Seafood Feast (Part 2): Simple Pan-seared Salmon

Fat is good.

To best enjoy the buttery texture of cooked salmon, it needs to be cooked until JUST done, where the middle is still slightly translucent. At this doneness, the fats between the muscle have melted down enough so that the fish easily falls apart in the mouth with the gentlest of pressure, yet has not melted away and out, leaving a dry, sad slab of concrete.

To achieve this, you can either buy yourself an immersion circulator, or learn how to tell doneness by look and feel.

Simple Pan-seared Salmon

• 300-400g slab of salmon
• 1 tbsp EVOO
• 1 tsp lemon zest
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• Sea salt, generous pinch
• Pepper, to taste

1. Wash the salmon and pat until very dry.

2. Rub the salmon with all the ingredients and put aside.

3. Heat a non-stick pan until a smidgen below searing-hot so that you don’t burn the thing right off the bat. Place fish on pan, skin-side down.

4. Allow fish to cook for about 2-3min, but don’t allow it to stick to pan.

5. Once fish looks just cooked on the outside, prod the top. If it jiggles, flip it over and cook for no more than 30 seconds. If it doesn’t jiggle, congrats, you’ve got yourself a dry, sad slab of concrete. Try harder next time.

6. Remove fish from pan and serve with a side salad; arugula and thinly sliced red onion work well together. Alternatively, plop a knob of garlic parsley lime butter on the fish and let it melt. Yum.