Salmo-Loco: Crispy Salmon Loco Moco in 8:25

This salmon loco moco is 4 ingredients and one carbon steel pan, and the clock stopped at 8:25. Recipe first, because you came here to cook, not to read about my childhood.

The recipe

Time: 2 min prep · 6 min cook · Serves: 2
Free stuff (doesn’t count toward the 4): oil, salt, pepper

Ingredients

• 2 skin-on salmon fillets
• 1 tbsp unsalted butter
• 1 tsp soy sauce
• ½ tsp smoked paprika (or chili crisp)
• Free: 1 tbsp high-smoke-point oil (avocado, canola or grapeseed), kosher salt, black pepper

Steps

1. Dry the skin. Scrape the skin with the back of your knife to squeeze out the water, then pat it dry with paper towels and season both sides with salt and pepper.
2. Heat the pan. Put your carbon steel pan on medium-high, add the oil, and wait until it shimmers but isn’t smoking yet.
3. Sear and press. Lay the fillets in skin side down and press each one flat with a spatula for 10–15 seconds, otherwise the skin curls up and only half of it gets crispy.
4. Don’t move it, but keep pressing. Drop the heat to medium and cook for 4–5 minutes, until the cooked line is about ¾ of the way up the side. Don’t slide it around, but DO press down on each fillet with the spatula every 30 seconds or so, because the skin needs full contact with the pan to get that crisp.
5. Flip and glaze. Flip the fillets onto the flesh side, then drop the butter, soy sauce and paprika into the side of the pan.
6. Baste. When the butter foams, tilt the pan and spoon it over the fish for 30–60 seconds.
7. Plate it skin side up so the crisp doesn’t steam away, and eat it right away.

On the clock

The clock started with whole ingredients on the counter and stopped when the first fillet hit the plate, at 8:25. Full disclosure, most of that time is step 4, where you’re just standing there listening to the pan sizzle and pressing the fish down every so often.

Why I call it a salmon loco moco

I love Hawaiian culture, and I love a loco moco: rice, a hamburger patty, a fried egg and gravy over all of it. This is my take on it, where the patty becomes crispy-skin salmon and the soy-paprika brown butter does the gravy’s job. The speedrun is just the salmon, but if you want the full plate, frying a runny egg only takes a couple more minutes, and you can do it in the same pan while the fish rests. Throw everything on a bed of rice and you’re done.

Make it a full loco moco (+2 min): 1 egg, fried runny · 1 scoop of cooked rice.

Tasting notes

A gulp of the Pacific, minus the sand.
Crispier than el chicharrón.
And moister than a wet handshake.

Verdict: oomameh. The calm kind, not the scream.

Why it works

• Scraping beats patting. The back of the knife squeezes out water that paper towels can’t reach, and if you only take one thing from this recipe, take this one, because dry skin goes crispy and wet skin steams.
• Press down, and press often. Salmon skin shrinks and lifts off the pan as it cooks, and any spot that isn’t touching the steel stays soft. If you press it back down frequently, every inch of skin gets full contact and goes crispy.
• Carbon steel holds its heat when the cold fish hits it, so the skin sears instead of sticking. Cast iron works too, and nonstick gets you there with less crackle.
• Glaze after the flip. If you add the butter and soy early, they burn; added for the last minute, they turn into a brown butter that clings to the fish.

Swaps

• If you don’t have smoked paprika, use chili crisp, and it still counts as one ingredient.
• If you can’t find skin-on salmon, skin-on trout works, and you can cut about a minute off step 4.