to make batches of minced garlic by running handfuls of pre-peeled cloves you can buy at the market through a food processor–it’s a compromise between the lameness of jarred minced garlic and the work of doing it by hand myself each time I need it.
However, I did have to grate the lemon peel by hand, so there was SOME work done here.
The elusive salmon steaks, as I removed them from the store wrapping.
The symmetry is really interesting when you look at it. I can count the number of times I’ve eaten salmon steaks on one hand, so it’s something I don’t see very often.
There’s my little mini-food processor, peeking out from the background. I love it for little jobs that don’t require the power/space of the full-sized one I also have (like mincing handfuls of garlic cloves, as I mentioned above).
I patted on the salt, garlic, thyme, and lemon peel as instructed and left them to sit while we got the grill prepared.
Getting the tray ready for the grill–this is the easiest way to transport everything from the kitchen outside to the backyard.
Brushing off the grill to get it ready. Note the long sleeves–like I said, it was the middle of January.
We have a tiny grill, but it works well for just us. They’re not freakishly large steaks or anything. Butter stays up on the top rack to keep it melted and warm.
Brushing the steaks while they cook.
After flipping, almost done. I think I got as much fire/flame in my shots as they did on the recipe card.
After cooking. The lines could have been a little cleaner, but overall they look pretty tasty. Let’s take them back inside and out of that frigid 45 degree January weather.
Potatoes are done, don’t those look AMAZING? I tossed mine with a little extra Parmesan cheese as they cooled.
Final plate. It was delicious, and I would definitely try them again. Maybe next time, I’ll do it in the actual summer instead of the dead of winter.
Grade: A
