The horror! The horror! Stephen King recently took to Twitter to share his apparently go-to salmon recipe. It involves a “supermarket” fish purchase, “damp paper towels” and the instruction to “nuke it in a microwave,” and people are responding as if the best-selling horror author just told them to exact brutal revenge on prom night.

Here’s King’s recipe:

And a couple choice replies:

Chef Jose Andres called King’s recipe “a horror movie” and “like the twilight zone” (and then added his own instructions for microwaving salmon), tweeting, “do 1 minute at the time if you use microwave, in and out in and out….and undercooked better! Let the waves heat the water molecules enough to be warm!”

To be fair, some people vouched for King’s salmon-cooking method. Others generously shared alternatives.

But it was the bitter criticism to which the author defiantly responded in a follow-up tweet.

“I have one thing to say to people slagging on my salmon recipe: DON’T KNOCK [IT] IF YOU HAVEN’T TRIED IT,” King wrote.

We reached out to Food Network recipe developer Amanda Neal to get her take on King’s microwaved-salmon hoopla. And? Neal said that, while microwaving isn’t her favorite way to cook salmon, she doesn’t think King’s recipe is cause for alarm.

“It’s challenging to cook any raw protein evenly in the microwave, and a strong fishy smell is almost a given,” she notes. “But you can successfully cook salmon in the microwave for a quick and easy dinner.”

Neal points those curious to try microwaving salmon to this recipe for 10-minute Salmon that her team recently developed. “We rubbed the outside of the salmon with a store-bought Calabrian chile spread, then microwaved it for two to three minutes,” she says. “The result was surprisingly successful and satisfying!” (Be sure to use a microwave-safe dish, Neal says.)

As for the outrage in response to King’s recipe, Neal admits she’s “not surprised” by it.

“Pan searing, shallow frying and even eating raw salmon are all easy to execute and provide great results. Heck, you can even air fry salmon and have a delicious meal,” she says. “So the idea of microwaving can seem silly when there are so many other great ways to cook fish.”

Neal encourages anyone contemplating trying King’s recipe to go for it.

“It might not be the best salmon you've ever made, but it's an easy and quick way to prepare a healthful meal,” she says, adding that you should “definitely take Stephen King's advice and serve with a salad or other veggie!”

Nothing scary about a salad. That’s for sure.

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