Cedar-Plank Salmon -- it's totally worth it!

Last week Stephen and I went to Lowes -- not my favorite place to shop, but at least it's not Best Buy. While I was perusing the shelving aisles, Stephen decided to buy a big cedar board. I thought it was for the shoe rack he was planning on building (hubby craft!), but when we got home he sawed it into planks and told me it was for salmon. Now Stephen despises fish, so this was purely a thoughtful act on his part. He really wanted me to try making cedar-plank salmon. I don't know where he got the idea, but the only time I'd ever tried this was the summer I spent in Kodiak in college. I had no idea what I was doing and the board caught on fire.

I had a knitting friend who wanted to get together, so I thought tonight was a perfect time to not only clean my completely ransacked house (I live like a bachelor when Stephen is out of town) but to also try out this cedar salmon idea.

I looked up a few recipes online and decided on Real Simple's version.  The only thing I did differently was I soaked the cedar boards in salted water for two hours. Twenty minutes only brought back memories of grills engulfed in flames.

This salmon was incredible. I'm not too familiar with grilling, let alone grilling salmon, and this recipe made me seem like some sort of salmon chef. Man -- I'm gonna have to force feed this down Stephen's throat when he gets home. He might actually like fish after he tries a bite of this! I served it with Alton Brown's brown rice and a salad.

Ingredients:
1 sockeye salmon filet
1 cedar plank big enough to fit the filet
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tbs. cooking oil
2 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp. cayenne powder

Directions:
Heat your gas grill to high for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, mix the sugar, oil, thyme and cayenne together to make a paste. Place salmon skin side down on cedar plank. Rub sugar mixture all over the top of the filet. Turn grill to med-low and place planks on the grill. Cover the grill and cook salmon for 40 minutes or until the fat starts congealing in the grains of the meat (see the above photo). Remove planks and let the salmon sit for 5 minutes before serving with brown rice.