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Jamaican Entree

GRILLED JERK SALMON

INGREDIENTS

2½ tablespoons jerk seasoning*
2½ tablespoons olive oil
2½ tablespoons lime juice
4 5-ounce salmon fillets with skin

* = Jerk seasoning or Jamaican jerk seasoning can be found at many supermarkets, ethnic grocery stores or online. It’s good to have some of this around particularly here where the jerk seasoning combines 14 ingredients.

SPECIAL UTENSILS

outdoor grill
meat thermometer

Serves 4. Takes 1 hour 50 minutes.

PREPARATION

Add jerk seasoning, olive oil, and lime juice to large mixing bowl. Stir this marinade with fork until well blended. Brush both sides of all fillets with marinade. Place coated salmon fillets on plates. Let marinate in refrigerator for 1 hour 30 minutes.

Preheat outdoor grill to medium Place salmon fillets on grill, skin side down. Grill for 5 minutes. Flip fillets. Grill for another 3 minutes or until salmon is opaque and flaky.

Or if you have a meat thermometer, take the salmon off the grill when the internal temperature reaches 125. Let the fillets sit for 3 minutes. This will get a medium salmon fillet. The FDA recommends an internal temperature of 145 degrees. Goodness.

TIDBITS

1) Jamaicans love grilled jerk salmon. The salmon of choice remains the King Salmon which can weigh over 120 pounds. Strong chefs lifted the hefty salmon to the cleaning table to clean the fish.. Then the chefs brushed the King Salmon with a jerk marinade. After an hour, the cooks placed the salmon on the grill. The whole process became the Clean, Jerk, and Grill.

2) Many people watched the muscular men lift and prepare the salmon. In 1921, preparing this dish became a national sport. The Clean, Jerk, and Grill became an Olympic sport in 1948. As salmon goes bad quickly under hot summer sun, organizers switched out salmon for metallic weights and so the event has remained as the Clean and Jerk. (Because you can’t grill weights.) Now you know.

Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

My cookbook,  Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on  amazon.com.