Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Food, Cooking, and Game Preparation Tips for Lamb and Salmon please.

No, not together!

Most folks I know love salmon. I don't. I can't say I dislike it, but it's just eh, take it, or more often leave it. I think I'm getting as fresh as can be gotten in these parts. Need some recipes for a non-salmon lover to develope a taste for this fish.

Lamb? Well, I love venision, and I hear others say how venison is "gamey". I don't even know what that means really. Lamb though, if I was to say how it tastes to me...I guess "gamey" is what would come to mind. I see leg of lamb roasts in the store and it looks soooooooooo good to the eye, but it's so very strong in taste. Tips please? I really have my heart set on loving a roasted leg of lamb that is succulent and juicy, but I'm scared to spend the money and trouble to do something I'm going to hate.

Oh, man, you'd love my mom's salmon en crout. Out of this world. I will see if I can dig up the recipe for you.I will give you the recipe that my family has used for leg of lamb at least since I was a kid in the 1960s. It's a family favorite.

First stuff some garlic slices into one inch knife cuts here and there over the surface. Then marinate the leg in a mixture of lemon juice, a little grated lemon zest (only the yellow), fresh chopped rosemary (I have a bush of it in the yard), crushed garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper, over night. Then in the oven, fat side up (on a roasting rack) at (a pre-heated) 450 for 20, then down to 375 till the innermost part is about 142 degrees. Pull it out and let it sit 20 minutes while you make the gravy from the drippings.

Gravy: Pour drippings in a fat separator, and then (mostly fat free) into a sauce pot. Pour sherry into the roasting pan to get the remaining bits loose. Add sherry and some meat broth. and bring to a low boil. Salt to taste, then gradually stir in a pre-mixture of cool water and corn starch until gravy is desired consistency. Pour through a strainer to remove solid bits. Serve over sliced lamb, which is now cool enough to slice without losing all its juices.

This comes from the ceramic site but easily doable in an oven or grill.

Leg of Lamb
Description: Boneless Rolled Leg of Lamb (EVERY BITE IS SENSATIONAL)
Ingredients: � 1 Leg of Lamb Roast � � tsp Sage
� 3 Tbs Floor � � tsp Marjorm
� 2 Tbs Olive Oil � � tsp Pepper
� 1 Tbs Salt � � tsp Thyme
� 2 Clove Crushed Garlic
� � tsp Ginger

Instructions: Mix ingredients into a paste.
De-bone the roast and flatten it.
Spread � of the paste onto the flattened roast.
Roll up the roast into a sausage shape and tie off every 1 in. or as required to hold shape (more is better when it comes to serving).
Spread the remaining paste on the outside of the roast.
Cook indirect over plate sitter, etc. at 350 degrees until done.
About 1 hour for a 4 lb. roast.
Do not over cook medium to medium rare is best.

TRH,

That looks and sounds amazing!

pillpeddler,

Yours sounds good as well, even if a bama fan posted it. I hope to get a few here and find a commonality among them and see from there. But, this paste thing (sort of a semi-wet rub thing) is sort of the direction I was contemplating.

I've got to tell you, I don't like lamb. I think it has an unpleasant tallowy taste. I do like salmon. I buy wild salmon, and grill it one of two ways. One is to salt and pepper the salmon and cover it with lemon and dill. Oil the bbq grate and slap it on. Flip the salmon and do the same with that side. The second is to coat it with a mix of soy sauce and brown sugar and grill. The sugar darkens and crisps it up and i like it like that too.

Salmon is YUMMY......Lamb, and duck is YUCKY! (But you already knew I would say that!)

My fish monger told me today that the wild salmon is coming in next week. I bought Swordfish today for $8 a pound and, for comparison, the wild King Salmon will be starting off at $12. I still buy a bunch and vacuum bag it for the Fall and Winter. I made three bags of Striped Bass the other day fresh from Narragansett Bay and even though I'm about done buying codfish, I'll still pay for King Salmon. It's the king of fishes.

280, for the salmon, mix some guinness draft in the bottle and some brown sugar together and simply baste the salmon while grilling. I have had so many compliments from non salmon folks on that salmon!

Have to differ. The unquestioned king of fishes is pompano. It's the prime rib of fish. So delicious. You cook them whole in the oven. First cover with flour/salt/pepper, then in the oven at a very hot setting for like fifteen minutes until golden brown. Then you pull the skin back, and the meat is the best tasting fish you've ever had. Doesn't need anything else.

Sablefish is so far superior to either pompano or king salmon it is ridioulous to consider either food!

A friend said if he had known about smoked black cod (sablefish) in college he never would have smoked his first joint! Lightly brined and then smoked as cold as possible for an hour or so, then broiled for just a minute or two. It is incredible. It is also bulletproof in storage.

Yelloweye rockfish is another fantastic fish, but it does not freeze well.

Rob, I am surprised the wild salmon is only 12 bucks so early in a poor season (Late but not poor actually, bu tthey have no proof yet). I am hearing numbers a LOT higher.
art

Art, evidently you have not had a good smoked mullet!! Now THAT is superior eating.

Oh man either Big Eye Tuna or Snapper has to be the king of fish for me but I haven't had pompano since I left Fl.
Sam wasn't the smoked mullet a song by Billy Ray Cyrus?

Have to agree! And also from the Gulf of Mexico, grouper, scamp, snapper...all rock!

Thanks y'all for the tips.

You need to get one of them Mauvail copper pans and cover that fish in a crust made with whipped egg whites and salt then bake it..... or may en papillote which works fantastic with salmon, white wine and julienne veg.

You guys are getting exotic here. I live on Narragansett Bay. All we get here is cod, haddock, pollack, tautog, striped bass, swordfish, mako shark, marlin, farm raised: catfish, salmon, and steelhead trout. We get pompano - we call mahi mahi (my friends like it and eat it out on the tuna grounds - no leftovers)and things like king and sockeye salmon a few days a year. We are lucky in the shellfish department though. We got lobsters yesterday for $7 a pound.

My friend has 2 salmon boats in Homer, and he has King Salmon flash frozen at the dock. He packs them in dry ice and next day airs whole fish to his Mom and Dad here in RI. I've gotten a steak and a home baked loaf of bread every Christmas since I was a kid and it's always been the best, my favorite fish. My friend puts pieces of cherry on the grill and cooks salmon with the lid down. I like it plain like that. I've tried teriyaki sauce, but there's something about it I don't like. Just straight soy and sugar is so much better. I wonder if a little dark beer and brown sugar would be good. It sounds like a good idea.

Mahi-mahi aint pompano, it's dolphin fish.

Mahi (AKA: dolphin fish, dorado):




Pompano:



Not even close to the same thing.

Nice bull!

I've heard them called mahi, pompano, dolphin fish, pompano dolphin, dorado. It's funny because the pompano looks a little like a jack, a little like a permit. No chance of getting that to sample here.

Ok, be honest now: Have you ever tried Pompano?

You beat me to it. Nice illustrations.

FOr grilling steelhead or salmon I use two cookie grates. Spray them and place fish on one. Baste with melted butter, a little garlic and lemon zest or small amount of a good balsalmic vinegar . Place apple or willow on the gas grill for a bit of mild smoke. When one side has cooked put the other grate on top and then flip. When that side finishes then slide onto a platter.
This way the fish never breaks up.

Murf, I think you are using the quote feature when you mean to use the edit feature.

The pompano is a little 'Jack' type fish. I think the permit is in the same family. But, if they are being marketed interchangably in your neck of the woods, they shouldn't be. In fact, I doubt your seeing pompano marketed commercially unless at your fish monger...not in a restaraunt I'd wager. OTOH, Mahi is very common on menus. I'm not sure I've ever seen pompano on a menu in AL or FL, where they're common, but I may be wrong. I don't think it lends itself to high volume commercial fishing. The dolphin fish, OTOH is a open water fish compared to the pompano which are usually caught in the surf...pompano like sand fleas for bait. Mahi is marketed under the "Mahi mahi" name because the term "dolphin fish" is confusing to the unwashed masses who'd think they were being served Flipper.

BTW, FWIW,

Those pics were off of google. Not mine.

TRH,

I think I've seen pompano in fish shops in FL, but never on a menu, or am I wrong?

Edit to add: I think I answered my own question. I googled up a fishing report from 2001 that talked about "commercial pompano" fishing. A good fisherman turned in a daily high 26 fish sold to local mongers and restaurants at $5.00 a lb. At 15-20 bucks a fish from the fisherman, that don't lend itself to an affordable meal by the time it's processed and cooked commercially.

It's served in very expensive restaurants in the North East (I've had it in Long Island restaurants). You are correct, though, oddly you can't seem to get it in a Florida restaurant, which is why I have to buy it from the fish market here and make it myself, though it's only occasionally available even there (They generally keep a list of folks who want to be called as soon at it comes in, and I got on that list as soon as I moved here).

Not at all hard to make, thankfully. Meat is so naturally moist and fatty that you practically cannot ruin it by over cooking. At least I've never had one that was anything short of delicious.

Pompano was a rare sight on a Florida menu even 20 years ago. The fish we would see daily on the docks then we almost never see any more at least in the same size and quantity. We would clean 60# grouper and red snapper daily. Things really have changed.

Hawkeye
Yes, I have eaten Pompano a number of times. Yes, it is good, but it never just blew me away the way black cod does...
art

I remember a day,oh maybe 27 or so years ago, only a 6 hour trip out of Destin, where I went with my dad, and our 2 cousins. 4 fishermen...we brought in 30 King, and they were all good sized...not trophy, but 15-35 lbs per. And I recall seeing boat after boat bringing in huge hauls of King, Snapper and Grouper, not to mention Triggers and Sheepshead. and all very large fish. It was common 25 years ago. They used to think you couldn't fish the Gulf of Mexico out...they were wrong. The commercial fishermen have griped about the limits, but the GoM is starting to come back.

It is pretty stunning when I think back about it. I worked at a little place right on the docks that was built out of a fish camp in the 50's. During race weeks etc the line to eat would be 1-2 hours long. The guy that owned the place was a commercial fisherman so the vast majority of what we served was fresh caught. He even made his own boat hulls.
I still remember making him a fried chicken sandwhich W/mayo & pickles every day. Part of the restaurant was right over the water. When it would storm the place would shake and the roof would leak. One of the walk in coolers was a converted semi trailer with a sliding patio door. LOL But I learned a lot there.
They would bring in huge loads of grey and golden tile, shrimp, grouper and red snapper.
I haven't seen a grouper or snapper the size of what we used to get there on a daily basis in many moons.
We always had Mackeral on the menu as well. Lately I've been thinking about grilled Wahoo.

I LIKE salmon and generally cook it one of two ways. First, is to season with salt, pepper and garlic, spray skin side with canola spray oil, and grill over low heat while second (indirect) burner is on high, about 10 minutes per inch of thickness. Don't flip.

The other way is skinned, same seasonings, and pan fried in butter on both sides.

If you do not like salmon, cook some other way, preferrably with a marinade or something that will make it not taste like salmnon.

We are very fortunate to have great quality lamb here in Northern California. It's finding a decent used gun for a good price that we can't seem to pull off...

Here's a lamb recipe that I like very much:

Have your butcher bone a leg of lamb.
Prepare a marinade of
1 pint plain yogurt
2-4 garlic cloves, crushed
juice of 1 lemon
handful of chopped mint (can also use dill, parsley, or combination)
2 T olive oil

Cover lamb with the marinade and refrigerate overnight.

Grill over med-high heat till desired doneness.

Serve with pita bread and cucumber salad.

Good cooking!

I make salmon on foil on the grill. Use a mixture of 2 parts olive oil with one part white wine and lemon juice. Add lots of dill weed, capers. black pepper and Lowery's Salt and some green onion, then blend into a slurry. Preheat grill med hi, place unskinned salmon fillet on foil skin side down. Cook 15 min w/o turning basking several times with mixture.
Venison is usually gamy because it wasn't taken care of properly. I cut my own so that isn't a problem. Here are some tips: Skin the animal as soon as is practical.Allow to set up overnight, weather permitting, to facilitate cutting. Do not age, the decomposing tallow gives it the strong taste. Butcher with knife do NOT cut bones. Marrow spread onto meat from saw spoils quickly-even in the freezer-since it's very rich.

I always grill Salmon in Foil with butter, pepper and salt. Just make sure the foil doesn't leak and you are set to have a buttery yummy dish.

My 2 cents

I�ve used this recipe with Chinook, sockeye, coho and halibut, Chinook and sockeye seem to be the best. This works well for 5-10 pounds of fillets. My preference is to burn some birch and alder logs into coals and cook over them, just the right amount of smoke flavor, I cheated with the charcol when I took the pic.

Take one stick of butter and let it soften, dice up 5 cloves of garlic, 1-2T fresh dill, juice of a lemon and combine. Pour onto some parchment paper. Roll it up and put it in the freezer until it firms up, I don't know how long this takes other than by the time you get the bbq going and the fish on the foil wrapped grill it's ready.









As with any fish, cook until it just firms up. Can't imagine anyone not liking salmon served this way. And please don't forget the



I need to see if I can't find some of that fabled sable fish, as the store bought black cod I got was less than impressive, but based on the way it looked, I don't think it was handled that well.

My favorite way: