Here’s grilled salmon that’s fit for a (fundraising) luau

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, October 3, 2018

MUKILTEO — This year’s Boys & Girls Club luau made history.

The Mukilteo Boys & Girls Club’s 49th annual Hawaiian-themed fundraiser was the last at the club’s longtime home in Old Town.

Construction on a new place for the Boys & Girls Club is expected to finish this month. The 18,000-square-foot building is in Harbour Pointe at 10600 47th Place W. It will be named The Shin Center in honor of former State Sen. Paull Shin, who served for 15 years in the Legislature. It is set to open in December.

“It is bittersweet,” said Mukilteo club director Chuck Davis, who has worked there for 46 years. “A lot of memories down here; a lot of kids have gone through.”

Saturday’s Boys & Girls Club luau was held at Hawthorne Hall, where the club has been housed since 1961. The former grange hall, built in 1925 at 1134 Second St., is listed on Mukilteo’s Register of Historic Places. The 5,000-square-foot building needs costly repairs and is considered too small for the 1,800 youths the club serves.

The annual fundraiser, sponsored by the Taylor family, features a salmon dinner and live and silent auctions. It helps keep membership costs affordable — just $30 a year per kid, Davis said. This year’s event raised an estimated $100,000, he said. It’s the second-best fundraising luau in club history, David said.

Tim Taylor still laughs about the inaugural luau in 1969, when they had their first and last pig roast.

“Every year, we talk about the first luau,” said Taylor, whose family helped pioneer Mukilteo. “We’ve passed the story on from generation to generation.”

Brothers Ed and Dick Taylor, owners of Taylor’s Landing, now Ivar’s, were given a pig by a family friend. When it got to be 200 pounds, Ed and Dick decided to host a fundraiser.

The Taylors roasted the pig in the ground, Hawaiian style. They dug a pit, built a fire, covered the coals, added some rocks, buried the pig, added some water and let it steam.

They had it all figured out — except for how long to cook the pig.

With a 200-pound pig, you need to give it a good 12 to 14 hours underground. The ancient cooking technique was unfamiliar to the brothers, and with no internet to consult, they guessed at the cook time.

Tim, Ed Taylor’s son, estimates they cooked it for about half the required time.

Needless to say, when Ed and Dick dug up the pig, it was still raw.

So the brothers buried the pig again to cook it longer. Two hours later, they checked on it again. The pig still wasn’t done. They buried the pig again, only to dig it up an hour later and find that it still wasn’t cooked.

When they realized the pig was a bust, Ed and Dick brought back salmon for the luau instead.

“We know how to cook salmon way better than we know how to cook pig,” said Tim Taylor, who was running the family’s landmark restaurant when it was sold to Ivar’s.

The luau has featured grilled salmon ever since.

Taylor’s salmon

Here, former restaurateur Tim Taylor — who still has his Boys & Girls Club membership card from 1965 — shares his family’s recipe for grilled or baked salmon. It is served at the Mukilteo Boys & Girls Club luau and by the Kiwanis Club of Mukilteo at the Mukilteo Lighthouse Festival every year. Now you can make it at home.

3-4 pound king salmon fillet

Melted butter

Johnny’s seasoning salt

Black pepper

Fresh dill

Fresh rosemary

Lemons

Canola oil

Make a long “boat” for the salmon fillet out of aluminum foil. Double-fold edges and pinch at the corners. Sides should be 1-inch high. Drizzle foil with Canola oil to keep fish from burning. Place the salmon, skin-side down, in the middle of the foil boat.

Drizzle with melted butter and squeeze lemon juice to taste. Sprinkle black pepper, Johnny’s seasoning salt, dill and rosemary to taste.

On the grill: Place foil boat on grill heated to 400-450 degrees. Cook, with the grill top down, undisturbed, until the salmon just starts to release its fat (opaque mayonnaise-like stuff) and/or the flesh flakes easily, about 10 to 15 minutes for most 1-inch-thick fillets. Allow another 10 minutes for each extra inch of thickness.

In the oven: Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Place the foil boat on the middle rack and bake for about 15 minutes, or until fish is opaque in color. If using the finger test, cook until the salmon is firm around the collar.

Cut fillet into salmon steaks (about 6 ounces each). Garnish each steak with slices of lemon. Serve salmon with garlic bread, corn on the cob and Ceasar salad. Steamed clams and/or clam chowder also recommended.

Serves 6 to 8.

This article has been edited since it was first posted to correctly identify Jim Pauley.