Weeknight Dinner: Cedar-Planked Salmon with Potatoes, Leeks and Olive Relish

Photo: Eric Diesel

Flipping through an online food album of mine, a friend noticed a photograph of cedar-planked salmon and asked how to prepare it. This dish, though perennial in our urban home, is especially popular during the cool weather. It is especially suited to autumn, when the fragrant smoke compliments the touch of cool excitement in the air.

Cooking on wooden planks is a Native American technique, perfected by the peoples of the region that is now the North American pacific northwest. Woodsy foods such as potatoes, mushrooms and game are especially suited to the technique, in which food is arranged on planks of aromatic wood and then cooked over open fire, where the food absorbs the fragrant smoke of the heating plank.

Chefs studying this cuisine began adapting cedar-plank cooking for their menus, with the combination of tradition and innovation that is the signature of chefs des cuisines. Eventually, this technique returned to the home kitchen. Once a special-order item at a cooking store, planks and papers made of food-safe wood have become widely available, as have high-quality dried herbs and spices. I daresay that the native peoples who perfected plank-cooking would view the contemporary adoption of this ancient technique as evidence of an ongoing cycle. For the open fire at the heart of a village circle is not really different from a contemporary kitchen oven or backyard barbeque.

Here is my original recipe for cedar-planked salmon. The rich flesh of salmon, so iconic in the pacific northwest, takes perfectly to being dry-rubbed with an aromatic spice mixture and then plank-cooked with earthy potatoes and aromatic leeks. A quick, if not indigenous, olive relish provides a piquant counterpoint to the intense, luxurious flavors and textures of the meal. If you prefer the dusky taste of mushrooms, omit the roasted potatoes and leeks and serve your salmon with a side dish of mushroom risotto. Compliment the meal with sexy Greek green beans, and either apple cider or a toasty autumnal ale.

CEDAR-PLANKED SALMON WITH POTATOES, LEEKS AND OLIVE RELISH

Though there is no reason you can't plank your salmon outdoors over a campfire or barbeque grate, this recipe is written for the oven. If you have difficulty locating wooden cooking planks, here is an online source. Be sure to follow the package directions for safe handling. Have the fishmonger give you boneless middle-cut salmon fillets; these will cook best. This recipe serves two; it can be doubled.

For the salmon
Two boneless middle-cut salmon fillets, approximately 8 ounces each

For the dry rub
1 small orange
2 teaspoons smoked Spanish paprika
1 teaspoon hot Hungarian paprika
1 teaspoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon dried parsley
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
Salt (Greek sea salt works well)

For the potatoes and leeks
1/2 pound baby Yukon Gold potatoes
2 leeks
Extra virgin olive oil

For the olive relish
1 16-ounce jar pitted green olives
1 small jar Spanish capers
1 large shallot
2 tablespoons sherry vinegar
1 teaspoon dried rosemary
Extra-virgin olive oil
Freshly ground black pepper

1. Make the rub. Measure the dry rub ingredients together into a small bowl and gently mix together with a fork, using the tines of the fork to break up the brown sugar.

2. Use a commercial vegetable cleaner to clean the orange. Dry with a paper towel. Hold the orange over the dry rub mixture and use a microplane zester to grate just the orange skin (the "zest") from the orange, avoiding the white pith beneath. Stir the orange zest into the dry rub. Measure two teaspoons of the rub into a small bowl or coffee cup and set aside.

3. Line a dinner plate with a strip of parchment paper. Unwrap the salmon fillets and place, flesh up, on the parchment paper.

4. Sprinkle the tops and sides of the fillets liberally with the remainder of the orange-spice dry rub. If necessary, use a rubber spatula to be sure the fillets are evenly coated with the rub. Refrigerate uncovered for a minimum of 30 minutes.

5. Unwrap the cooking planks and soak two planks, weighted with a small plate, as directed on the package instructions. Do not skip or alter this step.

6. Rinse the potatoes under cool water. Inspect them for buds or soft brown or black spots; use a small paring knife to remove and discard any such.

7. Place the potatoes in a small saucepan and add water to cover. Add a generous shake of salt. Place the pan on medium heat and cook the potatoes just until soft, approximately ten minutes.

8. Align the leeks side-by-side on a clean cutting board. Use a sharp knife to cut off and discard the root ends of the leeks. Moving up the body of the leeks, cut the white and pale green parts of the leeks into coins about 1/4" inch wide; stop when you get to the rough dark green upper leaves. Set the dark green upper leaves aside to clean and use for sachets des epices.

9. Scrape the white and pale green leek coins into a bowl. Do not worry if they are gritty. Cover the leeks with cold water and set the bowl aside. As you work, check the water every few minutes. When it is cloudy, empty the bowl of water by tilting it toward your hand and using your hand as a dam to keep the leeks from tumbling out. Refill with water and check again a few minutes later. Within two or three changes of water, the water should stay clear and the leeks will be clean of grit.

10. Measure the vinegar into a small bowl and add the dried rosemary and several grindings of fresh black pepper.

11. Remove the root and stem ends of the shallot; remove the papery outer skin. Halve the shallot from root to stem; halve each half. Cut each quarter into crescents and then cut across the crescents to form dice. Scrape the diced shallot into the vinegar.

12. Empty the green olives into a colander and rinse thoroughly under cool water. Use a small paring knife or handheld chopper set to coarse to roughly chop the olives into small pieces. You will need 1/2 cup chopped olives; add them to the vinegar. Return leftover olives if any to the jar and set aside for macerating.

13. Measure two tablespoons of capers into the colander and rinse under cool water. Shake the colander dry and add the capers to the olive--vinegar mixture.

14. Add a two-count of extra virgin olive oil to the olive-vinegar mixture. Refrigerate the mixture until ready to serve.

15. Ten minutes before the curing time on the cedar planks is completed, open the oven and line the top rack with a layer of aluminum foil. Pre-heat the oven to the temperature directed on the package instructions.

16. Once the potatoes are cooked just until soft, gently empty them into the colander. Drain the now-clean leeks and add them to the colander with the potatoes. Use a silicon spatula to gently mix the potatoes and leeks together; the heat from the potatoes should start to soften the leeks. Drizzle the potatoes and leeks with a two-count of olive oil and sprinkle the potatoes and leeks with the reserved spice rub. Use the silicon spatula to gently toss the ingredients together so that the potatoes and leeks are well-coated with oil and spices.

17. Remove the spice-rubbed salmon fillets from the refrigerator.

18.. When the planks have finished curing as directed on the package instructions, remove the planks from the water bath. Place a spice-rubbed salmon fillet in the center of each plank and then place a mound of potatoes and leeks on either side of the fillet.

19. Place the planks in the oven, being careful to orient them so they can't fall through the foil-covered rack. Cook as directed on the package directions, typically 10 - 15 minutes, until the planks release their fragrant smoke and the salmon flakes easily with no undercooked deep pink flesh.

20. Remove the planks from the oven. Transfer salmon and vegetables to serving plates. Serve with the olive relish on the side.