Planks make for sweet grilling
Salmon cooked atop thick slabs of pineapple picks up flavor from carmelized sugars
One of my favorite childhood meals was gammon and pineapple, a glistening slab of ham topped with a pineapple ring and brown sugar and blasted under the broiler. This was the U.K. in the 1980s, when we still had the kind of stove with an open overhead salamander grill and twohandled tray where you’d expect a ventilation hood today. That broiler did wonders, the glowing red coils putting perfect bubbled leopard spots on Welsh rarebit, blistering halved tomatoes for breakfast and caramelizing demerara sugar on that pineapple and ham.
Later in life, I’d have the chance to eat kalua Hawaiian pig cooked underground with juicy island fruits and, in the Yucatan region of Mexico, al pastor — spit-roasted pork basted in pineapple drippings. Each time the marriage of salty meat and sweet juice worked magic on the tongue.
In summer, I’m a fan of slowcooking ribs on the grill, but the process is, well, slow and not something you can rush to get dinner on the table. Fish, though, is a reliable win, especially whole, stuffed with citrus and ripped fresh herbs and grilled until its skin blackens and peels. Zest and smoke permeate flesh for a perfect main course paired with smashed potato salad, lemon-arugula-parmesan pasta or zucchini and summer squash shaved raw and tossed in olive oil with a squeeze of lemon and crunchy sea salt.
For this recipe, I decided to pair the memory of grilled pineapple with salmon as something both light and easy to grill: A side of salmon (though several fillets could work) cooked on pineapple planks and finished with a homemade teriyaki-ish glaze. By first
searing the pineapple planks — and then scoring those satisfying grill lines — the natural sugars caramelize and sweeten. A spicy sugar coating on the salmon caramelizes too, mixing with the juices of the fish, which essentially poaches in the ambient heat of a covered grill while the pineapple soaks in underneath.
Ideally, you’ll allow at least 45 minutes to an hour for the fish to cook on a fairly low heat. If you want to speed things up, you can also lay the salmon, skin side down, on a well-oiled grill for more direct heat (8 to 10 minutes). Flip it over to cook through for an additional minute, gently turn over and replace on the pineapple planks to serve. You might lose the fish skin on the grill doing it this way, but no big deal.