Salt-Grilled Salmon (鮭の塩焼き, Sake no Shioyaki)

Salt-grilled salmon looks almost too plain to need a recipe. That's the trap. A plain dish has no little curtain to hide behind, so the freshness of the fish and the way you use salt decide everything. If autumn gives you akizake, the returning salmon at its shun, use it. If not, buy the cleanest skin-on fillet you can find, glistening fresh and smelling of almost nothing.

The first salt is not seasoning in the ordinary sense. It draws out surface moisture and a little of the fish-heavy scent that makes poor salmon announce itself too loudly. Wipe that away, then salt again lightly before the grill. The first salt cleans and firms. The second salt seasons. It sounds fussy until you do it once, then it seems like the sort of thing a sensible person should have guessed.

After that, the dish asks for heat and attention. A hot grill sets the skin before the flesh dries, and the salmon should come away crisp at the edges, moist at the center, with nothing hidden under sauce. We set it beside rice, miso soup, pickles, and a small mound of grated daikon. Honmono can be as spare as this: fish, salt, fire, and the discipline to stop there.