Snap up Scraps for Crispy Lemongrass Salmon Tails
How Training in Frugality Pays Off
My book editor once observed that I’m an economical writer. She didn’t mean that I do more with fewer words (I do aim to reach that highest branch someday). Her comment was about my thrift. I don’t write recipes that involve luxurious, obscure, precious ingredients because that’s not where many cooks are at. That’s not how I learned to cook.
Regarding my recipe development and cookbook writing, that means I mostly use accessible ingredients, what’s sold at mainstream markets and if needed, brands available at many Asian markets. And with Asian staple ingredients, I aim to help you make the best selection and offer ways to explore and make the most of those ingredients. For that reason, fish sauce is well sprinkled throughout my work. (If you need an assist, check out my buying guide to supermarket fish sauce and and article on how to store fish sauce on Viet World Kitchen.)
I also love bargain grocery shopping. When we bought our modest home in Santa Cruz, one of the pluses was its walkable distance to five (5!) markets. On a nearly daily basis, I go food shopping and let deals and freshness direct my menu planning.
Spotting deals and winging it takes practice, plus a bit of luck. I grew up in a frugal household. We shopped thrift stores and garage sales. The weekly supermarket circulars were (and still are) my mom’s favorite reads. She catalogs which vendors consistently offer good prices on certain items. I do the same at supermarkets big and small, as well as at farmer’s market. I balance price with quality. As we say in Vietnamese, “Tiền nào của nấy”, which roughly means you get what you pay for.
So for me, the idealized notion of cooking with the ‘best and freshest’ ingredients means not only knowing how to choose ingredients well, but also at a price point that fits your pocketbook. Opportunities to save may also come with unexpected riches.
Last week I walked into my local Whole Foods with the savory, sweet, fatty flavors of an easy, old school salmon teriyaki recipe on my mind. It comes from a classic Japanese cookbook and is done on the stovetop. It doesn’t smell up the house either. Where I live, few markets consistently sell great salmon steaks and Whole Foods’ price is reasonable. Pre-pandemic, Atlantic, farm-raised salmon steaks went for $9.99 per pound and now they are $11.99 per pound (sometimes there’s a sale).
But as I scanned the seafood counter, I noted $2.99 signage for salmon heads, tails and bones. The affordable parts were surrounded by crushed ice and situated at the edge of a display. Kinda tucked away and hidden from clear view, they were being chased by whole branzino and a school of trout! The salmon scraps sat detached, far from their fancier steaks and fillets, which prominently resided a good twelve feet down the way, marked $11.99 and $13.99 per pound. The price difference didn’t mean the scraps were worth less. It all came from the same fish.
I saw gold in those affordable parts. I asked for all four tails. The teriyaki recipe had to wait for another day.
“Are you making stock?” the fishmonger said.
“No, I’m going to roast the tails till they’re crispy,” I said, having switched my Japanese-ish dinner plan for a take on a lemongrass, curry-inflected salmon recipe in Vietnamese Food Any Day. The tail is where the fish does a lot of work so it’s leaner and a bit more flavorful than the center cut fillet flesh, which can be overwhelmingly fatty. Bone-in, skin-on fish carries extra flavor and there are fewer itty bitty bones at the tail to deal with. Moreover, I love eating salmon skin and sucking out the richness from the hypural section where the tail meets the vertebrae. The brushy tail tips are crunchy to boot.
The fishmonger’s eyebrows rose with curiosity and and he smiled with delight. He pointed at the salmon heads. Salmon cheeks are delicious! The chef at his favorite sushi restaurant cooked some salmon cheeks for him as a special, delicious gift. He didn’t forget their kindness or the fish cheek texture and savor.
I know salmon heads and cheeks well. My mom used to steam salmon heads with oyster sauce, garlic, and green onions. My dad and uncles would pick at the heads until all that was left were neat piles of hard cartilage bits and bones that they couldn’t chew. (They once challenged my white boyfriend (now husband) to share in their platter of steamed salmon heads. When he obliged, my uncle anointed him “nephew Rory”.)
After I shared my fish head family recipe, the fishmonger revealed that he trims the salmon belly from filets and then fries it in a skillet. “No one in my family wants to eat it but me. Can you believe that?” he said.
Further bonding over salmon scraps, the fishmonger offered this: “If are no salmon parts on display, call us and place an order. We usually cut the fish on Thursdays. We’ll call you when your order is available.”
Duly noted. I’d just made a friend in seafood and for that, the roasted lemongrass salmon tails tasted extra good that night.
Roasted Lemongrass Salmon Tails Recipe
If you have Vietnamese Food Any Day, you’ll recognize that I’m using the lemongrass and shallot seasonings from the Crispy Lemongrass Salmon recipe on page 117. In Vietnamese, salmon is called cá hồi (“kah HOY”). It’s not a fish that we ate in Vietnam but boy, did we fall in love with it in America! I served these fish tails with đồ chua Vietnamese daikon and carrot pickle plus red chard that had been steam sauteed with some leftover cooked brown jasmine rice thrown in midway. Experiment because the tails don’t cost much and being well surrounded by skin, they easily release well from a rack and the flesh is protected so it doesn’t easily dry out.
Serves 2 generously
2 1/2 tablespoons chopped lemongrass (from a medium-large stalk)
2 teaspoons packed light or dark brown sugar
Fine sea salt
2 tablespoons chopped shallot
2 teaspoons fish sauce, plus more as needed
3/4 teaspoon Madras-style curry powder (preferably Sun brand)
1 1/2 tablespoons canola or other neutral oil, plus more as needed
4 salmon tails, about 1 1/2 pounds total
Make the seasoning paste
In a small food processor, combine the lemongrass, brown sugar, and scant ½ teaspoon salt and grind until the lemongrass is minced. Add the shallot, fish sauce, curry powder, and canola oil and run the machine, pausing to scrape down the sides, until you have a coarse paste. Taste the seasoning paste. You want it a little saltier than you’re comfortable with, so if needed, add more salt, a pinch at a time, or fish sauce in 1/2-teaspoon increments. Set aside.
Slit the fish and season
Using a sharp knife, make two 1/4-inch-deep, 1 to 1 1/2-inch-long slits, about 1 1/4 inches apart, on both sides of each tail. Rub the seasoning paste all over the fish and into the slits. Place on the basket of an air-fryer and set aside at room temperature for 30 to 45 minutes. (Or line a baking sheet for a toaster oven or regular oven with foil and set a rack inside; drizzle a little oil on the tails then set them on the rack.)
Blast with heat and serve
To cook, use high heat. I’ve cooked the tails in my air-fryer toaster oven set to roast at 475F because it’s easier to control cooking than on the air-fryer mode, which can get out of control. That said, if you opt to air-fry, try setting it at 425F. (You may use a regular toaster oven set to 450F or 475F, if you like. Or, use the regular oven’s broiler: position a rack 5 to 6 inches from the broiler element and set the oven to broil. Let it heat up for about 15 minutes, so it’s really hot. It’s hard to harm the tails.)
Regardless, cook the salmon tails for 10 to 15 minutes (use less time for actual air-frying). Midway, when things hiss and the skin has a few browned bits, use a turner and or tongs to flip the fish. At the end, if crispiness is needed, broil for 1 to 3 minutes, until the skin is slightly charred. Monitor carefully to avoid super-blackened skin or burnt tail fins. Remove from the oven and let rest for 5 minutes before serving.
More deals to consider
It’s pho season. Warm up to making your own with the digital version of my fifth book baby, The Pho Cookbook. There’s a $2.99 flash sale going on, says Taste Cooking.
The 2022 harvest of buttery, caramel-y Elliot pecans from Georgia is terrific. I purchase mine from Pearson Farms, which this year reduced its free shipping threshold to $50. Yours truly bought a five-pound bag. I should have ordered more.
I’ve been pondering the Vietnamese immigrant experience in New Orleans and just finished Eric Nguyen’s novel, Things We Lost to Water. The debut book charms and pierces the heart. It would make a great gift.
collars and heads, too! YUM!!!
Wonderful!