I’ve been hearing about how good sous vide is as a technique for cooking fish, apparently it is one of those meals you *have to try* if you own a sous vide machine. I bought a Sansaire (https://sansaire.com/) and searing torch in 2015 and still hadn’t gotten around to trying fish. So, to fix this, here is a simple recipe for sous vide salmon. It comes out beautifully buttery and tender at these temperatures – melt in your mouth fish, balanced by a sharp and savory soba noodle salad.
Ingredients:
Salmon
- Salmon portions (deboned and skin off)
- Fresh dill
- Salt
- Olive oil
Sauce
- Olive oil
- Sour cream
- Garlic
- Lime juice
- Fresh Dill
Soba Noodles
- Packet of dried Soba Noodles
- Coriander
- Lebanese cucumber (julienned)
- Spring onions
- Sesame oil
- Ginger (grated)
- Caster sugar
- Soy sauce
Methodology:
Salmon
- Wash salmon and pat dry. This gets rid of any excess fishiness.
- Rub the salmon with a generous amounts of salt, I used Himalayan pink salt because it just happens to be what is currently in the cupboard but any colour of salt will do. Add a few snippets of fresh dill, splash of olive oil and place in zip-lock bag. The oil stops the fish sticking to itself. Remove the air from the bag using the water immersion method. You can also flavor with a bit of dill or pepper.
- Place in water bath at 43°C for 45mins.
… Prepare everything else, have a drink etc…
- Remove bags from water bath, de-bag carefully and pat dry. Do this gently as the fish is fairly fragile at this stage. I found a spatula was much better than tongs in this case.
- Go to town and work out your stress with the searing torch and get a light crust on the top and sides of the salmon. I didn’t worry about the underside of the fish as it was fairly fragile and I wasn’t game to flip it more than I had to.
- Transfer to plate, garnish and serve immediately.
Sauce
- A fresh sauce was made from sour cream, olive oil, lime juice, garlic and shredded dill leaves. Simple add these to a high-speed-blender-thing of your choice and blitz to combine.
Soba Noodles
- This one is based on the cucumber and soba noodle salad on the back of the Hakubaku organic soba noodle packet.
- Cook the noodles as per the instructions, mix ingredients of salad dressing together in a blender.
- Combine the salad ingredients, noodles and sauce in a bowl and mix.
