Cooking on Cedar Planks

Ok, I promise this will be my last post of the day.  The last 5 recipes are all recipes that I've come up with within the last 6 months and were good enough to write about on facebook.  This is one that I made just the other night.

So, for years I've been hearing about people grilling with cedar planks.  Finally a coworker of mine convinced me that it was a good idea.  So I went to Home Depot to try to find some untreated cedar.  Unfortunately, the worker I encountered there, although very entertaining, knew nothing about lumber...  and the guy who DID know something about lumber was on lunch.  Crap.  Well, I ended up finding what I needed on my own anyway.  Towards the very back they had a stack of unfinished cedar fence posts.  They were 5/8ths of an inch thick, and about 5 inches wide, so I had him cut me a few 8 inch pieces.  They're the perfect size for salmon. 

I went and got some salmon at the Fresh Market and went home.  I served this with the risotto dish I talked about earlier.  While I was making the risotto I heated up my grill and soaked my cedar planks in bath of warm water.  I brushed my salmon with a little Sunflower oil I had infused with garlic, and sprinkled a little Penzies cajun seasoning on them (so good).  In addition to the cedar, I also used some oak chips in the fire.  I also had to soak those in water, and then drained them about 10 minutes before they went on.  That along with the cedar created a hell of a lot of smoke.  I just closed my grill and let the smoke do all the work.  It took about 20 minutes (much longer than if they had been on direct heat), but it was the best damn salmon I've ever had in my life.  So damn good!

-CJ