Writing For Salmon, Or Vice Versa

I just realized I haven't written a food blog for a month.  More than a month.  That is shocking. 

It isn't that I stopped eating or cooking; I was just so busy with work and poetry and fiction and wedding planning that I wasn't doing anything particularly complicated or noteworthy from an amateur food lover's perspective.  That changed with the arrival of salmon from Local Catch Monterey Bay.  Salmon season has brought not just an influx of dolphins and whales to Monterey Bay, but also fresh inspiration for my blog!

Our last two Local Catch deliveries were fresh chinook salmon fillets.  My big discovery has been the secret to salmon's popularity.  It has so much natural flavor that you don't need to do much to it.  It will still be delicious.  I appreciate this even more now in light of my previous efforts to infuse fish with flavor.

In both cases, I cooked the fish on the stove-top, using a grill plate that is placed over two burners.

Salmon on the grill

The first stab at salmon, I paired it with couscous, one of those ever-reliable five minute instant couscous boxes from the local virtuously organic grocery store.  The fish looked fantastic, and it browned up nicely, even if the second picture posted here makes it look oddly like the See-Threepio of salmon.

Parsley and lemon, with salt and pepper during the cooking, were really all the additions I made to this, with just a few bits of garlic added to the olive oil in which I cooked the fish.

 So it looked great.  Unfortunately, it didn't really cook all the way through the first time, so we had to put it back on the grill for a bit longer, which ruined the effect.  It tasted great, of course.

See-Threepio hides behind couscous

 The second time, conversely, I cooked it long enough that it was done all the way through, but I might have cooked it too long, or I tested it too frequently with the knife and fork, because the salmon kind of fell apart.  I cut the fillets in half and cooked them hot, trying to get the skin to just crisp up a bit, but it still fell off this fish.  Next time I'll use a spatula instead of knife, or maybe not cook it as long.  Thoughts?  How do you keep salmon fillets intact and still ensure they cook all the way through?

This second time of asking, we paired the salmon with corn on the cob from Trader Joe's, and a Not This Pink wine from Bonny Doon.  As you can see, the plated fish was more a pile o' fish than a fillet at that point, but it was still delicious.  Overall, it was successful, and we felt smugly healthy as we ate vegetables and protein at the same time.  Can't wait for the next fish challenge!