by Wade Wiestling, VP of Culinary Development
Anyone who has watched reality cooking shows in the last 5 years has undoubtedly seen Sous Vide cooking techniques employed. Sous Vide is just a fancy French term for “Under Vacuum”, originally as food packaging technology. Increasingly in this country, in high-end restaurants, experimental chefs are getting creative with sous vide cooking. On TV and in professional kitchens there’s a lot of big fancy and expensive equipment to do this with, vacu-sealers, immersion circulators, temp probes, discombobulators and whatnot. This is not something you would typically see at our resturants as we tend to favor the more traditional and time honored cooking techniques, but it’s fun challenge non-the-less.
Here is my attempt to demystify the mystique of Sous Vide cooking….
For this home version, without fancy equipment, some nice salmon will work fine. It is easier to work with than say, steak or lamb, which requires more time. This is some Wild Alaskan Sockeye, remove the skin, pin bones and bloodline. Two 6 oz. fillets are perfect for two people as an entree….
Liberally douse the fillets with your finest extra virgin olive oil, a generous grind of peppercorn, and a nice flourish of fancy sea salt…
Next, add the fillets to a Ziploc type freezer bag. Use the gallon size, and don’t allow the fillets to touch each other, leave about an inch of space between the two…
This is how we will “vacuum seal” the bag. Submerge the open zipper bag into a pot of cold water, the water weight will displace the air in the bag and seal the salmon fillets in thier place. Push it all the way into the water, being careful not to let any water escape into the bag, using you hands and fingers work to remove all the air bubbles from inside the bag and shake it a bit to let all the air escape before you lower all the way before finally zipping the bag closed…
Voila! Now you have 2 beautifully vacuum sealed fillets of seasoned wild salmon…
This is a meat thermometer I bought at Target a few years back…$9. It has a silicone cord to use in the oven for meats, and the digital readout hangs off the oven door. This is all you need to do Sous Vide at home…
Simply submerge the temperature probe in a pot of water. I like to use a heavy Le Creuset pot because the enameled cast iron holds the heat perfectly. I set the max temp alarm for 125 degrees; I want to keep my water consistently at about 120-123 degrees farenheit. Turn the heat on your water and let it come up to temp, 120 degrees, when it reaches temp, turn off the heat. The heavy pot should do the rest, and let the temp come down a bit if needed.
Perfectly cooked medium rare salmon is at 120 degrees internal temperature. So monitoring the water temperature, apply a little heat if needed for a few seconds, turning it off as soon as it starts rising. Submerge the sealed salmon fillets into the water bath….
Use a spatula to move and circulate the hot water bath from time to time…
I was able to effectively keep the water between 120 and 123 degrees. I guessed about 12 minutes cooking time for 1″ thick salmon fillets at 120 degrees…
At the 10 minute mark…looking good. Water bath at a consistent 121 degrees. You can see some of the fat coagulating in the bag as they cook. Molecular gastronomy and science at work…sshhhhh!
At the 12 minute mark, remove the salmon from the hot water bath and…
Carefully remove them from the zipper bag… be careful, as they are cooked at this point and very delicate…
Now we will put a finishing sear on them. Heat some extra virgin oil over med high heat in a saute pan…
Carefully add the cooked salmon fillets into the hot oil presentation side down (skinned side up). We will only sear these on the one side to give them a little lovely color and a pleasing crispy texture…
After about 3-4 minutes, remove the fillets from the hot oil. You can see the caramelization giving it some nice color and the contrasting texture we are after…
And serve up the salmon… Serve it with whatever suits you, pasta, rice, potatoes, or vegetables. I happen to use some balsamic caramelized apples w/ bacon and a little oven roasted broccoli….
And the money shot… a little Kistler Pinot and perfectly cooked salmon. Sous vide salmon has a drastically different texture than normal salmon. Moist, delicately soft and creamy in texture, the seared exterior on top contrasts the inside texture to a perfect consistency…
Bon appétit! With a little confidence and determination, you too can put out dishes like sous vide wild salmon.
Cheers!
