By — Mark Bittman Mark Bittman By — Megan Thompson Megan Thompson By — Melanie Saltzman Melanie Saltzman Leave a comment 0comments Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/mark-bittmans-recipe-for-cooking-the-perfect-salmon Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Mark Bittman’s recipe for cooking the perfect salmon Health Updated on Jun 23, 2019 9:22 PM EDT — Published on Jun 22, 2019 5:26 PM EDT This recipe is unusual in that it uses only 12 ounces of salmon per pound of pasta (you could use whole-wheat, or gluten-free pasta in this dish) and a pound of leeks, so it encourages plant-forward cooking. It also uses the salmon skin as a garnish, so none of the fish goes to waste. It’s also really delicious. Wild salmon is a well-managed fishery, and its fillets and steaks freeze beautifully for those times you can’t find it fresh. (Generally, the fresh season is spring-to-fall. If you live in the Northwest, you will have a far better shot at getting fresh wild salmon, but it’s available everywhere at least some of the season.) READ NEXT: Future of Food: This genetically engineered salmon may hit U.S. markets as early as 2020 In my opinion, there’s no good reason to ever buy farmed salmon (let alone genetically engineered salmon) and, if you’re cooking at home, you have that choice. There are five choices of wild salmon: King and sockeye, which cannot be farmed, are the best, rarest, and most expensive; coho (which can be farmed, so you have to be careful if you’re looking for wild); and chum and pink, which are also good but mostly frozen or canned (yet still preferable to farmed). Mark Bittman’s Orecchiette with Salmon and Leeks by PBS NewsHour on Scribd Recipe from Dinner for Everyone by Mark Bittman We're not going anywhere. Stand up for truly independent, trusted news that you can count on! Donate now By — Mark Bittman Mark Bittman Mark Bittman is the author of more than twenty acclaimed books, including the How to Cook Everything series. He wrote for the New York Times for more than two decades, and became the country’s first food-focused Op-Ed columnist for a major news publication. He has hosted two television series and been featured in two others, including the Emmy-winning Years of Living Dangerously. @bittman By — Megan Thompson Megan Thompson Megan Thompson shoots, produces and reports on-camera for PBS NewsHour Weekend. Her report "Costly Generics" earned an Emmy nomination and won Gracie and National Headliner Awards. She was also recently awarded a Rosalynn Carter Fellowship to report on the issue of mental health. Previously, Thompson worked for the PBS shows and series Need to Know, Treasures of New York, WorldFocus and NOW on PBS. Prior to her career in journalism she worked in research and communications on Capitol Hill. She originally hails from the great state of Minnesota and holds a BA from Wellesley College and a MA in Journalism from New York University. @megbthompson By — Melanie Saltzman Melanie Saltzman Melanie Saltzman reports, shoots and produces stories for PBS NewsHour Weekend on a wide range of issues including public health, the environment and international affairs. In 2017 she produced two stories for NewsHour’s “America Addicted” series on the opioid epidemic, traveled to the Marshall Islands to report on climate change, and went to Kenya and Tanzania to focus on solutions-based reporting. Melanie holds a BA from New York University and an MA in Journalism from Northwestern University, where she was a McCormick National Security Fellow. In 2010, she was awarded a Fulbright scholarship in Berlin, Germany.
This recipe is unusual in that it uses only 12 ounces of salmon per pound of pasta (you could use whole-wheat, or gluten-free pasta in this dish) and a pound of leeks, so it encourages plant-forward cooking. It also uses the salmon skin as a garnish, so none of the fish goes to waste. It’s also really delicious. Wild salmon is a well-managed fishery, and its fillets and steaks freeze beautifully for those times you can’t find it fresh. (Generally, the fresh season is spring-to-fall. If you live in the Northwest, you will have a far better shot at getting fresh wild salmon, but it’s available everywhere at least some of the season.) READ NEXT: Future of Food: This genetically engineered salmon may hit U.S. markets as early as 2020 In my opinion, there’s no good reason to ever buy farmed salmon (let alone genetically engineered salmon) and, if you’re cooking at home, you have that choice. There are five choices of wild salmon: King and sockeye, which cannot be farmed, are the best, rarest, and most expensive; coho (which can be farmed, so you have to be careful if you’re looking for wild); and chum and pink, which are also good but mostly frozen or canned (yet still preferable to farmed). Mark Bittman’s Orecchiette with Salmon and Leeks by PBS NewsHour on Scribd Recipe from Dinner for Everyone by Mark Bittman We're not going anywhere. Stand up for truly independent, trusted news that you can count on! Donate now