grilled salmon

In case you haven't noticed, the three birdies love fresh seafood. What do you expect? We live in the Pacific Northwest! This week the fall salmon run is in full swing, so my husband went out to catch us some dinner. He fished the river for some pink salmon, which only come every other year. He got one, and it became my job to figure out how we wanted to cook it up.




We had two large fillets, so I decided to put a different spin on each one. For the first fillet I used Tom Douglas' Salmon Rub. You might have heard us mention this famous chef in our crab cakes post. This rub is amazing and after coating the fillet with it, we grilled it up on a cedar plank until flaky. Perfection!



For the second fillet, I used a recipe that we got from a wonderful friend of ours, Debbie Kimball. The recipe is so simple and the salmon tasted amazing with this finger-lickin' sauce.

Grilled Salmon with Secret Sauce
1/2 cup butter
3 T. soy sauce
1 tsp. fresh minced garlic
1 1/2 tsp. dijon mustard
1/4 cup ketchup

Melt butter over low heat. Add remaining ingredients and heat through. Cover cookie sheet with aluminum foil. Place salmon fillets skin-side down. Brush generously with sauce. Close grill. Grill hot with smoke chips for 12-18 minutes or until fish begins to flake.

Note: This makes enough for about 1 1/2 pounds of salmon. If you like it a little sweeter you can add a little brown sugar.