IN THE ROTATION: Grilled Salmon with Plum Glaze and Crispy Salmon Skin
With broccolini, cucumber, and plum salad
“IN THE ROTATION” is a term we use a lot around our house. I’ve never cooked dinner as much in my entire life as I have in the last three years (like many of you, I suspect). So, in this series, I’ll share the recipes that rise to the top in my own kitchen and that are good enough to repeat over and over again.
Today’s recipe(s) are influenced by some of my favorite Japanese flavors. When a dish is coming together in my head, I tend to find a theme and stick with it. This recipe began with the idea to make a plum glaze for salmon served with a simple plum and cucumber salad. You might wonder why I’d want to use plums, since they aren’t really in season — not here anyway.
The other day I saw (and felt) some rather rock-hard plums in my grocery store. These are from the tail end of the Chilean fruit season, which seems to go right up against the beginning of the U.S. stone fruit season. I already saw domestic cherries the other day, and peaches will be popping up any day now, along with better plums.
I’m not sure who buys all the Chilean stone fruit we see all winter long. It’s almost inedible raw, and bears little resemblance to fruit picked when it’s ripe. This fruit is meant for shipping. As a food stylist, I’ve been forced to at least try to work with this fruit — for summer stories that shoot in January and February — with mixed success.
The one thing I HAVE had success with is cooking and baking these rock hard plums. They have a very good plum flavor, they just take longer to cook. If you have my book Open Kitchen, there’s an excellent recipe for Plum Buckwheat Bars (page 331). I first developed that recipe for a bake sale that took place in late February back in 2017. In it, I give cooking times for both rock hard plums and those that are riper and in season. Either works.
The same goes here. You can make this recipe right now, or later when domestic plums start appearing — you’ll just cook the glaze for a few minutes less. For the salad, you’ll still want to go for underripe plums. I found that by macerating the plums in a little salt, sugar, and vinegar, their juiciness is enhanced. The almost crunchy texture was a delightful surprise that was just perfect in this salad. I was a little wary of this idea until I tested it out on Steve. He does not lie about my food, and he loved it. We were actually fighting over the plums.
The other surprise with this recipe was the crispy salmon skin. I am not usually a salmon skin person, but this came out so perfectly and really brought this dish over the top, so I just had to share the technique with you.