Salmon loaf recipes date back to when the Alaska Packers Association (APA) introduced canned salmon to home cooks at the St. Louis World’s Fair of 1904. The APA cookbook from that year, “How to Eat Canned Salmon,” contained not one but three salmon loaf recipes. All of them combine canned fish with a “panade,” or rich batter made of cracker or breadcrumbs, milk or canned milk, and eggs. The loaves are steamed or baked and served cold. Same for “Out of Alaska’s Kitchens,” another central part of the state’s spiral bound culinary canon. (That book, from about 50 years later, actually has four versions of loaf—all served hot.) The loaves appealed to Catholics looking for meatless meals during Lent, and thrifty Depression-era cooks because canned salmon was a cheaper meat.

This recipe riffs on APA’s “Salmon Loaf #3”—which is a very basic salmon meatloaf with eggs, breadcrumbs, and some chopped parsley. Only I didn’t use canned salmon—though you could. I used some older frozen salmon I had and tossed in a little smoked salmon to add flavor. You can skip the smoked fish if you don’t like it or don’t have any. The recipe is pretty forgiving and can tolerate a little more or a little less fish, depending on what you’re working with. Compared to the old school versions, I upped the fat, using cream instead of milk, along with melted butter. I added a little lemon zest and Parmesan cheese for salt and tanginess, along with hot sauce for vigor.

I landed on a recipe that is totally delicious—kind of like eating a slab of smoky, rich salmon burger with a buttery, crumbly top. Though it’s easy, it could work for a special occasion if you’re serving pescatarians. I highly recommend dunking a bite or two in tartar sauce.

New school old school salmon loaf

Ingredients:

16 −20 ounces frozen salmon thawed, bones and skin removed, finely chopped

¼ −⅓ cup smoked salmon finely shredded

¼ cup shallots very finely diced

1½ cups Saltines finely crushed, + 2 tablespoons for topping the loaf

½ cup Parmesan cheese grated, + 2 tablespoons for topping the loaf

2 teaspoons lemon zest

3 eggs, beaten

¾ cup cream

3 tablespoons melted butter + more for the pan

1 −2 teaspoons Frank’s hot sauce or other vinegar-based hot sauce

2 teaspoons fresh dill or parsley minced, for serving (optional)

Slices of lemon for serving

Tartar sauce for serving

Method: 

Preheat the oven to 350° F degrees. Butter 5×9-inch loaf pan. Mix all ingredients in a large bowl with a fork, working to break up any big salmon pieces. When the mixture is well combined, spread it into a loaf pan and sprinkle with cracker crumbs and Parmesan. Bake for 30 minutes until firm and crispy on top. Serve immediately with fresh herbs, lemon slices, and tartar sauce.

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The sushi bake is basically a deconstructed, cooked salmon sushi roll, made in a casserole pan, that you can eat in a big umami-packed pile or, if you want to do it up, scoop into snack-sized nori sheets and eat with your hands like a lettuce wrap. You can even dress it with sushi vegetables like cucumber, avocado and jalapeno for a supercharged salmon sushi experience. If you are doing the make-your-own mini sushi roll version with nori, it works great as an appetizer.

There are lots of recipes for sushi bakes online. Many use crab or surimi. The ones for salmon are written by people who aren’t from here, who are probably eating farmed Atlantic fish or canned pink salmon and they say to cook it so long it gets dry as a bone. This recipe is written for frozen red salmon and I try not to cook it to death. We should also talk about mayonnaise. Mayo is the best friend of springtime frozen fish, but for this recipe it’s important that you use a specific Japanese variety, Kewpie brand, to get the right salt and bite. You can find the stuff at just about every grocery in town and Costco often has it in a 2-pack. There is some controversy in the short form content world about the addition of cream cheese in the mix. I tried it with and without and adding a little cream cheese is just better. Furikake, if you’re not familiar, is a Japanese rice seasoning made from seaweed and sesame seeds. That’s also available at most grocery stores and, if you’re lucky, you might find one of a couple local versions made with Alaska kelp.

Salmon Sushi Bake

Serves 4

Ingredients:

For the rice layer:

1 cup medium grain calrose white rice, rinsed until the water runs clear

1 tablespoon furikake

2 tablespoons seasoned rice vinegar

2 teaspoons granulated sugar

1 teaspoon salt

Canola oil spray

For the salmon layer:

One piece of red salmon, about 1 to 1 ¼ pounds, pin bones removed

1 teaspoon + 1 teaspoon soy sauce

2 tablespoons Kewpie mayonnaise + more for topping

1 tablespoon cream cheese, softened

1 teaspoon furikake or sesame seeds

Sriracha sauce

2 green onions, diced

Possible garnishes:

Snack-sized toasted nori sheets

Sliced avocado

Cucumber matchsticks

Sliced jalapeno

Microgreens

Pickled ginger

Wasabi

Instructions: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray a square, 8-by-8 inch casserole pan with cooking spray. Cook the rice, according to package directions, in a rice cooker or on the stove top. While the rice is cooking, prepare the other components. Place the fish on a small parchment-lined sheet pan and drizzle with soy sauce. Bake it for 7 minutes. It will be very rare. Keep the oven on, you’ll use it again. Remove the salmon skin from the fish and flake the meat into a small bowl. Add 2 tablespoons mayonnaise, 1 teaspoon soy sauce and softened cream cheese. Stir gently until mixture is combined, but don’t overmix. In another small bowl, combine rice vinegar, sugar and salt. As soon as the rice is done, stir vinegar mixture and furikake in with the rice. Press the seasoned rice into the casserole pan to form the bottom layer. Add the fish on top in an even layer. Lash the top of the casserole with mayonnaise and sriracha on the diagonal and sprinkle it with furikake or sesame seeds. Return the casserole to the oven and bake for 10 to 12 minutes, until the fish reaches desired doneness. Garnish with green onions. If desired, serve with small nori sheets and, if desired, other sushi vegetables, like avocado, jalapeno, microgreens, pickled ginger and wasabi.

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Traditional fish pie—like many dishes in England—is made very simply, with white fish like pollock and sometimes smoked fish like haddock, a simple cream sauce, boiled egg, and parsley. Stein has a number of pie recipes, including one topped with mashed potato and made with heavy cream that’s pretty great. I was drawn to his simple “quick fish pie” recipe from his book, Simple Suppers. Made with store-bought puff pastry on top, it’s both beautiful and fast to pull together for a dinner party. If you can’t find puff pastry, you can substitute a store-bought or homemade pie crust.

What I liked about this recipe most was the smoky, rich sauce. Stein used smoked haddock to flavor the pie and started the sauce by poaching the haddock in milk to steep in that smoky flavor. I adapted the recipe to fish that’s easy for Alaskans to get their hands on and used a very salty, smoky salmon strip instead, which worked great. You could also use regular smoked salmon or, if you have it, a little smoked black cod. Stein uses boiled eggs in his pies, which I skipped due to the pickiness of my young pie eaters, but I did add peas, because they say “fish pie” to me.

British-style fish pie

Serves 6 – 8

Ingredients:

Butter for the pan

2½ cups whole milk

½ large white onion

4 cloves

1 bay leaf

1¾ pounds white fish, like halibut or cod

3 ounces smoked salmon strips, skins cut off, or 3 ounces smoked salmon, skin removed

1 cup frozen peas

2 egg yolks

2 tablespoons cornstarch

3 ounces sharp English Cheddar, grated

⅓ cup chopped parsley

2 teaspoons white wine or vermouth

Pinch of nutmeg

Salt and pepper to taste

1 8-ounce sheet store-bought puff pastry, thawed

1 tablespoon of milk to glaze

Method:

Preheat the oven to 400° F. In a 4- to 6-quart pot, place the milk, the onion studded with the cloves, the bay leaf, white fish, and smoked salmon. Bring the milk to a bubble, turn it down to a simmer, and allow the fish to poach for 5 minutes. Remove from the heat.

Using a slotted spoon, scoop out the fish and the other solids. Discard the onion and bay leaf. Crumble the fish and arrange it inside a buttered 9-inch pie pan. Sprinkle the frozen peas on top. Set aside. Whisk the yolks and cornstarch in a small bowl. Whisking constantly, ladle some of the warm milk into the egg mixture. Then scrape that mixture back into the pan full of poaching liquid and return to medium heat.

Add wine or vermouth, allow mixture to boil gently for 2 minutes, stirring constantly. The sauce should thicken to a warm pudding texture. Add cheese, parsley, and nutmeg. Stir until cheese is melted, remove from the heat, taste, adjust salt and pepper. Pour over the fish in the pie pan. Roll out the puff pastry sheet so that it is at least an inch larger than the pan on all sides. Carefully place it on top of the pie, tuck it under the lip of the pan, press the edges with a fork, and trim excess. Prick the top a few times to let out the steam. Brush it with milk. Place the pie on a sheet pan to catch any overflow, and slide into the oven for 25 to 30 minutes, until it’s golden and puffed. Serve right away.

This recipe was originally published in Edible Alaska.

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The rest is just sushi roll basics. I filled my roll with thin-sliced local carrot — toss yours in rice vinegar for a little kick — local English cucumber slices, and classic Alaska underripe avocado; the firmness kind of works in this application. I am a big proponent of either soaking your raw sushi rice for at least 30 minutes and rinsing or just really thoroughly rinsing your rice before cooking. It really adds to the texture and stickiness to do this. Eel or unagi sauce is available in a number of Alaska grocery stores, but you can also make your own by simmering sake, mirin, soy sauce and sugar. I also like to wrap my rolls in plastic wrap after I roll them because it helps the seaweed soften and I sometimes throw one in the fridge for lunch the next day.

Salmon skin sushi rolls

Serves 4

Ingredients:

For the rice:

3 cups short grain sushi rice, freshly cooked and still warm

2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar

3 teaspoons sugar

2 tablespoons sesame seeds (optional)

For the filling:

Skin from one fillet of red salmon

1/4 cup unagi or eel sauce

1 cucumber, peeled and julienned

1 avocado, thin sliced

2 carrots, peeled and julienned

4-6 sheets nori

To serve:

Soy sauce or tamari

Wasabi

Pickled ginger

Method:

Make the rice: Make the rice in a cooker or pot, according to package directions. Stir the sugar into the rice wine vinegar to dissolve. When the rice is done, scoop it into a bowl and gently stir in the vinegar mixture and sesame seeds. Set aside.

Crisp the salmon skin: Set the oven to broil. Lay the skin on a parchment-lined sheet pan, sprinkle with a little sea salt, broil for 5 minutes until the skin is browned. When it cools, slice it into quarter-inch thin strips. If you have extra skin, you can roll or fold it into a tight little crunch stick.

Assemble the sushi: Lay the rectangle of the nori in front of you on a piece of plastic wrap or a bamboo sushi roller, long side toward you. Cover the lower three-quarters of the nori sheet with a layer of rice, leaving the top section uncovered. About one-fourth of the way from the bottom edge, lay salmon skin, cucumber, avocado and carrot in a line parallel to the bottom. Drizzle with eel sauce. Roll tightly from the bottom, and allow to sit for at least five minutes before slicing into 1-inch slices with a sharp knife. Serve immediately with wasabi, pickled ginger and soy sauce.

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That’s what led me into a week of trying techniques for cooking salmon that get skin extra crispy and delicious. Per-pound prices on early summer red salmon are great, so if you’re curious, now’s the time to try it for yourself.

My favorite technique comes from Seattle-based J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, who wrote last month in The New York Times food section about dry-brining. This technique really blew my mind because it was so simple and made for glorious perfect bites of flavorful salmon with extra crispy skin. He offers the option of broiling the fish, but I went with his pan-fry technique. I modified his instructions slightly because of what I had on hand. The only essential tool is a good instant-read thermometer.

Here’s what I used, which was enough for four people:

• One red salmon fillet, weighing roughly a pound

• A teaspoon of sea salt

• Canola oil

Following Lopez-Alt’s instructions, I dried my fillet well, covered it with the salt and put it in a paper towel-lined lasagna pan. I then put it in the fridge uncovered for 8 hours. (My fridge smelled fine.) It came out dry and a little sticky on the outside — it reminded me of the smoking process when you dry salmon after a wet brine to form a pellicle.

When I was ready to cook, I cut the fish into individual portions. After that, I heated a large frying pan over medium-low heat, rubbed the portions down with a little neutral oil and fried them for about 5 minutes, skin-side down. When the skin was brown and crispy, I had no trouble separating them from the cooking surface with a spatula.

I flipped them and fried each flesh-side down until it reached about 110 degrees on my instant-read thermometer. That leaves the fish on the rare side. Well done, Lopez-Alt says, is 135 degrees. I did not try cooking salt-brined fish on the grill, but stands to reason it would be extra crispy, well-charred and good.

The next method I liked was to pan-fry the fish on parchment paper — a technique that’s making the rounds on the internet. This method also made for crispy skin — though not quite as flavorful or crispy as the Lopez-Alt method.

Here’s what I used to make roughly enough for two people:

• Half a single red salmon fillet, about 8 ounces, patted dry

• 1/4 teaspoon of canola oil

• Season salt

• Half a lemon

I cut a piece of parchment paper so that it would fit in my cast-iron skillet. I heated the skillet over medium-low heat, put the parchment in the pan and drizzled it with the oil. I seasoned the fish on both sides, then laid it skin-side down, and cooked it for about 5 minutes. I flipped it and cooked it for a few minutes more until it reached an internal temperature of 110 degrees. Then I hit it with a nice squeeze of lemon. It was great. Though I preferred the Lopez-Alt method for the way the salt intensified the flavor, this is a great way to get a crispy skin if you don’t have time for the overnight brine.

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Back in Alaska, I recreated the salad using smoked salmon, and added rye bread croutons for a robust main dish. I had never done much with radicchio, a hearty form of leaf chicory often used in Italian cooking, but I noticed that it’s almost always in stock in the produce section. It’s my new favorite experimental food. An important tip: soak the leaves in ice water for about a half-hour before using, which takes down some of the inherent bitterness. (Skip this step if you are into that kind of thing.) I combined it with my favorite lazy blender Caesar dressing. This recipe makes a generous amount. You can leave the egg out of the dressing, but the emulsification will not be the same. Smoked salmon’s flavor can be stronger than steelhead’s. If you happen to have smoked trout or cod, you could experiment with those.

Serves 4, generously

For the salad:

• 1 head radicchio, torn into bite-sized pieces, soaked in cold water for at least 30 minutes and dried
• 3 slices rye bread, crust removed, cut into bite-sized squares
• Roughly 2 tablespoons olive oil
• Salt
• 4 ounces smoked fish: trout, salmon, halibut, or cod, drained of any oils
• ½ cup Parmesan, grated, for garnish
• 1 tablespoon fresh dill, for garnish (optional)
• Lemon wedges, for garnish

For the dressing:

• 1 egg
• Juice of 2 lemons
• 2 tablespoons Champagne vinegar
• 1½ teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
• 1½ teaspoons Dijon mustard
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 3–4 canned/jarred anchovies
• 1 cup Parmesan, grated
• ½ teaspoon sea salt
• Pepper
• ½ cup flavorful olive oil

Method:

Heat the oven to 350° F. Lay bread cubes in a single layer on a baking sheet, drizzle generously with olive oil, toss to coat, sprinkle with salt. Bake for 7 minutes, turn them over using a spatula, and bake an additional 3 to 5 minutes until they’re toasted but not burned. Set them aside.

Crack an egg into the blender. Add lemon, vinegar, Worcestershire, Dijon, garlic, anchovies, Parm, salt, and a couple of good cracks of pepper. Turn the blender on medium speed, remove the small round cap in the center of the lid, and drizzle the oil in while the bender is running. Stop the blender and adjust salt. Add more oil if the dressing is too tart for you.

To serve, toss the radicchio and croutons with about ½ the dressing, the additional Parmesan and another crack or two of pepper. Crumble the fish on top of the salad. Sprinkle with fresh dill, if desired. Serve with lemon wedges and extra dressing.

First published in the Summer 2023 issue of Edible Alaska.

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Depending on what you have fish-wise, you can modify this a bit. You can use half as much smoked fish and increase the fresh, if you’re short. I probably wouldn’t recommend using more than half smoked fish. Also, give some thought to salt. Smoked salmon saltiness and texture varies a lot, depending. You might add a couple splashes of fish sauce, “if you’re feeling frisky,” Beau says, especially if you are reducing the smoked fish. My smoked salmon was salty so I held off on any added salt or fish sauce and mine is on the dry side, so I also added just a little more mayo.

The best part about these cakes is you can make them a few days ahead, refrigerate and fry them up just before dinner. They can also be frozen, though be sure to thaw completely before you fry. And, if you’re in a hurry and don’t have time to make the sauce, you can do like I do sometimes and stir a little wasabi or Sriracha in with some mayo. It’s not ranchovy, but it works in a pinch.

Beau’s smoky salmon cakes

2 teaspoons olive oil

1/4 medium onion, diced small

1 celery stalk, diced

1/2 bell pepper, any color, seeded, ribs removed, diced small

2 cloves garlic, smashed and minced

Pinch of salt

1/2 pound (about a filet) of raw salmon or salmon trim, skin removed, minced

1/2 pound smoked salmon, flaked

3/4 cup mayonnaise (Best Foods or Kewpie recommended)

3 cups panko, divided in two

Zest of one lemon

Neutral oil

Sliced lemon to serve

On the stove, heat the oil in a pan over medium heat and add onion, celery, pepper and garlic. Stir frequently, sweating the vegetables until they are soft and the onion is translucent, about 5 minutes. Don’t allow vegetables to brown. Remove from heat. In a large bowl, combine smoked and fresh salmon, zest, mayonnaise, 1 1/2 cups of panko and the vegetables. The mixture should hold together if you form it. Beau says, “If it feels loose or wet add a little more panko to tighten it up, if it feels too dry give it another tablespoon of mayonnaise.”

Divide the salmon mixture to form eight 4-ounce patties for large cakes or 16 2-ounce patties for appetizer-sized cakes. They should be about an inch thick. Pour the rest of the panko on a plate and roll each fish cake in it to coat. On the stove, cover the bottom of a large frying pan with oil. Fry cakes over medium heat in batches, 3 minutes a side, adjusting heat if they are getting too brown. Remove from pan to a paper towel-lined plate.

Ranchovy sauce:

1 cup mayonnaise

1/2 cup sour cream

1/2 cup buttermilk

1/2 teaspoon onion

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon fish sauce

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice

In a small bowl, stir together all ingredients. Serve with fishcakes or anything you usually serve with ranch.

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Alaskan cooks are always combining wild food with self-stable, lowbrow pantry items. See: muktuk and Lawry’s Seasoned Salt or saltine salmon or wild berries suspended in Jell-O atop a layer of box sheet cake or crab boiled in 7-Up or agutuk with Cool Whip. For my book, I spent a lot of time with Alaska’s community and church cookbooks, especially those from the mid-20th Century, and I can attest to the generous use of both mayo and crushed potato chips, especially in seafood casseroles. But this recipe? It felt bold.

Kate lives nearby, so we went for a socially distant mid-winter walk and talked about that feeling you get in the late winter, when you’re trying to come up with a new way to cook last season’s frozen salmon on a Tuesday night. This recipe is aimed right at that. The one Kate made was her idea, developed by the brilliant Maya Wilson—of The Alaska from Scratch Cookbook fame—for Bristol Bay Sockeye Salmon, a brand stewarded by Alaska fishermen. They commissioned Maya to come up with recipes that could be made simply with just a few ingredients found anywhere, even at a sparsely stocked rural grocery store or a gas station.

And so I tried it. And I loved it. The flavor has a tangy fish-n-chips vibe. The crunch satisfies. I tested several kinds of chips. Lay’s Salt & Vinegar mixed with a handful of Kettle dill pickle chips packs just the right punch, IMHO. Do not use fancy thick-cut chips. They don’t crush right. I also tested with my favorite Kewpie mayo, but that really didn’t stand up to classic Best Foods. Kate likes to stir a little Barnacle Foods Bullwhip Hot Sauce into the mayo. I always take her advice. Here’s my take the Kate/Maya recipe.

(This recipe originally appeared in Edible Alaska. Subscribe!)

Ingredients:

Potato-chip salmon

• 1 pound salmon fillet
• sea salt
• 2 tablespoons Best Foods mayonnaise
• A splash of hot sauce
• 2 cups potato chips (a mix of salt & vinegar with an optional handful of dill pickle or jalapeño chips)
• chives, chopped
• ½ lemon

Method:

Preheat the oven to 400° F. Cover a sheet pan with parchment. Very generously salt fish and arrange on the pan. Place chips in a plastic bag and crush them into pieces, roughly the diameter of a pea. Stir hot sauce into the mayo, and spread a thick coat of mayo mix onto the salmon. Press the potato chips onto the mayo to form a crust. Bake for 9 minutes. Remove from the oven when the top is just a touch browned but the center is still rare. Squeeze lemon over hot fish and sprinkle with chives. Serve immediately.

This recipe was published in Edible Alaska.

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The thing about smoked salmon in Alaska, it’s just so dang personal. Some people like the salt, some like the sweet. Some can tolerate it really dry, while other people can’t. The recipe I settled on is solid and simple. It’s based on one found in a small spiral-bound book called “Alaska’s Gourmet Smoked Salmon Secrets Revealed.” It’s the preferred recipe of my Aunt Barbara, a master fisherwoman. She told me it wouldn’t fail me, and she was right.

A few notes: this recipe uses smoke more as a flavor, not as a cooking method. Instead, it calls for finishing the fish in the oven. Electric smokers, especially when it’s cool, can’t get hot enough to bring the fish to temperature. I prefer this method because it’s both faster and it keeps the fish from getting too dry. In general, you should avoid smoking fish in the rain or when temperatures get below about 45 degrees.

I use alder chips, which you can get just about everywhere. Double this recipe for a Big Chief. Make a plan for what you’d like to do with the salmon after you smoke it. Easiest is to vacuum seal and freeze. It keeps about a week in the fridge.

Simple smoked salmon in an electric smoker

Makes 12 portions

Ingredients:

4 to 5 pounds fresh or previously frozen salmon fillets (three medium fillets)

12 cups water

¾ cup white sugar

1 cup kosher salt

¾ cup brown sugar (optional)

In the evening the day before you plan to smoke fish, begin the brine. In a large container, like a deep soup pot, dissolve white sugar and salt into the water. Using good deboning tweezers, remove the bones you can feel and see. Take care not to damage the fillet in this process. With a sharp knife, trim any rough edges and cut each fillet into four pieces, three rectangles and the tail. Add to brine and refrigerate overnight.

In the morning, remove the fish from the brine and rinse each piece well, holding it under running water for at least five seconds. Pat each piece dry with a paper towel, and place, not touching other pieces, on a wire rack on top of a cookie sheet. Aim a small fan at the rack and allow the fish to dry for 6 to 8 hours, until it’s just a little tacky to the touch.

If you like it a little sweeter, rub each piece of fish with a tablespoon of brown sugar. Load the smoker, four pieces to a tray. The pieces should not touch. If the skin is still moist, pat it dry with a paper towel. In a dry outdoor location, plug the smoker in and fill the smoking pan with alder chips. Smoke the fish for two hours, checking the pan halfway through and adding a few more chips if necessary. Toward the end of the smoke, preheat the oven to 175 degrees. Remove the rack from the smoker and unload the fish, carefully peeling the skin off each piece. Set the pieces, not touching, on a large parchment-lined sheet pan. Bake for one hour — you may want to remove really thin tail pieces earlier — until firm to the touch. To store, can or vacuum-seal and freeze as soon as fish has cooled.

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The most important part of the recipe is the grilling technique, because overcooked salmon is the worst. The idea is to take the fish from the grill when it’s rare and hot but still translucent in the middle. This gives the fish a soft, sashimi-like texture. The warm chive drizzle and the warm plate cause the fish to cook a bit more, but remain custardy. The other important part is using quality soy sauce or tamari. Not all soy sauce/tamari is created equal. You can definitely go down an internet rabbit hole with this, but I think Eden brand tamari, which is widely available and affordable, has nice depth and salt. I recommend serving the fish with short-grain white rice and maybe some grilled bok choy tossed with lemon, olive oil and gochujang.

Chive blossom salmon

1-2 pound fresh salmon fillet

Two chive blossom balls, deconstructed into individual blossoms

2-3 tablespoons fresh chives, diced

¼ cup good quality soy sauce or tamari

2 tablespoons olive oil

Pinch of red pepper flakes (optional)

Place a ceramic fish platter in a warming drawer or the oven at the “keep warm” setting. Heat the grill to 400 degrees. Lay the salmon fillet, skin-side down, on the hot grill and lower the top for 4 minutes. Check for doneness by sliding a spatula between the layers of flesh to check how far into the fillet the fish has cooked. When it’s close, the flesh should pull apart easily. It’s done when it’s mostly cooked through but there is still a slightly translucent oval in the middle of the flesh in the thickest part of the fillet. (You can slice off and remove the tail piece at 5 minutes, if it’s getting done before the rest of the fish.) Most red salmon fillets take no more than 7 minutes. Meanwhile, heat the soy sauce or tamari, olive oil and red pepper flakes on the stove until just bubbling, and ready the warm fish plate.

To remove fish from the grill, slide a thin metal spatula between the meat and the skin, leaving the skin on the grill. (I like to let the skin crisp up for 30 seconds or so and then I slice it with a sharp knife and eat it with dinner.) Place the fish on the warm plate. Sprinkle with chive blossoms and chives, pour the hot soy sauce mixture over it. Serve immediately with warm calrose rice.

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