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Planked Salmon
Have salmon cut in steaks 1 1/2 or 2 inches thick. 2 steaks of average size can be placed on medium-sized plank. Crisco plank thoroughly, place fish upon it, and broil under gas broiler, turning flame low after first few moments. Or it can be baked in oven of range. Serve on plank, surrounded by potato balls cut with French vegetable cutter. Heat 1/4 cup cream, add salt and pepper to taste, and 3 tablespoons finely chopped parsley. Shake potato balls in this until well covered with seasonings. Serve Hollandaise sauce with planked salmon.
A Crisco-era company cookbook recipe that assumes a seasoned hardwood plank in every kitchen and a broiler with an adjustable flame. Both assumptions need translating.
- "Crisco the plank"This simply means grease it heavily with shortening. The fat keeps the wood from scorching and keeps the fish from sticking; any neutral oil or shortening does the same job. Do it generously, edges included.
- The plank itselfAn untreated hardwood plank about an inch thick; oak, maple and hickory are the usual choices. Soaking it in water before greasing is a modern precaution rather than anything the original asks for. Never use plywood, pressure-treated lumber or anything with a finish, and scrub it with hot water only rather than soap.
- Broiler or ovenA modern electric broiler element generally sits closer and hotter than the gas broiler this book assumes, and a dry plank under it can scorch or char. Baking is the safer reading of the instruction: the original names no temperature, but about 425F, on a rack in the middle of the oven, with the plank greased, does the job.
- Timing, which the original omits entirelySteaks 1 1/2 to 2 inches thick need roughly 18 to 25 minutes at 425F. Pull them at 125-130F at the thickest point for salmon that is still moist; the old habit of cooking to flaking-dry gives you the chalky fish the recipe is often blamed for.
- Potato ballsThe "French vegetable cutter" is a parisienne scoop or small melon baller. Cut the balls from peeled raw potatoes, boil or steam them until just tender, drain well, then toss in the seasoned cream so it clings rather than pools.
- The cream1/4 cup of heavy cream, warmed but not reduced. It is a coating, not a sauce, and there is enough only for the potatoes from two steaks — scale it up if you crowd more onto the plank.
- HollandaiseMake it last and hold it barely warm, off direct heat. It will break above about 160F, and a plank straight from a 425F oven is hot enough to split a sauce spooned onto it.
- Yield and serviceTwo average steaks feed two generously or four modestly. The plank goes to the table as the serving dish, so set it on a board or folded cloth — it comes out hot enough to mark a table.
Cooking fish on a greased hardwood board in front of or under direct heat is generally traced to Native American practice in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, where shad and salmon were split and pinned to planks before an open fire; by the late nineteenth century "planked shad" dinners were a fixture of Potomac and Delaware River outings, and hotel kitchens adopted the plank as a showy way to bring fish and its garnish to the table in one piece. This version comes from a Procter & Gamble promotional cookbook, which explains the odd verb: Crisco, introduced in 1911, is used here as shortening, as a griddle grease, and as a word.