The Two-Honey Salmon

Here's something most honey companies won't tell you, because it complicates the sale.

Don't cook with your good honey.

Heat is what raw honey is protected from. Put a TA35+ jar into a hot pan and you've spent $27 on something that now performs like golden syrup. The flavour compounds you paid for go first, and the activity goes with them.

So we use two. An everyday honey does the cooking, and a good one goes on at the end, off the heat, where you can actually taste it.

This takes about twenty minutes.

Ingredients

Serves 4

For the glaze that gets cooked

• 2 tbsp Coastal honey

• 2 tbsp soy sauce

• 2 garlic cloves, finely grated

• 1 tbsp lemon juice

• 1 tsp Dijon mustard

For the fish

• 4 salmon fillets, skin on, about 180g each

• Olive oil

• Salt and cracked pepper

To finish

• 1 to 2 tbsp Jarrah TA20+, or Blackbutt TA35+ if you have it

• Lemon wedges

• A few chives or dill, chopped

Method

1. Whisk the Coastal honey, soy, garlic, lemon juice and mustard together in a small bowl. Set it aside.

2. Pat the salmon dry with paper towel, properly dry, and season both sides. Dry skin is the whole secret to crisp skin.

3. Heat a little olive oil in a heavy pan over medium-high. Lay the fillets in skin side down and press each one flat for a few seconds. Cook for four to five minutes without moving them.

4. Turn the fillets. Spoon the glaze over and around them and cook for another two to three minutes, basting as it thickens. It should look sticky rather than burnt. If it's catching, pull the pan off the heat for a moment.

5. Take the pan off the heat entirely. Let it sit for a minute.

6. Now drizzle the Jarrah or Blackbutt straight over the fish. It will loosen from the residual warmth without cooking, and you'll get the toffee and the depth intact.

7. Scatter over the herbs and serve with lemon.

What to serve it with

Steamed greens and rice keeps it simple. A fennel and rocket salad cuts through the glaze nicely. Roasted carrots work if you've got the oven on anyway, and a little of the leftover glaze over those is no bad thing.

Why it works

Coastal is our everyday honey. It's mild, floral and does exactly what a glaze needs, and at $12.75 for 400g you won't wince about cooking with it.

Jarrah is rich and toffee-like, and against soy and lemon it gives you that deep caramel note right at the end. Blackbutt TA35+ is darker again, almost molasses, and it's the more interesting choice if you have a jar open.

The rule holds for almost everything, incidentally. Cook with the everyday honey. Finish with the good one. You'll use less of the expensive jar and taste far more of it.