The Art of Cooking Fish with Creole Sauce: A Guide to Perfection

Cooking fish can be one of those challenging things for some people to do perfectly, especially when it comes to achieving that ideal first-time success. That's why I created this recipe for the plank salmon, which promises to yield a beautiful Hickory smoke flavor and prevent the fish from sticking and drying out. The addition of Creole sauce on top is simply the icing on the cake, tying all the flavors together in perfect harmony.

The plank itself plays a crucial role in achieving that desired flavor profile. A well-crafted plank can make or break an entire dish, and I've carefully selected this particular one to ensure that it yields the most authentic Hickory smoke flavor possible. The fact that I'm using a plank for this recipe is what sets it apart from other methods of cooking fish, and I'm confident that the results will be well worth the extra effort.

To start, we'll need some beautiful, vine-ripe tomatoes. Creole tomatoes are at their peak season right now, and they're almost twice the size of a regular tomato. If you can't find them in stores, don't worry – with a little creativity, you can still make this recipe work. We'll be using these tomatoes to create our delicious Creole sauce, so it's essential that we choose the best ones available.

Now that we have our ingredients, let's move on to the aromatics. The Trinity, as I like to call it, is the holy trinity of Creole cooking – celery, onion, and bell pepper. These three ingredients are the foundation of any good Creole dish, and they add depth and complexity to our sauce that you just won't find with other combinations. We'll be using fresh celery, sliced in half, along with diced onion and chopped bell pepper to create a flavorful base for our sauce.

Of course, no traditional Creole recipe would be complete without garlic. Now, I know what you're thinking – garlic is always an optional ingredient, but trust me when I say that it's an essential part of this family. Garlic may not be the most glamorous ingredient, but it adds a richness and depth to our sauce that we wouldn't want to give up for anything. And besides, who doesn't love garlic? It's the unsung hero of many a dish, and I'm happy to include it in mine.

Now that we have all of our ingredients ready, let's move on to the actual cooking process. First, we'll need to heat up some oil in our skillet – not too much, just enough to get things started. Then, we'll add in our aromatics and sauté them until they're soft and fragrant. This is where the magic happens, folks – this is where our sauce starts to come together.

As we continue to cook our sauce, it's essential that we remember one thing: patience. Good Creole cooking takes time, and it's worth waiting for that perfect flavor. Don't rush through this process – take your time, and let the flavors meld together in harmony. And when you're finally ready to serve, I promise you'll be rewarded with a dish that's truly fit for a king.

So there you have it – my recipe for plank salmon with Creole sauce. It may seem intimidating at first, but trust me when I say that the results are well worth the effort. With this recipe, you'll be cooking like a pro in no time, and your taste buds will thank you for it.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: en(upbeat instrumental country music)- Cookingfish can be one of thosechallenging things forsomebody to do perfectthe first time.So that's why I created thisrecipe for the plank salmon.The plank is going to yielda beautiful Hickory smoke.It's going to keep your fishfrom sticking and drying outand then putting this deliciousCreole sauce on the top isjust going to tie it all together.Let's hook up this beautiful,charred Creole tomato......sauce, that is.So we're going to take somebeautiful vine-ripe tomatoes.Our Creole tomatoes arealmost ready in season.They like twice the size of one tomato.If you could get yourhands on some of them,Creole tomatoes, hook it up.Then we go throw in some celery.Then we're going tothrow in some whole onionthat we sliced in halfand some bell pepper.Now, what do we get here?We get the Trinity as father,son, and the holy spiritfor y'all who not Catholic from Louisiana.This is Creole cookingat its finest, okay?Now we also got the love child, garlic,that we also gonna throwin there, too. All right?Nobody ever really countsgarlic a part of the family,but garlic is all a part of the family.You know, it's the one familymember everybody loves,but always can't mentiontheir name off their hand.That's what garlic is.So we got all of that.We put a little bit ofoil in it and I knowwe're going to get our toss on, I know.Some of y'all out thereare going to think,\"Why is he touching hisfood with his bare hands?\"I gotcha, I gotcha.Now let's just toss to evenlycoat and make sure all thevegetables feel the sameoil bath that we want it.This is going to keepany of these vegetablesfrom sticking on the grill.Look at that: nice and shiny.That's all you're lookingfor. Nice and shiny.Let's pop it on the grill.There's a thousand ways wecan make a Creole sauce,but I thought it'd just be really sexy,while the grill is going,to char some tomatoes,char the rest of the vegetables,stick that in a blenderand let it twirl around.Especially down here, whenit's Creole tomato season,(Kenneth laughs)you wanna eat that as manytimes as possible because it'sonly a short season that youcan enjoy this delicious treat.Even got the sign of Zorroor somebody on there.Look at that, there. Idon't know who signed that,it is nice and beautiful.So you're just trying toget a nice char on it.You're not trying to blackenthe vegetables, all right?But you're definitely trying to get somebeautiful color on top.Nice and seared, charred.Looking all lovely. Mm.That's what you want.So, we're going to just chopthis and have just to make itall quartered, just to makeit easier for the blender.Drop it in there. All of it in there.And then we got half of a bellpepper and just quarter itjust to make it easy on the machine.You already got it easy,'cause you don't have to chopall this by hand, all right?Then we got the celeryjust going to cut thisinto a little bit smaller piecesjust to make it on the machine, all right?We're going to also tossin our garlic. Full cloves.Look at how roasted and charred.And all this is going to dois bring out the sweetnessof the garlic to go withthe nice roasted flavorsto compliment that bitter flavor that wegive it to balance everything all out.Then we got some tomatoes.Oh yeah. Look at that.Oh.Oh, yeah, that's just beautiful,that's just beautiful.Get y'all some of them Creole tomatoes.I'm telling you: find your friend.With all the social media,they got to send you someCreole tomatoes, all right?And then we just going toslice this, put that in.Now talking about Cajun grill,that's called lagniappe, all right?You got two more tomatoes.You can do the whole thing,but you set this to the side.We call that lagniappe, all right?So now to it we're going to add some salt.If you're above the Mason-Dixonline, you want to usehalf of this cayenne that yousee up in here, all right?And some dried thyme.Now we're just going to blitz it.You can do chunky. You can do smooth.Whatever your preferenceis for tomato sauce.(blender whirs)You can easily call this saucea charred Cajun sauce, right,by just serving it chunkier than smooth.I prefer my sauce to bea little bit smoother,which is the refinement Ilearned from my Creole side.But I also know that my kids,my friends would be likeyou're pureeing it too much, boy!And you know, they like toserve it a little bit chunkier.So that will be the realdifference between Cajun and Creoleis the refinement of the dish.My Cajun brothers just wantto hook it up and cut ithowever they need to, whilemy Creoles guys would be like,hold on, hold on, sir.It needs to be fine, choppedand diced, and then you canput it in there. My Cajunbrother would be like,man, chop that thing, put it in there,put some season on it. We gonna eat good.So that is really the difference.Both cultures have theonion, celery, bell pepper,and trinity.And they also both use tomatosauce and tomatoes in theirdishes.Now we've got the charred salsa done.Now let's take care of thestar of the show, our salmon.So what we did was we tooksome planks and we actuallysoaked them for two hours sothey can absorb all of thatmoisture. So we don't haveblackened plank salmon, okay?We want the plank to give offthis beautiful aroma and notburn all the way.So that this acts as awonderful base to our fish.So what we're gonna do is we'regoing to flip them all overand we're just going to rubdown the skin with a little bitof oil, just so it doesn't stick.You can use any fish that you love.There's no rules to what youcan use this recipe for, okay?And just rub them down.Give it a nice Thai massage.Like I go to my girls aroundthe corner from my house when Ihave a long workout and yougave me a good rubdown, okay?So now we're just goingto evenly season our fish.You always want to season high.You never want to seasoningall up on the fish.You won't get the fish andrespect and some space.So this seasoning, itcould just fall, all right?And just let it rain, let it rain.All of that beautiful seasoning, okay?There's no need to panic.Just take your time.All right.All of that seasoning.Mm, mm, mm.When it comes to usingplanks for my seafood,I love to go with cedarbecause it's nice and mildand a gentle smoke, andhickory because it's whatI'm accustomed to. When Iknow something's been smoked,I know I want to taste the hickory.So now we're going to placeour planks on the grills.The grill is heated to 400 degrees.We're going to cover it andlet it cook for three minutesand let it do work.You know,the benefits of using theplank is not only will it lookgreat at the end of the presentation,but it's definitely going tomake you feel more comfortableabout cooking fish on the grill.It's going to reduce stickageand it's also going to keepthe heat from licking thatfish and burning it to a crisp.Because let's face it, nobodylikes eating dried-out fish.So that plank is going to add flavor,it's going to do heat protectionand it's going to give youa presentation, all in one.Whew, you should smell that plankand that fish doing work, son.So now what we're going todo, is we're going to takeour charred salsa and we'rejust going to go ahead onand pour like three goodtablespoons on it, right?And then you just want tojust kind of, you know,just spread it around a little.Just a little bit, alright?Don't be shy with it. Havefun, you got plenty to go.(grill crackles)Mm-hmm, I feel ya.So you want to make sure thatyou soak your planks becausethis is going to allow itto really absorb all of thatmoisture that's necessaryfor the six minutes,as it's going to cook over a direct heat.If you skip this step,you're going to burn downthe plank and the fish, andyou're going to have to goto the grocery store tomake groceries again.And you can see that, as we pulled it off,it caught some flames,but that's fine because it was at the end.If you missed the soaking for two hours,you would have had that at minute one.Mm, mm, mm.(upbeat instrumental country music)(upbeat instrumental country music)(upbeat instrumental country music)Do you see this deliciousness?All we have to do now isgarnish it with some chives.If you're not as fancy as me,you can use green onions, all right?But that's it, just alittle bit of chive action.(upbeat instrumental country music)Everybody's happy.That's the thing about thisCreole sauce. It's perfect onanything. And if you don'teven like fish, it will workperfect on chicken orwork perfect on steak.It'll work perfect just oversome roasted vegetables.This sauce alone is a star,but this dish together isa magnificent piece of art.(upbeat instrumental country music)Oh yeah. Nice and flaky.Mm!That charred tomato sauce.Nice, spicy. Cuts right throughthat richness of the salmon,so it balances the dishout, nice and perfect.And like I said earlier, ifyou can't handle all the heat,just add a little bit of cayenne.And if you want a little bit more,you can always add a little bit later.(upbeat instrumental country music)(upbeat instrumental country music)(upbeat instrumental country music)\n"