Andy Makes Grilled Salmon with Lemon Sauce

Chris Morocco, my station buddy,

he was scoffing at the sauce.

And you know what?

It's now the number one recipe of July.

(laughs)

Sorry.

(laughs)

(peaceful music)

Hey guys, I'm so excited

because tonight I'm gonna see Beyoncé

but more importantly, I don't know if it's more importantly

actually, but I'm gonna show you guys

how to grill salmon with a kick-ass sauce to go with it,

this lemon black sesame sauce

that you're gonna wanna make all the time.

So first off, we have four skin on filets of salmon,

go to your fish monger, ask for four filets

about six ounces each, we're looking at per person,

skin-on, scaled, or if you feel comfortable

you could buy a whole skin-on filet

and you could just portion out on your own.

I'm gonna season both sides,

just some kosher salt.

After you season your salmon

you're gonna rub it with two tablespoons of oil,

just gonna give that a little drizzle.

You wanna make sure it's definitely well-coated in oil.

That's another key of ensuring that the filets

don't stick to the grates is oiling both the filets

and the grates.

Now we're gonna make a sauce,

it's a really simple sauce.

First we're gonna just take a small shallot

and we're just gonna finely chop it,

we're gonna add the shallots to the bowl.

And next we're going to use this whole lemon

for the sauce, we're gonna cut the ends off like this,

and then we're gonna go around the lemon

and you see the yellow skin, the white pit and the flesh?

You're gonna go about maybe, half an inch in,

and just slice straight down, and do that again

until you have four pieces.

And you're gonna start with one piece,

and then you're gonna just end up with these

little lemon bits.

I saw a few cooks do this at Chez Panisse,

and they were doing it with Meyer lemons.

So they were doing it with Meyer lemons

which has a softer skin, and they would make sauces,

salsas, but I kind of decided well,

Meyer lemon isn't necessarily the easiest

for a lot of people to find,

but just a regular lemon is,

so I thought why not try it with a regular lemon,

and I did and it turned out great.

What I do like to do is take the core

and just squeeze the juice into the bowl,

you're getting about a tablespoon of juice,

and then we're gonna add two teaspoons black sesame seeds,

a teaspoon of honey.

And the honey is necessary I find

just because, to tame the bitterness and the acidity

from the lemon,

and then half a teaspoon of toasted sesame seed oil.

Just to really get that sesame flavor in there.

And then I like to give all this a toss,

and then I'm gonna add a third a cup of olive oil.

You're gonna season it with some oil.

[Cameraman] You said season with oil.

Don't season it with oil,

you season it with salt.

I'm not gonna add more, you saw,

season it with salt.

And then you could add fresh chili if you like for heat,

you could use dried chili,

I'm just using black pepper.

Again, this sauce is really simple,

the hardest part about the sauce is chopping the lemon up.

That's our sauce, super easy,

you can make it ahead of time.

Next, we're gonna grill the salmon.

So, really with just about anything

that I'm throwing on the grill,

but most importantly with seafood,

I preheat the grill, this is a medium heat,

and I let it go for about twenty minutes

until the grill is really, really hot,

from then I get chimney sweeper,

Dick Van Dyke right, that was in Mary Poppins?

[Cameraman] ♪ Chim Chimery, Chim Chimery, Chim Chim Chery ♪

The worst English accent of all time.

That's not what I said,

I just think everybody knows that.

You're gonna just clean the grates,

this is pretty clean.

And then what I like to do is take a paper towel,

we're gonna dip the paper towel in the oil,

slick the grates with oil,

I go skin-side down on an angle,

right away you wanna cover it up,

and then that's gonna go for about six to eight minutes,

you're not touching the fish at all,

what you're gonna end up with is super crisp skin,

and flesh that's really beautifully cooked,

opaque and tender, we're gonna let it do its thing,

and that's that.

We're gonna take a look at our salmon.

Ooh, okay they look good,

I'm hoping the skin isn't too dark.

Oh look at that, whoa.

So you can see the skin's kind of tightened up a little bit,

they've gotten super crunchy,

I wonder if you can hear this,

oh yeah, I'm just gonna go plate this baby up.

I'm just gonna do one filet,

I like to leave the skin side up,

and I'm just gonna take some of the lemon sauce,

and I'm gonna go mostly around the fish,

'cause I don't want the sauce to sog out

the crispy skin that we worked so hard for.

And then I'm just gonna take some basil,

you can use whatever kind of tender herb you like,

a little bit of sauce on the basil,

just a touch on the fish itself.

Super simple grilled salmon,

with a really easy sauce.

[Cameraman] Can we get Chris to weigh in?

Sure, let's get Chris to weigh in.

You were hating on my sauce, I said to the camera.

Oh.

I love a whole lemon dressing,

I think it's especially to a nicely charred piece of fish,

it can stand up to it.

It's a pass.

Thank you, it's a pass.

(exhales)

So the skin is so crisp it's pretty much separated

from the fish, I'm just gonna go for the skin right away.

It's great, again definitely my grill was a touch too hot,

but that char from the skin goes really well

with the bright, super acidic, punchy,

slightly bitter lemon sesame sauce.

Super simple grilled salmon

with a really easy lemon sesame sauce.

For your friends, family,

your significant other, for yourself.

(light music)