Cedar-Planked Grilled Salmon with Apricot-Jalapeno Glaze

The end result

 

Okay, so this right here is kind of a big deal for me.  My gal-pal Michelle invited me to be a contributor on her food blog -- this food blog -- and this is my very first entry, and I am unbelievably excited about it.  So excited that sparks are practically flying off my fingertips as I type this and I fear I may short-circuit the keyboard.  Hi there, my name is Tanya, and I like food!  No, wait… I love food! Capital L-O-V-E.  Looking at it, thinking about it, cooking it, eating it…  Like Michelle, I spend a lot of time on Pinterest.  I just tallied up the number of recipes I’ve pinned to date and I’m currently hovering around 650, and I don’t intend to slow down anytime soon.  There are just too many good things out there that need to be made!

A lot of firsts have coincided with this inaugural entry of mine:  Testing out a new recipe; firing my grill up for the first time in at least three years; the new-to-me technique of grilling with a cedar plank; and using an amazing new ingredient that I just became mildly obsessed with.  More on that new ingredient later… 

 

Almost done...

 

I’ve been hosting regular Monday night get-togethers with my friend Kelly (who happens to be one of Tom Douglas’ pastry chefs and is no slouch in the kitchen herself!) and we decided we would each contribute a new Pinterest-inspired dish to serve for dinner. Kelly is a pescatarian and I had just pinned an amazing-looking spicy and sweet grilled salmon recipe from Kayotic Kitchen that I really wanted to try out so that's just what I did. Ingredients are listed below, but full instructions can be found here.

Ingredients:

cedar plank(s)
1 pound salmon fillet (with skin)
1 or 2 jalapenos -- minced
2 garlic cloves -- grated/minced
1 cup apricot preserves
2 tbsp grainy mustard
juice of 1/2 a lime
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 tbsp soy sauce
good pinch dried thyme
salt and pepper
olive oil

It being the first time I made this recipe, I didn’t deviate from the ingredients at all and it turned out wonderfully!  It was sweet, spicy, a little smokey, and it was fun to try out a new cooking technique. That said, it wasn’t perfect according to my personal taste, and if I could go back in time, there are some very minor changes I would make.  Hey, we like what we like, and I, for one, like things a little on the spicy side! Firstly, I would have been bold and diced up both jalapenos instead of just one. Something this sweet needs to be balanced with punchy spiciness on the other end.  No worries – I tossed in a good pinch of red chili flake, which is easily my favorite inhabitant of the spice cupboard. A few other changes I would have made: Using the juice of the whole lime instead of half, and adding a just splash of apple cider vinegar – both for an extra hit of much-needed acid; adding just a little bit more garlic; cooking the fish to 120 degrees instead of 135 – I prefer my salmon a little undercooked, and I’ll take a rare piece of salmon over an overcooked piece any day; and I’d definitely double up on the mustard, which brings me to the new ingredient: Kozlik’s Triple Crunch Canadian Mustard. I was gifted a jar of this amazing mustard by my friend-in-food and co-worker, Mitzi. She described it as the caviar of mustard and she is absolutely correct. This mustard is pretty much just whole mustard seeds and they delightfully pop in your mouth when you bite into them, much like the crunchy orange tobiko that generally tops a California roll.  This will be a must-have condiment in my kitchen from now on!

(image from Kozlik's twitter account)

 

Overall, I was impressed with the flavors in the dish, and the glaze would be amazing with several kinds of proteins: shrimp, chicken, pork, tofu...  As a matter of fact, I’m going to make an extra spicy batch of glaze tonight and see how it turns out on grilled shrimp.  Now that I’ve finally got a full tank of propane for the grill, I predict that I’ll be cooking a lot of meals outdoors this summer...