Start with a cold non-stick skillet (mine is stainless steel, so it occasionally does stick, but I don't like the chemicals on the teflon ones). Sprinkle some coarsely-ground sea salt in the skillet where the salmon filet will be.

Pat your salmon dry with paper towels. Place in the pan skin side down (on top of the salt) and sprinkle the top with salt (more than you think!) and some fresh-ground pepper. You can also add a tiny bit of garlic salt, or paprika, or sometimes I put the tiniest bit of sugar to help it caramelize gorgeously.

Turn on the burner to medium to medium-high and let it start cooking. As the salmon cooks, you'll see the fat beginning to render from the skin and the skin will start to brown, and you'll start to see a more opaque light pink color moving up from the bottom.

When I have a fairly thick piece, I'll often put a lid over it toward the beginning of cooking, just for 1-2 minutes. This helps the middle part cook a bit more evenly, without burning the bottom. It's optional, but I think it helps.

Cook it with the skin side down for 5-7 minutes, looking at the salmon to determine when it's time to flip (thickness of filet matters a lot). When you start to see quite a bit of opaque area, but there's still quite a bit of darker pink on top, that means it's time to flip!

Go ahead and flip your salmon filet, being careful to scrape under the skin to keep it intact as much as possible. Make it a clean flip and don't move the filet around once you've flipped it over---you want it to cleanly sear the top.

The majority of the actual cooking is going to get done when the skin side is down. Once we flip it, we'll only keep it here maybe 2 minutes, just to finish it off. You don't want to overcook it or burn the more delicate flesh that's on the top of the filet. See notes on internal temperature.

Once it's ready to take off, very carefully scrape under the filet and remove it from the pan, flipping it back over and putting it on a plate. Serve immediately. I usually sprinkle a bit more salt on top as soon as it comes off the heat.