THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO SOUS VIDE SALMON

Bevezetés

Sous Vide Salmon Basics

Cooking salmon sous vide is simple, but we have a few ways to level things up by adding a brine, boosting the flavor, and crisping the skin.

The only downside of cooking salmon (or other flaky fish) sous vide is that the fish becomes very delicate after cooking, which means that you’ll need a little bit of care in handling it to prevent it from flaking before it hits the plate. But it’s a small price to pay for the moistest fish you’ll ever taste.

Traditional sous vide salmon consists of an easy, two-phase cooking process:

1. Pecsételés the fish in a plastic bag and főzés a kívánt véghőmérsékletre szabályozott hőmérsékletű vízfürdőben.
   1. The temperature of the sous vide bath during the initial cooking phase is what determines the final texture of the fish.
2. Browning the fish (if desired) to develop color, flavor, and textural contrast.

If you’d prefer to introduce new sous vide techniques into your arsenal, you can also use the Anova Precision™ Oven to prepare sous vide salmon. Because of the way we’ve designed the temperature sensors and humidity control, the oven will precisely maintain the cooking temperature you set.

You can choose to cook your salmon low and slow in the Precision™ Oven just as you would with a Precision® Cooker, or you can use the oven’s food probe to tell you exactly when the core of your salmon has** hit your desired temp.

Just like traditional sous vide, using Sous Vide Mode in the Anova Precision™ Oven typically is a two-stage cooking process: First, bring the salmon to your desired internal temperature, then brown it on the stove or serve as-is.

Whether you use wild King, Sockeye, Coho, or any variety in between, the best salmon is always the freshest salmon. Look for salmon with firm flesh that is glistening and doesn’t show any indented fingerprints or marks of mishandling. Fresh fish should hold its shape after being touched.

Portioning Salmon

When buying salmon, we prefer to buy larger cuts and cut them into individual portions at home so that we get exactly what we want, rather than letting the fishmonger do it for us. Here are the steps.

1. lépés

Remove the pin bones: Gently run your fingers across the surface of the fish and, unless the fishmonger has already done it or you, you’ll find a ridge of thin, flexible bones protruding from the flesh.

Use a sturdy pair of needlenose pliers, or if you have them, some sturdy fish tweezers, to pull the bones out. Grasp the very tips, then pluck them out by pulling along their length to minimize damage to the surrounding flesh.

Make sure you also get any bones that are protruding from the cut faces along the sides of the slice.

2. lépés

Split the fish down the center along the natural division between the upper half and the belly. (This makes it easier to produce substantial, square fillets instead of long skinny ones.) Using a sharp knife and steady, long strokes, slice through the salmon, making sure to cut through the skin as well.

3. lépés

Divide each of those halves into even 5- to 6-ounce portions. (You can, of course, make bigger portions if you prefer.)

Skin On or Skin Off?

Sous vide salmon skin can be quite delicious if you sear it crisp after cooking. Think of it as salmon cracklings. But if, for any reason, you prefer your salmon skinless (say, you were going to serve it simply poached without searing), there’s a much easier way to get rid of that skin than to try and cut it off before cooking. Just wait until after you’ve cooked it sous vide. The cooking process weakens the bond between skin and meat, making it very easy to peel off gently with your fingers.

Once the skin is removed, you can also very carefully flake off the dark brown flesh underneath if you’d like. There’s no harm in eating it, but some people don’t like the way it looks.

You don’t need a vacuum sealer for sous vide salmon! Because of its short cooking time and low temperature, a regular zipper-lock bag will work fine. To seal a zipper-lock air-free without a vacuum sealer, use the water displacement method. It’s fast, efficient, and custom-made for situations like this.

To do it, simply place your food in a plastic bag and seal the bag almost all the way, leaving about an inch open. Slowly lower the bag into a tub of water, holding the opened end above the water level. As the bag lowers, the water pressure should force air out of the bag. Just before it completely submerges, seal the bag completely and you’re ready to cook.

Hőmérséklet és időzítés

Like eggs, the softly-setting proteins in salmon are extremely susceptible to even minor variations in temperature. The difference between salmon cooked to 120°F (49°C) and 130°F (54°C) is vast. Our personal favorite is 115°F (46ºC): firm enough that it tastes “cooked,” but still extremely moist and buttery smooth with just a hint of flakiness.

Here are a few additional recommended temperatures for cooking salmon:

• Like firm sashimi: 105°F (41°C)
• Soft and buttery: 110°F (43°C)
• Translucent and starting to flake: 115°F (46°C)
• Very moist, tender, and flaky: 120°F (49°C)
• Firm, moist, and flaky: 130°F (54°C)

As for timing, we find that fish can turn watery and mushy if left in the water bath for too long at low temperatures, and dry and chalky above 125°F (52°C). For thinner filets, 30 to 45 minutes is plenty, and for extra-thick filets, 45 minutes to an hour is all you need.

Hagyományos Sous Vide

Sous Vide Express in the Anova Precision™ Oven

How to Cook Sous Vide Salmon, Step by Step

1. lépés

Season the salmon on all sides generously with salt and pepper.

2. lépés

If bagging, place the salmon portions in a single layer inside one or more zipper-lock bags. Add a couple teaspoons of olive oil per fillet to each bag along with some gentle aromatics like thinly sliced garlic and/or thyme sprigs. Do not add large chunks of food that can damage the shape of the salmon, or acidic ingredients that damage the texture. Once bagged, close the bag and let the salmon rest in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes and up to overnight for the salt to firm up the flesh.

If cooking without a bag in the Anova Precision™ Oven, place the seasoned salmon on a rimmed sheet pan, cover and refrigerate as written above.

3. lépés

Attach a Precision® Cooker to a water bath and heat to your desired final doneness temperature or preheat the Precision™ Oven to your desired temperature.

4. lépés

If cooking using traditional sous vide methods, remove all the air from the bag using the water displacement method, then add the salmon to the preheated water bath.

5. lépés

If cooking in the Anova Precision™ Oven, place the salmon on a clean sheet pan. Insert the probe if desired. Place in the oven.

6. lépés

Cook according to the time and temp for your desired level of doneness.

Befejező lépések

Carefully remove the salmon from the bag or the sheet pan using your hands or a fish spatula. Place it on a double layer of paper towels, then use another paper towel to gently blot the surface dry. Discard any aromatics at this point. Remove the skin if desired. The salmon can be served as-is or finished on the stove.

1. lépés

Heat up a thin layer of oil in a cast iron, carbon steel, or non-stick skillet over medium-high heat until shimmering.

2. lépés

Add the salmon, skin-side down, gently pressing on it with a fish spatula so it makes good contact with the pan. Sear until the skin is browned and crisp, about 1 ½ minutes. Flip the salmon and briefly kiss the second side with the pan to give it a touch of color.

3. lépés

Transfer the fish to a paper towel to blot off excess oil. Serve.

A Closer Look at Seasoning Sous Vide Salmon

Many recipes for sous vide salmon recommend soaking it in a salt water brine before cooking in order to season it more deeply and to give it a denser, firmer texture. We tried cooking a few pieces of fish side by side:

• Plain
• Soaked in a liquid salt and sugar brine
• Soaked in a plain salt brine
• Rubbed (dry-brined) with salt and sugar
• Rubbed (dry-brined) with salt alone

For the brined and dry-brined salmon, we tested various brining lengths ranging from 15 minutes up to overnight. We cooked each sample of salmon sous vide at two different temperatures — 115°F (46°C) and 130°F (54°C) — for 45 minutes and then tasted it.

The difference is noticeable, with both the salmon that was water-brined and dry-brined coming out with a firmer, better seasoned, and overall more pleasant flesh. Without any brine, salmon at lower temperatures can taste mushy and watery. At higher temperatures, it will taste dry and chalky. With brine, low-temperature salmon has a smooth, buttery texture and at higher temperatures, it retains more moisture.

We found the sugar in the brine to be distracting, though if you like the added sweetness, there’s no harm in it. We prefer dry-brining to water-brining for the sake of convenience: Aall you have to do is salt your salmon, seal it in a bag, then let it rest before cooking. Half an hour seems to be the magic number where you get a strong brining effect but still keep things moving along in time for dinner.

When cooking things like steak or chicken, we typically don’t add extra fat to the bag — all it does is dilute flavor by removing fat-soluble flavor compounds. With salmon, on the other hand, some sort of fat is essential if you are cooking more than one piece in a single bag. Salmon proteins will bind together when heated while in contact, which means that two pieces of adjacently-bagged salmon can end up fusing into one, tearing and flaking when you subsequently try to separate them before serving. Fat will coat the fish and help mitigate this problem.

With delicate fish, we also generally like adding a few aromatics like fresh thyme. Adding fat to the bag can help the flavor from these aromatics spread around the salmon more easily.

A Closer Look at Finishing Sous Vide Salmon

Sous vide salmon is wonderful seared in hot oil to make crispy skin, served as-is straight from the water bath (or oven), or chilled and sliced.

If you are serving your sous vide salmon straight away for dinner and you enjoy crispy skin, we would suggest searing the salmon skin-side-down in hot fat in a skillet (vegetable oil or clarified butter work well).

For fully rendered and crisp skin, you do need to leave it in there for a few moments — long enough that you’ll start to see some white coagulated proteins around the seared-edges of the salmon. This unfortunately cannot be helped unless you decide to remove the skin completely and cook it separately for serving. (To do this, peel off the skin, then sear it in a pan while holding it flat with a spatula or a second pan.)

Be very delicate when searing sous vide salmon, as it can easily fall apart. A thin, flexible fish spatula will help with this job.

Sous vide salmon is great served cold. At 105°F (41°C), you can slice it and serve it like sashimi, though it will have a unique texture all its own. At warmer cooking temperatures, you can flake chilled salmon and serve it in salads, in sandwiches, stirred into pasta, or on top of rice bowls. It’s a great way to use up leftovers.

The last option is to skip any post-sous vide treatment and just serve it as it, perhaps coating it with a bit of extra-virgin olive oil or with a flavorful vinaigrette or sauce. Sous vide salmon has an incredibly moist, tender texture that we find lovely even without crisp skin or browning to contrast it.