After a dozen or so February days below freezing, probably near the kind of record I don’t want to play again, spring began yesterday, at least the kind of spring that stops by for a week at a time in the seasonal tug-of-war that ensues here. Maybe winter will show up to ruin another weekend and force us to grab our tropical plants and run back inside the house for a day or three. Maybe not.
The sky was that deep blue you see on dry winter days, yet the sun had warmed things near 70 degrees, so being outside was a requirement, not an option, and I’d already dragged the hibiscus plants into the back where they sat blinking in the blinding daylight. It was late afternoon and nothing left for it but to grill that fat two-and-a-half-pound steelhead trout fillet marinating in the fridge.
The marinade, which also works well on chicken thighs, is simple: One cup of soy sauce and one cup of cider vinegar, stirred together. Mash and mince a clove of garlic and stir it in there, along with the juice of one lime. That’s it. Rinse your salmon (or steelhead) in cold water, pat it dry, place it in a large plastic bag, pour in the marinade, seal the bag, set it on a plate in the refrigerator for a half hour or so.
I was surprised to find we were out of charcoal, so I lined up six or seven small pecan “logs” on the grill and fired them up. Some people complain that if you use lighter fluid it will ruin the smokey taste, but I think the better brands of lighter fluid do their job and disperse by the time the wood has burned down low enough that you can use it like charcoal.
With salmon or steelhead, you grill pieces of this size (three-quarters of an inch thick) by starting with a grill hot enough that you can’t leave your hand an inch above it for more than a couple of seconds. Put the fillets flesh side down, skin side up, and leave them there for seven to nine minutes. Press down gently on the skin of the fish. If the fillet still feels squishy, leave it on the grill another minute or two. If you try to flip the fillet over too soon, the meat will “grab” the grill and some will tear off as you try to lift it. If you wait seven minutes or so, the meat “lets go” of the grill and you can lift it off cleanly.
Gently flip the fillets and put them back, skin side down. Yesterday, as the sun was going down, mine were still a little raw for my taste, so I shut the cover of my smoker grill and let the heat cook both sides of the fillets. Bosco, a big male catahoula hound, was right there, nose as close to the smoker as he could stand it. He would never come within 500 miles of a salmon in “real life,” but they are his favorite food, by far.
He was waiting for me to slide my spatula in between the skin and the fillet, and lift out the meat. That’s because he always gets the skin. This piece of fish was so big I’d cut it in half to fit it on the grill. I lifted off the thinner portion of the fillet, then quickly picked up one end of the skin and dropped it onto Bosco’s dog dish a few feet away. It was hot, and he couldn’t manage to eat it instantly.
But in a minute he was back, probably looking for that other skin. The thicker portion of the fish wasn’t done, and Bosco seemed impatient. He started whining. Then he barked in a funny, warning kind of bark, then began whining again. This was not his normal behavior. I finally realized he was not looking at me or at the grill, but up in a tree about 30 feet away across our side fence, in the neighbor’s yard.
I followed his gaze and saw a fat great horned owl staring right at me and the grill. I don’t know how keen an owl’s sense of smell is, but I think this bird was trying to decide whether it could swoop in and grab a chunk of fish from the dish I had sitting on the smoker shelf. And Bosco was trying to convince the owl that such a move would be a mistake.
After another 30 seconds, the owl reached the conclusion Bosco was trying to convey, and flew right over us out of sight.
Bosco got the second steelhead skin, and I took the meat inside where we served it with mashed potatoes and steamed asparagus. I made up some lemon butter that went just swell with both the asparagus and the fish.
