The Only Way to Bake a Salmon

Baked salmon holds a nostalgic key to my heart. Most weekends growing up, my family would unwrap wax-papered parcels of fish from Zabar’s, the Upper West Side’s holy land of Jewish appetizing shops. And every Yom Kippur break-fast involved the full spread: fluffy cream cheese, smoked whitefish, sliced tomatoes, juicy Greek olives, and whatever outlier succeeded in catching my mother’s eye—like a welcome but out-of-place ball of burrata.

Maybe it’s sacrilege to prefer it to peppered lox (the Kramer house favorite), but lightly smoky baked salmon has always been the one for me. I pile it on buttered toast, give it a squeeze of lemon, and swoon. This soft and supple version bears very little resemblance to the many other baked salmons of my youth. Listen, I never turned down the broiled, Soy Vey–smothered salmon we ate for Shabbat dinner (that’s every Friday night for those of you unfamiliar—yes indeed, every single Friday). But who knew that lowering the oven temp makes all the difference in the world?

This low-and-slow method is the way to bake a salmon—a little more time to dedicate, sure, but barely. Plus this salmon dish shines at any temp; it’s just as much a star set out cold for breakfast as it is served straight from the oven for dinner.

Two Ways to Help You Know When Your Salmon Is Done: 1) The color changes from dark to light when cooked—the center will cook through last. 2) When you press (gently) on the salmon, it should visibly flake from the pressure. Err on the side of undercooking—you can always pop it back in.

This recipe, and others like it, can be found in the article “This Is the Only Salmon You’ll Ever Need, Plus Other Dishes from L.A.’s Hottest Modern Middle Eastern Restaurant.”