Barbecued Salmon
At Barbecue University, grilling master Steven Raichlen shows students how to prepare flavorful, perfectly cooked meals on the grill.

In this video, Steven Raichlen teaches students to how make Francis Mallmann's Salt-Crusted Chicken -- the signature dish of renowned Argentine chef, grill master and television personality, Francis Mallmann. The preparation of this dish is fairly simple, but the outcome is a unique culinary and visual experience. After cleaning a whole chicken, Raichlen rubs the outside with garlic and lemon. He removes the leaves from bunches of rosemary and thyme, places the sprigs in the chicken's cavity, and sprinkles the herb leaves on top. It is the next step, nine pounds (yes, nine) of kosher salt are mixed with about two cups of cold water, giving the salt a slushy, snow-like consistency. The chicken is then sandwiched between a one-inch bed and a heaping "igloo-like" wet mound of the salt.

Before you start clutching your heart for fear of sodium overload, rest easy -- this salt will turn into a hard crust, which serves, above all, to seal in moisture. Though Mallmann cooks his dish in a wood-burning oven, Raichlen has had excellent results using the indirect grilling method, and replicates the smoky flavor by tossing wood chunks onto his grill's coals. The most exciting part? In order to serve this bird, you'll have to crack the thick salt crust with a heavy instrument -- such as a mallet, rolling pin or heavy cleaver. This is a dish that will most certainly impress guests.

Raichlen then plates the chicken with a Country Salsa, which is most often served alongside grilled meats in Latin America. Unlike many fiery, spicy salsas out there, this recipe includes no hot chiles or cilantro. Another salsa that would go nicely with the chicken is Raichlen's Salsa Verde.

In addition to baking this fantastic chicken dish, Raichlen demonstrates how to smoke a piece of salmon. He first gives it a briny coating with a spice rub. For the rub, he uses two parts brown sugar to one part coarse salt (he recommends kosher or sea salt because they dissolve more slowly than regular salt), and works in finely chopped dill, black pepper and powdered mustard. For two of Raichlen's recipes that include similar ingredients, see Salmon with Mustard Glaze and Planked Salmon with Mustard and Dill Sauce.

Get Steven's recipes from this video:
-Francis Mallmann's Salt-Crusted Chicken
-Country Salsa

Steven Raichlen, America's "master griller" (Esquire), is the premier teacher, evangelist, and all-around expert on the art of live-fire cooking. His eight Barbecue! Bible cookbooks include three national-award winners, two that have sold over a million copies, and six chosen as Main Selections of The Good Cook. The third season of his show, Primal Grill, seen in 95% of PBS markets, is scheduled to run in Summer 2010. Previously he hosted four seasons of PBS's popular series Barbecue University at the Greenbrier, now available on DVD, and now teaches seasonal sessions of Barbecue U at the Broadmoor in Colorado. Articles by him appear regularly in Food & Wine, Bon Appetit, and other magazines and newspapers. He lives and grills in Coconut Grove, Florida, and Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts.