A Canadian Dinner

We have some great Canadian friends staying in Hobart for the next couple of months and they invited us around for their signature dish- Canadian Cedar Planked Salmon.
Unfortunately Cedar is a bit harder to come by in Hobart- but some pieces of maple were substituted.

The plank is soaked overnight in water (to prevent it catching a light- in theory- see below).

Then the salmon fillets are placed on top, ours were liberally coated in a lemon, Dijon and chive sauce and placed directly onto the grill. The BBQ is then covered and the salmon cooks slowly whilst being infused with a slight smoky flavour.

As you can see our experience was a bit more exciting- don’t worry no cooks were harmed during the process!

The salmon was not what I expected- I thought it would produce a texture similar to pan frying- but the salmon literally melted in my mouth. It was one of the best fish dishes I’ve ever eaten. Our friends served it with a dill sauce, steamed pink eyes and asparagus.

Now not that we needed it (especially after great home-made guacamole and oysters as an entrée) they finished us off with a Nigella quadruple chocolate loaf cake. We had seduced them with Nigella (the cook) when they first visited us 5 years ago, and sent a convert off into the wilds of New Brunswick. We hadn’t tried this recipe ourselves- but now we will. Our hosts couldn’t help themselves and actually turned it into a quintuple cake by adding a chocolate ganache! Nigella would indeed be proud.