How To Broil

For 60 years, The Culinary Institute of America has been setting the standard for excellence in professional culinary education. In this video series, experienced chefs and educators show you how to tackle essential cooking techniques.

Watch this video to learn how to broil a piece of salmon.

Broiling is a technique where the heat source is from above, as opposed to grilling, where the heat source is from below.

A stainless steel oval platter like this is helpful for broiling because it fits inside your oven easily; a half sheet pan will work as well. Were going to brush this piece of fish lightly with a little bit of olive oil. It's okay if you have a little bit of fat underneath it as well; you can use that just to moisten it so it doesn't stick to the pan. Then we'll season this with some salt and black pepper.

The thing about broiling is we're not going to flip this fish; we're just going to let it develop its crust and develop its color, and you can basically slide this right off the sizzle platter onto your plate.

This particular piece of protein is rather thin; it's probably only going to take about three to five minutes for this to finish up. I'm going to go to the oven and place this inside the broiler.

Now my fish is finished: it's got good color on it, and a good little crust on top. With the oil down below, it's easily lifted up off the sizzle platter, and it has great color and great flavor.

So that's how you broil a nice piece of fish.