Novacastrian said:
That looks AWESOME!!! Kudos to you and an honorable mention to TB!
By the way.....any thoughts on side dishes for that work of art? I'm kinda hooked on saffron rice and asparagus here lately.
How should I cook salmon?
- Thread starter Nova
- Start date
That looks AWESOME!!! Kudos to you and an honorable mention to TB!
By the way.....any thoughts on side dishes for that work of art? I'm kinda hooked on saffron rice and asparagus here lately.
Nova!! My man!!! You brought all of the hot, blue, and righteous AND the foo!!! Gorgeous piece of fish and the sauce looks divine. Jump back and kiss 'yo 'sef two times!!
Man....I keep coming back just to visit this dish...
Great job, Nova!!
Great job, Nova!!
being Scottish, i love salmon, & that looks fantastic! only difference is i'd cut the green shoots out of the garlic cloves as they're bitter & impair the flavour...try it....& always fry the fish skin-down first!
apart from that, it's lookin' good...
apart from that, it's lookin' good...
Baaaaaaahhhhh!Cooking salmon...I'll show ya'll...go to Drunken Chef...
texas blues said:
SAMMICH!!!
Looks like a nice creation. I like cooking and improving, so I quite like if people give some constructive criticism and maybe some tips from their experiences with that same produce for next time. Maybe you don't, but then others might want to know and you can just skip this post. But since you said you will be cooking it a lot here are some tips for next time:
You sure have chosen a nice piece of salmon there. Good! That's half the work done. Skin still on there is a bonus. From what I can judge from the picture it has a nice color and some decent marbling (this is a good thing. Salmon is a fat fish and that fat holds some good flavour).
If you have a nice fresh fillet with the skin still on there the best way to prepare it is to pan fry it. We're definitely on the same page here. It's not really a rule but I think it brings out the flavour well. You could naturally poach it or put it in the oven if you want to do something different.
The way I recommend (It's based on the assumption that you like crispy skin since you put some flour on there. So at the risk of sounding like a plonker/moron... here we go):
Seems like you have a really good quality stainless steel pan there, good because that's what this method requires. No teflon guys! (Well you can, but I just hate it. If you do use teflon then don't heat the pan that high nor long, because you will ruin it and it will release toxic fumes in your kitchen. Mmmmmmmmmmm! Oh and if you scratch the pan you'll get cancer, but other than that teflon is fine.).
Heat the pan on full wack for a few minutes, no butter yet, because it will burn and fill your kitchen with smoke. Test if it's hot enough by dropping some water from a fork. If the drop makes a sissing noice and evaporates the pan isn't hot enough. If it pearls up and starts rolling around the pan like crazy, then the pan is ready. Before you do anything else, tone down that heat to at least 50% and maybe to even 30% of it's power, depends on your hob and how well done you like the salmon. In my case less is more. (You can fry at-least-inch-thick steaks in a pan like that with no additional fat if you have a good pan. Just remember to never peal them off, but wait until the pan releases them by itself when they're brown enough.)
Fry the fish skin side down in some real butter for 3/4 of the cooking time. Clarified butter is best against burning. With normal butter wait a just a few seconds longer before adding it unless you like smoke and a bittery burny taste. That way the skin will become crisp and there will be no need to remove it since it will be nice to eat as well. Use a bit less butter than is currently in the pan with the Habs, because you want crisp skin. You could do the same as you did but take the habs and some of the fat out and put it to the side. Turn the fish over with a fish slice and let it cook for the rest of it's time. (I'll continue below the 2nd photo).
I wouldn't really put flower on any fish (unless a "sole meunière" ofcourse). That practice stems from the time pans weren't really good ... thickness and weight is everything here
Well apart from heat conductivity. The reason why I wouldn't do that is because the cooking time of fish isn't long enough to eliminate the taste of the flour (takes about 20 minutes to do that), so your fish will taste a bit of flour. I'm guessing you did that because you like the fish to be a bit crispy. With the method described above you'll have your crisp without the floury taste.
You overcooked the fish a bit though, for my taste at least. Since you seem to be agreeing with that above I'll share a trick with you. No worries, overcooking something can happen to everybody. He who doesn't take actions, never makes mistakes and vice versa.
I'll continue with the preparation: You've just finished pan frying the fish. This will only have taken a few minutes. Make sure its still a bit pink inside (a little more raw than you'd like to eat). Put it on a plate with some tinfoil over the top, normally I would put it on the counter to rest, but since the preparation of the sauce takes a bit longer in this case I'd put it in a very low oven. To let the fish rest and not to cook it, so adjust the temperature. The fish will continue to cook itself either way, because the meat is quite warm since we've given it some proper heat action. When we're finished it should be nearly opaque, little bit pink in the middle, but with lots of moisture in it. While the fish is resting, make your sause with the habs, maybe sauté a little shallot with the habs as well. Just make sure you let them become only translucent, don't brown them as they will be to sweet. Eat! That's the most important part: eat and enjoy.
There's an easy way to determine if fish is ready other than looking at its color (the outside will be opaque and the inside can be somewhat pink, with good quality salmon that's heavenly). You can push the fillet lightly on top and on the sides. It should bounce back a little. Chefs teach a way to determine how well done a piece of meat is, but since salmon is a really dense fish, it kinda works with salmon as well. Just be a bit more gentile (don't break it!).
(Yeah sorry for the copy paste
This method is not really secret, but for some reason it's not mentioned that often in books. I think it should be featured in every book that teaches cooking (for beginners or not).
If you cook salmon (same goes for meat as well) a few times, you will know how you like it and your fish (and meat) will be perfect every time.
So just don't be tempted to reduce the sause with the fish in it.
Hmmm, in hindsight I had better rephrased some sentences. Maybe I get a bit too excited over food sometimes... because I can already hear some giggles from the Homo Sapiens Sapiens Pubescence species, or ... age category.
I'll stop rambling now.
Michael
Novacastrian said:
You sure have chosen a nice piece of salmon there. Good! That's half the work done. Skin still on there is a bonus. From what I can judge from the picture it has a nice color and some decent marbling (this is a good thing. Salmon is a fat fish and that fat holds some good flavour).
If you have a nice fresh fillet with the skin still on there the best way to prepare it is to pan fry it. We're definitely on the same page here. It's not really a rule but I think it brings out the flavour well. You could naturally poach it or put it in the oven if you want to do something different.
The way I recommend (It's based on the assumption that you like crispy skin since you put some flour on there. So at the risk of sounding like a plonker/moron... here we go):
Seems like you have a really good quality stainless steel pan there, good because that's what this method requires. No teflon guys! (Well you can, but I just hate it. If you do use teflon then don't heat the pan that high nor long, because you will ruin it and it will release toxic fumes in your kitchen. Mmmmmmmmmmm! Oh and if you scratch the pan you'll get cancer, but other than that teflon is fine.).
Heat the pan on full wack for a few minutes, no butter yet, because it will burn and fill your kitchen with smoke. Test if it's hot enough by dropping some water from a fork. If the drop makes a sissing noice and evaporates the pan isn't hot enough. If it pearls up and starts rolling around the pan like crazy, then the pan is ready. Before you do anything else, tone down that heat to at least 50% and maybe to even 30% of it's power, depends on your hob and how well done you like the salmon. In my case less is more. (You can fry at-least-inch-thick steaks in a pan like that with no additional fat if you have a good pan. Just remember to never peal them off, but wait until the pan releases them by itself when they're brown enough.)
Fry the fish skin side down in some real butter for 3/4 of the cooking time. Clarified butter is best against burning. With normal butter wait a just a few seconds longer before adding it unless you like smoke and a bittery burny taste. That way the skin will become crisp and there will be no need to remove it since it will be nice to eat as well. Use a bit less butter than is currently in the pan with the Habs, because you want crisp skin. You could do the same as you did but take the habs and some of the fat out and put it to the side. Turn the fish over with a fish slice and let it cook for the rest of it's time. (I'll continue below the 2nd photo).
I wouldn't really put flower on any fish (unless a "sole meunière" ofcourse). That practice stems from the time pans weren't really good ... thickness and weight is everything here
Well apart from heat conductivity. The reason why I wouldn't do that is because the cooking time of fish isn't long enough to eliminate the taste of the flour (takes about 20 minutes to do that), so your fish will taste a bit of flour. I'm guessing you did that because you like the fish to be a bit crispy. With the method described above you'll have your crisp without the floury taste. Novacastrian said:Fini
You overcooked the fish a bit though, for my taste at least. Since you seem to be agreeing with that above I'll share a trick with you. No worries, overcooking something can happen to everybody. He who doesn't take actions, never makes mistakes and vice versa.
I'll continue with the preparation: You've just finished pan frying the fish. This will only have taken a few minutes. Make sure its still a bit pink inside (a little more raw than you'd like to eat). Put it on a plate with some tinfoil over the top, normally I would put it on the counter to rest, but since the preparation of the sauce takes a bit longer in this case I'd put it in a very low oven. To let the fish rest and not to cook it, so adjust the temperature. The fish will continue to cook itself either way, because the meat is quite warm since we've given it some proper heat action. When we're finished it should be nearly opaque, little bit pink in the middle, but with lots of moisture in it. While the fish is resting, make your sause with the habs, maybe sauté a little shallot with the habs as well. Just make sure you let them become only translucent, don't brown them as they will be to sweet. Eat! That's the most important part: eat and enjoy.
There's an easy way to determine if fish is ready other than looking at its color (the outside will be opaque and the inside can be somewhat pink, with good quality salmon that's heavenly). You can push the fillet lightly on top and on the sides. It should bounce back a little. Chefs teach a way to determine how well done a piece of meat is, but since salmon is a really dense fish, it kinda works with salmon as well. Just be a bit more gentile (don't break it!).
(Yeah sorry for the copy paste
This method is not really secret, but for some reason it's not mentioned that often in books. I think it should be featured in every book that teaches cooking (for beginners or not).
If you cook salmon (same goes for meat as well) a few times, you will know how you like it and your fish (and meat) will be perfect every time.
So just don't be tempted to reduce the sause with the fish in it.
Hmmm, in hindsight I had better rephrased some sentences. Maybe I get a bit too excited over food sometimes... because I can already hear some giggles from the Homo Sapiens Sapiens Pubescence species, or ... age category.
I'll stop rambling now.
Michael