Salmon with Citrus Glaze (Alton Brown)

I can’t take credit for this one. We saw it on one of Alton Brown’s shows, Good Eats. I used it last summer when the St. Tommy’s alumni crowd gathered in the mountains of north Georgia. I used it again last night when we had a small mob over to have our house blessed. I did it from memory, but then on a whim searched the interwebs and scared up a link for the top of this post. Both times I’ve made it, I was feeding about a dozen people, so my procedure is for two sides of salmon. The other major difference is that I use less salt that most people, Alton included.

1. Into a small food processor, put

• 2/3 c. dark brown sugar
• the zest from 5 lemons
• 2 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. black pepper

2. Blend until smooth.

3. Cover a large jelly roll pan with foil (it needs to be a pan with a decent lip, not a flat cookie sheet; there will be a lot of liquid).

4. Put 2 whole sides of salmon onto the foil and spread the glaze over them.

5. Leave the salmon to marinate at room temperature for an hour or so. It will throw off quite a bit of liquid. Don’t sweat it (fortuitous pun not intended).

6. Position a rack in the oven so that the salmon will be about 3" from the flame / element and let the broiler preheat for a couple of minutes.

7. Broil the salmon for approximately 6 minutes.

8. Turn off the heat and let the salmon sit for another ~7 minutes.

Serve and eat now. I like to serve it on a bed of low-country grits (slow cooked in milk all day long).

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Addendum:

Tonight (27 June 2011) I modified the glaze slightly. I added fresh, grated ginger to it. Yummers! The proportions were probably also much different. I glazed three salmon fillets and one portobello cap (for SWMBO). For this, I started with the zest of three lemons, approximately 1/3 c. of brown sugar, nearly a Tablespoon of black pepper, only a bit of salt, and a chunk of ginger about 3" x 1". It was very tasty.