Perfectly Grilled Salmon with Lemon Chive Butter

I returned from a few days in New York City, where the eating was good but featured a lot of heavy food...steak frites and pulled pork, for instance. I was ready for something lighter, and grilled salmon seemed to be the thing for a hot summer night. I had a head start with some extra lemon chive butter on hand, so made a little extra sauce for more flavor.

The salmon was grilled to perfection, making me very pleased with my choice.

Appx. 10 oz Salmon Fillet

For the Lemon Chive Butter (makes extra):
4 tbsp unsalted butter, softened
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tbsp chives, minced
1 tsp capers, choped
1 1/2 tbsp lemon
touch of salt & pepper to taste

Combine all the ingredients in a medium sized bowl. If the butter is to hard to work with when you're ready to go, you can microwave it for 10 seconds or so to soften it up.

For the sauce
1 1/2 tbsp lemon
1 tsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp honey
1 tbsp white wine

Mix all the ingredients in a small bowl, set aside.

Grill & prepare the salmon
Pre-heat a grill. Rinse and pat dry a salmon fillet (I used about 10 ozs.) Spray it with olive oil. Place on the grill, skin side down, and grill on medium high. Turn the salmon over after about 3 minutes, cook for another 3 minutes then flip again to skin side down (the skin may stick to the grill at some point in the process, that's OK, just use another spot on the grill). When it's skin side down again, gently sprinkle about 1 tbsp of the sauce over the salmon. Grill another 4-5 minutes until done. Remove from grill and immediately spread a tbsp of the butter over the fish.

Tent with aluminum, let rest for a few minutes. Just before serving sprinkle another tsp or two of the sauce over salmon.

Eat the salmon
I don't think much instruction is required here. With any luck, your salmon will come out as perfectly as mine did...which for me means the flesh is still nice and moist and flavorful. When I first started cooking salmon, I was seriously overcooking it, making it too dry. Now I aim to have it retain the deep orange hue, just warm in the center.

I also tried grilling up some shitaake mushrooms to accompany the salmon; those were not actually done to perfection, I wound up putting them back on the grill to cook through more. I wound up combining the shitaakes with some edamme beans as one side dish, along with some couscous topped with almonds and a bit of lemon juice. All in all, a very pleasing feast!

I served the salmon with a rousanne based white blend, a nice summer wine.

Complementary Wines: Roussanne

If you'd like more delicious recipes and wine pairings, join my website.