Grilled Salmon & Artichokes

Being that it's a holiday weekend (Memorial Weekend) and also that the weather was gorgeous, we decided to do some grilling tonight for dinner.  I sent Jim to the store to decide what to have and he came home with steaks, Copper River salmon, artichokes, and asparagus.  We decided to do the salmon and artichokes tonight.


Jim is a great cook and his salmon recipe is my favorite way to have salmon.  I actually don't care for it much cooked any other way, but if he cooks it, I could eat the whole dang thing!  So I put him to work on the salmon while I tried out a grilled artichoke recipe I had seen on Pinterest.  A salad rounded out the meal.




Jim marinates the salmon for a while.  Two hours is good.  The more you marinate, the more the teriyaki flavor comes out.

Then it goes on the Big Green Egg griller skin side down on a piece of aluminum foil.

 The Egg fluctuated between 350 and 400 degrees.  After about 6 to 7 minutes, he flipped the salmon over.

Slip the spatula under the salmon but above the skin so that the skin stays on the foil.  It basically sticks to the foil.

When you flip it, place it back onto the skin that remained on the foil.  Grill another 4 to 5 minutes.

That's it!  Very easy and so tasty.

The artichokes are a little more involved but not by much.  I trimmed the artichokes the way I usually trim them.  I pull off the bottom row of leaves, trim the remaining leaves with scissors, cut off the top 1/2 inch or so, and cut off most of the stem (don't cut it all the way off or the leaves start falling off).  Use a serrated knife for trimming - it's much easier. 

For this recipe, I then quartered the artichokes, again with the serrated knife.

Then wash your hands with soap.  Handling artichokes leaves a bitter taste on your skin.  This is not a problem unless you then get something tasty on your fingers that you want to lick off.  The bitter taste of the artichokes completely ruins that!

I cooked the artichokes in boiling water til they were tender.  A knife inserted into the artichoke stem will tell you when they're cooked through.  I let them cool a bit and then removed the prickly parts.

I chopped up some garlic, grated some Parmesan cheese, and mixed that together with some salt and pepper.  I stuffed that mixture in between the leaves.  Then grilled them for a bit.  The cheese didn't really melt the way I wanted it to.  I saved back a couple of the quarters to grill tomorrow; I want to see if they are just as good prepped the day before grilling.  So I'll grill them a bit longer tomorrow and/or over a hotter fire.  Mine weren't as 'charred' as the ones in the original recipe, although they were very tasty.

For the salad, I used the Tastefully Simple Vidalia Onion Salad Dressing that I love.  Tossed that with some greens, chopped hard boiled egg, and shrimp.  I love this salad no matter how  many times I eat it!

Salmon Recipe

Salmon
Roughly 2/3 part soy sauce to 1/3 part brown sugar

(Jim used about 2/3 cup of soy and 4-5 tablespoons of sugar tonight for a 1/2 lb piece of salmon and it was about 2x what was needed.)

1 or 2 chopped scallions
1 to 2 mushed garlic cloves

Mix all ingredients well, in a blender if available.  Marinate +/- 2 hours in the fridge.

Grill temp at about 350.  Place salmon fillet skin side down on  aluminum foil and cook about 6-7 minutes; then slip a metal spatula between the skin and the salmon to flip.  Cook another 4-5 minutes depending on heat and desired doneness (thickness of the salmon may require increasing this time).  Remove to platter and keep warm or serve at once.





And that was our dinner.  Pretty simple, quick and easy to prepare, and delicious. We ate it out on the deck, beneath the blooming wisteria.  Life is good!