How 2.0: Sous Vide Wild Salmon

No surprise, but some of the first wild Copper River salmon to hit Dallas was served at the Mansion on Turtle Creek on May 17, which was the first week of the CR salmon commercial fishing season. Chef Bruno Davaillon slow roasted the King fillets, then teamed them with spring peas, morel mushrooms and a dollop of truffle butter, all bathed in a light mushroom broth. Was it good? Yes, but surprisingly not revelatory; sort of like a new used car.

This weekend, I cooked Copper River salmon at home for some friends, and it was New Car good.

As you probably know, I’ve been playing with my Sous Vide Supreme nonstop since December. If you’ve watched Food Network in the last few years–or eaten at The Mercury–you’re probably familiar with the restaurant technique that involves low temp cooking of foods sealed in plastic bags. The vacuum part of sous vide (which means “under vacuum”) isn’t so important–the vacuum just ensures that the plastic contacts the food surface so that the heat of the water bath can be uniformly conducted to the food.

If you don’t have a Sous Vide Supreme, you can achieve a similar effect (for this dish, anyway), by filling a heavy pot with 125 F water, monitoring the temperature with a thermometer, and turning on the burner if the temperature drops a couple of degrees.

Here’s a filmstrip, like in grade school years ago. You’ll need to supply your own beep.

I started with two fillets of CR salmon, about 5 ounces each. Beep.

A glug of extra virgin olive oil, a couple turns of black pepper, a sprinkling of sea salt.

The fillets go into a gallon-size Ziploc freezer bag, which is large enough to keep the fillets from touching each other. To get the air out of the bag, use science: submerge the open bag in a pot of cold water, which will squeeze the air out of the bag, then seal it when the water gets close to the top--yes, I could have used a FoodSaver, but this made a better foto.

Close enough to a vacuum seal for this dish.

The water in the Sous Vide Supreme is set for 125 F. The salmon will bathe in the water for about 10 minutes, which should give me med-rare fish.

Here's the salmon after 10 minutes in a 125 F water bath.

The salmon comes out of the Ziplock and goes into a hot saute pan with a big glug of evoo. I'll sear the cooked salmon for about a minute, just long enough to give it a golden glow..

To the plate, with creamed spinach and butternut squash leftover from a meal at Perry's Steakhouse. Sous vide salmon has a moist, creamy, delicate texture from slow cooking. Mine had a nice seared crust from finishing in the saute pan.

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