The Incompetent Chef: Maple-Glazed Salmon

It's Friday and I'm hungry, but since it's also Lent, I can't eat meat, so! I'm turning to a life under da sea. Salmon, shrimp, lobster, clams--I expect to have a little bit of everything for the next several Fridays (well, either that or I just turn to my old standby: pizza). Tonight, after toying with the idea of some fancy Southern-style shrimp, I'll be instead turning up the fryer for some salmon.

I found this recipe online and was immediately lured by the "glaze" aspect. It looks frighteningly similar to my balsamic-glazed salmon (even includes the orange juice!), but with a maple syrup base rather than a balsamic vinegar one, this promises to be more sweet than bitter. I'm intrigued! (also: hungry) And because I have nothing better to do on a Friday evening than wait for my puppy to come home and (cough) finish the redesign of this blog, I'll be giving you every detail along the way!


I'm printing a modified version of the recipe, since I don't have some of the ingredients of the original and I'm curious about how it'll turn out. Let's watch!

MAPLE-GLAZED SALMON
INGREDIENTS:
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
3 tablespoons maple syrup
2 tablespoons fresh orange juice
1 salmon fillets
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

DIRECTIONS:
Combine vinegar, syrup, and orange juice
Pour marinade into a small saucepan; bring to a boil.
Cook until reduced to 2 tablespoons (about 5 minutes).
Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat until smoking.
Season salmon with salt and pepper and cook skin side up without moving, until well browned, 4 to 5 minutes.
Flip fish skin side down and cook until all but very center of fish is opaque, 2 to 3 minutes.
Drizzle with marinade.

5:28 - I'm using Aunt Jemima pancake syrup because I'm too cheap/lazy to get maple. Bad?
5:30 - I spilled vinegar on my computer...
5:33 - sort of ridiculously hard to get syrup out of a tablespoon. I eyeballed it, which never actually bodes well
5:34 - the original recipe says to marinate the salmon for three hours, which I'm obviously not going to do. I don't really think you need to marinate salmon that's going to get a glaze, anyway
5:38 - it's really bubbling and my kitchen smells like syrup
5:40 - I love this salmon recipe because it goes from ingredients to my stomach in 20 minutes--I'm almost completely done already!
5:42 - cheese break!
5:45 - the salmon is really really loud as it cooks, like I am setting off a protein bawm
5:47 - my glaze has the consistency/look of toffee...
5:48 - and I'm done!

How did it taste? Well, I think I must have boiled down the marinade a leettle too much, until it was essentially candy. I coated the salmon with it anyway, and it hardened to a sticky shell that, while it tasted ok, was impossible to chew without ripping out my molars. I think if I do this recipe again, I'll have to watch the marinade closely to be sure it doesn't get too sticky; every now and then there was a soft patch that tasted just lovely--subtly sweet and citrusy--that I think I could replicate.

Image from Cooking Light, because the picture I took with my crappy camera made my salmon look like it had been arrested for drug charges