The Cheapest Way To Bread Salmon Is Also The Crispiest

You can't swing a dead cat in the digital food-verse without hitting a dozen recipes that claim to contain the ultimate secret to the crispiest, crunchiest, most ethereally shattering breaded dish. If you're a trusting individual, you may have given up on pledging your allegiance to a single method, overwhelmed as you are from all the convincing recipes out there. When it comes to homemade fried chicken — which is still basking in the spotlight of the fast-food chicken sandwich wars — one person might tell you to use a flour dredge or get out, while an equally venerable source might swear by cornflakes.

With so many options, how does one choose? If you ask us, switching things up is way more fun than sticking to a hard-and-fast rule; life is short and should be filled with an eclectic array of crispy foods of various shapes, sizes, and textures. At the risk of adding one more superlative to your list, you might want to skip the panko the next time you're craving crispy fish and use brioche instead. 

Adrienne Cheatham's cookbook "Sunday Best" features a recipe for baked salmon with a crispy brioche topper, an idea she picked up from her time at the NYC seafood restaurant Le Bernardin. Unlike crispy fish recipes that involve some sort of creamy layer between the breading and the fish — such as Ali Slagle's sour cream and onion fish, which, for the record, we love — Cheatham's method doesn't require a middle layer. 

Instead, that white stuff (also known as albumin) that leaks out of your salmon fillet after it's cooked serves as "the perfect glue for toasty brioche." The best part? It doesn't require buying a whole lot of ingredients.

When sliced very thinly and trimmed to fit a skinless salmon filet, the light and buttery French bread gets nice and golden brown in a pan with butter, vegetable oil, garlic, and thyme, which also serves as a basting liquid for the fish. When the bread is toasted and it's ready to flip, Cheatham sticks it in the oven to finish the cooking process. 

When testing the recipe, chef Adrienne Cheatham found that brioche wasn't the only bread that worked as a one-ingredient layer of crispiness. "I've tried everything: white bread, wheat bread, snapper, halibut, striped bass," she told Epicurious. "I've never met a bread that didn't work well with this, unless it's something super crumbly, like cornbread."

With that in mind, this recipe provides the perfect opportunity to experiment, whether you want to go hunting for ingredients or use what you already have in the fridge. If we were having you over for dinner, we might try it with brioche and a flaky white fish, such as cod, or even a more delicate one, such as Dover sole. Then again, the irregular pockets in a slice of sourdough could allow the buttery pan sauce to spend extra time with the fish. 

The possibilities are endless, which makes Cheatham's recipe a great one to keep in your back pocket.