Cedar Planked Salmon on the Grill

Cooking meals on board a vessel is a delight, and can make for some warm memories. Preparing meals on board does not need to be processed meals and finger foods. Let me show you how to fix a gourmet seafood meal that will impress your dinner guests aboard your boat. Planked grilled fish aboard the trawler, the Patricia Ann; it’s the talk on the docks these days.


Planked grilled fish fillets or simply cooking on a wooden plank is a fantastic experience; if you like the flavor and smell of smoked fish, this way is for you. This method is great as it gives you actual smoke for flavor. This is especially good if you are broiling salmon fillets, which are my favorite. As a matter of fact, legend has it that this method to grilling came about as a result of grilling chef experimentation. But I think you could cook anything this way. I like to call this method planked grilled fish. Salmon and Mahi seared on cedar are my favorites. You can get the recipes for each of the fish at our recipe page at our website.


So how do you go about it? To begin you’ll need to find some clean cedar wood boards, Lowes and Home Depot have it in their building materials departments. But you’ll have to cut it into the correct sizes to use. But you can also buy them prepacked for use at most national grocery chains or you can order on the Internet.


Typically I use cedar, but many other woods like oak and cherry are also available. Using a clean, raw section of lumber about one half inch thick and big enough to hold the fish sections, pre-soak the wood in freah water for several hours prior to use. I like to use a section about 6" x 6" for the 2 of us. Although any lumber can be used, just make certain that there are no chemicals on the wood.


When ready, get the grill going, gas preferably. I use a Magma Catalina model gas grill on my boat so this article is written using that method. To prevent your fish fillets from sticking to the lumber, coat the plank with olive oil. You do no flipping when plank fish cooking. The fish will be slowly cooked from the bottom up. Season the fish fillets as you like, there are some good recipes on the web page.


As you know lumber burns. We are now going to position the plank with the fish on the lower grill surface and set the control to high. If you see that the plank has caught fire while you are cooking, not to worry, that is the way we want the plank with fish to cook. Give it a squirt with water to help extinguish the fire. But let it burn a little around the sides; the smoldering of the blackened plank is what makes the smoke that flavours the fish fillets.


I always reserve about 50% more food planning time as opposed to normal grilling when I am plank cooking. During the grilling time you can baste the fish fillets with seasonings if desired.
Once the fish is done I remove the fish from the charred board with a spatula or you can just glide the fish fillets off onto a plate with a fork. Turn off your grill and let the burned plank sit until later to permit it to cool prior to disposal.


Plank grilling is truly is a great way to prepare fish. The smoke adds to the flavours and smells of any recipe so feel free to try other ideas.


Enjoy.



Mike Dickens, the author, is a liveaboard boat owner and owner/Broker of Paradise Yachts in Florida USA.


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