Don’t touch your salmon to get the crispiest skin
How to Boil Water
With so many of you having to stay home and cook for the first time — ever or more than you have in a long time — we get that it can be overwhelming to have to cook all your meals from scratch. So we’re here to get you started.
Each day we’re going to post a new skill here and go in detail about how to do it — a resource for cooking basics so you can get food on the table and get through this.
A series of simple tutorials for making some basic recipes at home.
Lesson 23: Crispy-skin salmon
Fish with shatteringly crisp skin is a perfect food. But it’s not a food that sits around well, so instead of ordering it for takeout, make it yourself at home. You have my word: No smoke alarms will go off in the process.
The process is extraordinarily simple: You put the fillets skin side down in a medium-hot skillet and never touch them again until you spoon hot, nutty, caramelized bits of browned butter over the flesh to flavor it.
The fish needs to rest a few minutes, which is ample time to throw together an easy pantry-staple vinaigrette to accompany it. I toast chile flakes in a skillet to wake them up, then steep them in vinegar (any kind works) while the fish cooks. Once the fish is resting, I strain out the flakes to keep all their aromatic warmth but none of their wincing sting. In go chopped shallots, onions, scallions — whatever you’ve got in that family — and garlic, if you like, along with that browned butter you cooked the fish in.
I pour the vinaigrette around the fillets on the plate so it flavors the fish while also keeping that skin crisp — a no-contact flavor delivery, if you will.
Crispy-Skin Salmon with Brown Butter and Chile Vinaigrette
Eat your way across L.A.
Get our weekly Tasting Notes newsletter for reviews, news and more.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
