Adam Ried's Favorite Recipe: Grill-Smoked Salmon

Adam Ried has been reviewing kitchen equipment on America's Test Kitchen and Cook’s Country since the shows’ first seasons, and it’s fair to say that he has made his fair share of special meals. But when it comes to his very favorite recipe, it’s all about the friends he made it for, and their spectacular reactions.

My top choice is Andrew Janjigian’s Grill-Smoked Salmon. It’s perfect, it’s so good! It’s really simple, too. 

Good friends of mine have Finnish and Swedish backgrounds, so they do a holiday smorgasbord every year. I, being a Scandi-wannabe, have insinuated myself into the process and often do some cooking for these holiday celebrations. So I saw this recipe, and I love anything smoked, so I agreed to cook this for about 20 or 30 people, and they just went wild. I lost track of the number of people who said it was the best salmon they had ever had, and I pretty much have to agree.

It sort of splits the difference between hot-smoked salmon, which has a seriously smoky flavor but a very cooked texture, and cold-smoked salmon which is like lox, which is more delicate in flavor but has an unbelievably silky texture. The Grill-Smoked Salmon recipe results in a salmon that’s right in the middle: a really smoky flavor but a silkier texture than straight-up hot-smoked salmon.

I think part of the secret is that you dry-cure the fish in a mixture of salt and sugar, then the salmon is cut into individual pieces and served that way, so that increases the surface area. So you get smoke not only on the top but also the sides of each serving, which is why it has such a nice smoky flavor. 

I also remember that Andrew only opens the fence on the grill halfway, which means the fire stays a little cooler and the salmon can stay on the grill a little longer, which helps control the cooking and gives it a little bit of extra time with the smoke.