The Power of Sour: Planked Salmon with Fresh Sorrel Sauce Recipe
Oh hey. Remember me?
Yes, I know it’s been a while. I didn’t really mean to take a two week hiatus. Honest. It just sort of happened.
It felt like I blinked and two weeks fly by, gone in a kaleidoscopic blur of gardening, traveling, brunching, biking and sun-worshipping. Oh, and working. Lots and lots of working. (It’s how long before I can retire? Ugh.)
I owe my sanity to our local farmers’ market, which runs on Saturday mornings at Withrow Park. I find myself bounding out of bed bright and early so that I can beat the crowds and seek inspiration in the form of fresh ingredients.
It’s there that I first discovered fresh sorrel, mostly because of the intriguing chalkboard sign beside the bundles of bright green leaves that read “Mmmmm… Soup!” I’ve yet to meet a soup I didn’t love, so I was naturally curious.
A quick internet search confirmed that sorrel does indeed make a lovely soup, but it wasn’t long before I found myself wandering off in search of other things I could make with my mysterious new friend. Eventually I landed on a recipe for an astringently bright salad by Ottolenghi that pairs raw rhubarb, peppery watercress, crisp celery and nutty quinoa with a bright green dressing of yogurt and sorrel. It sounded absolutely brilliant (and tangy), but I already had a salad in the works for dinner that night.
That dressing, on the other hand, was calling my name. And since my googling had also uncovered the fact that sorrel and salmon are fast friends, it wasn’t exactly a big jump to realise that it would make a perfect sauce for planked salmon fillets.
So into the processor went the sorrel, along with a finely chopped stalk of green garlic (aka garlic scapes), a drizzle of olive oil, a couple of big spoonfuls of creamy Greek yogurt, and a dab of mustard. The end result is a vibrantly green sauce with a flavour that’s equal parts sharply garlicky, subtly lemony and brilliantly fresh. It tastes, for lack of a better word, like spring itself. And just as expected, it’s utterly perfect with the subtly woodsy flavour of the planked salmon.
I suppose I’ll get around to making that soup eventually, but that’s for another day. Today, we feast on salmon. And on springtime.
Cedar-Planked Salmon with Fresh Sorrel Sauce
Author: Isabelle Boucher (Crumb)
Recipe type: Main
- Prep time: 20 mins
- Cook time: 15 mins
- Total time: 35 mins
- Serves: 6
- Ingredients
- Planked Salmon:
- 2 12″ cedar planks (for grilling)
- 6 skin-on salmon fillets (~6 oz each)
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- ½ tsp salt
- ½ tsp fresh ground black pepper
- Yogurt-Sorrel Sauce:
- 3 cups sorrel leaves
- ½ cup Greek yogurt
- ¼ cup finely chopped garlic scapes (aka green garlic)
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- ½ tsp Dijon mustard
- ½ tsp salt
Instructions
Advance Prep:
About 1 hour before you’re ready to fire up the grill, place the cedar planks in a large pan of water to soak.
Make the Sauce:
Strip the stems from the sorrel, and discard. Finely chop the leaves into thin strips to make a chiffonade.
In the bowl of a food processor, combine the chopped sorrel with the remaining dressing ingredients. Process until smooth. Taste to check for seasoning, and adjust as necessary.
Grill the Salmon:
Preheat grill to medium-high heat. Brush the salmon with olive oil, and sprinkle generously with salt and pepper.
Arrange the salmon fillets skin-side down on the soaked planks, spacing them at least 1″ apart, and place on the preheated grill. Close the lid and cook for about 10-15 minutes, or until the salmon is opaque and flakes easily with a fork.
To serve, place the individual fillets onto plates, and spoon a generous dollop of sauce onto each fillet.
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About the author
Isabelle Boucher
I'm a 30-something coffee-chugging, booty-shaking, bargain-shopping, cookbook-collecting, photo-snapping, trucker-swearing, farmers-market-loving self-taught cook with a Mister and two cats to feed.
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