Barbecued salmon, tomatillo salsa, making lettuce last, and defining "sweet" wine - includes recipes

Sunset, June, 1994 by Jerry Anne Di Vecchio

Pietro Parravano is a commercial fisherman. He jumped ship from a teaching career about 12 years ago, opting for a more precarious but freer livelihood from the sea. He fishes off the Central California coast on the Anne B, a sturdy, weathered craft built in Seattle in 1947. Pietro's catch includes Dungeness crab and rockfish. But his face lights up when he talks about his favorite trophy, line-caught king (chinook) salmon. During the season, he sells the salmon at the Menlo Park and Palo Alto farmers' markets.

Pietro and I met through an environmental group dedicated to preserving a balanced relationship between land and sea, in part by promoting the restoration of river habitat for salmon spawning. In Pietro's eyes, the most magnificent salmon are wild, and he's politically, actively committed to their survival and well-being. But he also likes to cook and eat them, delivering, concurrently, sage advice on how to do both.

One of his favorite ways to prepare a salmon fillet is this month's Taste of the West recipe. Not only is it very simple, but it enriches without concealing salmon's fine flavor and character. Pietro's first piece of advice: cook salmon in as large a piece as possible. Bigger hunks stay moister. And since salmon is as good cold as it is hot, you can get more than one meal from a single effort. Barbecuing salmon with moderate indirect heat is the cooking technique he likes best, so the surface of the salmon will stay moist as heat penetrates and firms the center.

Judging doneness is a little intimidating if you don't cook much fish, but guidelines are easy to observe. As the fish cooks, the layers of flesh become less firmly attached and push apart easily. In recipe terms, the fish flakes when prodded. However, this separation starts on the surface and works inward. You need to know what the fish looks like in the center of the thickest part to know how done it is, so slide the tip of the fork or a knife down farther along this natural flake separation and take a look. Salmon gets lighter in color and less translucent as it cooks; when perfectly done (to most tastes), the interior will be paler than raw fish, but a little darker than the surface. The center should look moist and juicy but not wet and squishy. Heat equalizes for a few minutes after the fish comes off the grill, so the interior will cook a bit more.

Moving a large piece of salmon on and off the grill is a challenge, especially when it is cooked. Pietro describes the salmon skin as a natural layer of foil, and he is adept at moving the fish with two wide spatulas (the skin usually sticks to the grill, even if oiled) from the barbecue onto a platter.

Frankly, this is more than I can manage for a typical 4- to 5-pound fillet. So I take the easy way out and fit the skin side of the fish with a piece of foil; the fish sits on the foil on the grill, and I can get under the foil to move the fish without breaking it apart. I push a baking sheet without sides beneath the foil, scooping up the fish. Then I slide the whole works onto a platter.

BACK TO BASICS

Barbecuing with indirect heat

There are two basic ways to barbecue. One is with heat right under the food--direct-heat cooking. The other--indirect-heat cooking--has heat balanced around the food but not beneath it. The arrangement you choose is determined by how fast you want the food to cook, and how fatty it is.

Small or relatively thin pieces that develop the most flavor when the surface is well browned--chops, steaks, chicken pieces, quail, even eggplant slices--generally do best over direct heat. However, if a food is fatty and drips onto the heat, flare-ups are a constant problem. Also, big "hunk" foods--turkey, chicken, roasts--overcook on the bottom. For such foods, and more delicate ones like fish, indirect heat is ideal, and comes with a bonus: foods that brown do so without having to be turned over.

Direct-heat cooking on a charcoal-fueled barbecue is generally done uncovered. Gas barbecues lose heat quickly, and cook best with the lid down.

But to cook with indirect heat, always cover the grill, whether charcoal or gas.

The way the heating element of a gas burner is designed determines how effectively indirect heat is delivered. If your barbecue is designed so you can control heat in front and back (or on opposite sides of the food) and you can turn off the heat beneath, it will do the job. If the burners on each side of the barbecue ignite independently, and the food is either over heat or has heat on only one side, then indirect cooking isn't possible.

To cook indirectly with charcoal briquets, stack and ignite 60 briquets on the firegrate in a barbecue with a lid. When briquets are covered with ash, in about 30 minutes, push half the coals to opposite sides of firegrate. Place grill 4 to 6 inches above coals and set food on grill but not over coals. Cover barbecue with lid and open the vents. Temperature will be about 350 [degrees]; to maintain heat, add 5 briquets every 30 minutes to coals on each side of firegrate (10 briquets, total).