Slow roasted salmon with dill sauce
Mon, 5 February, 2018

I don’t have the sous-vide kit or much inclination towards trying one out. Sous-vide textures are certainly interesting but I’m a sucker for the Maillard reaction: no caramelisation, no appetite. Of course not everything should be caramelised but when it comes to meat and fish, that little bit of a crispy skin or the scorched steak surface is a firm requirement.
Bland and pale, sous-vide dishes remind me of baby food albeit harder to chew. I appreciate that all the flavours are locked within, but it’s all a bit boil-in-the-bag, which after all it actually is. And what good is a dish you can’t smell when it’s cooking? No good at all.
Super-low temperatures give quite similar results and they let the smells permeate into the kitchen – a little. I first started experimenting quite a while back, foolishly using my completely unreliable gas oven which couldn’t maintain temperature within 50C. But since I’ve got the brand new electric one which can be set to as low as 30C – and will keep it constant for hours – things got much more interesting.
I low-roasted beef, easy as it only needs to cook up to 55-60C internal temperature. I made low temp pork loin which worked beautifully: the meat stayed moist while cooked through – pork too often dries out too much to my taste. In both cases I seared the meat beforehand for that mouth-watering Maillard effect.
But fish is even better – and easier as it needn’t always be seared, I promise you won’t miss the Maillard in this instance. It tastes a little like poached but it’s not watery. It’s flavoursome – at low temperature just a little salt and olive oil is sufficient to enhance the salmoney taste. It can be served hot, warm or cold and the bed of aromatics (the idea swiped off Samin Nosrat) ensure easy washing up and no sticking. Sous-vide? Nature abhors a vacuum and so do I.
slow roasted salmon with dill sauce
Servings: 4Time: 1 hour
INGREDIENTS
- For the dill sauce:
- 1 cup soured cream
- 1 tsp fine salt
- ½ tsp ground black pepper
- ½ tsp caster sugar
- ½ tsp mustard powder
- 1 tbsp. lemon juice
- ½ bunch of dill, very finely chopped
- For the salmon:
- a bunch of mixed fine herbs: parsley, dill, coriander, basil, thyme
- a side of salmon, skinned and pin-boned (or 4 individual fillets)
- salt
- olive oil
METHOD
1. Make the dill sauce ahead, if possible as it will thicken nicely when chilled for an hour or two. Stir the salt, pepper, sugar and mustard powder into the soured cream; add the juice and dill and mix well. Chill in the fridge at least 15 minutes.
2. Preheat the oven to 110C/100 fan/225F/gas ¼. Arrange the herbs at the bottom of a baking tray large enough to fit the salmon. Season the fish with salt on both sides and place on the bed of herbs, skinned side down. Rub the top surface with olive oil.
3. Roast for 40 – 50 minutes until the flesh flakes easily when prodded with a tip of a knife – even though it will be still almost translucent thanks to the low cooking temperature. Lift the salmon and break into a pile of large chunks on a serving plate or pile mounds on individual plates. Spoon blobs of the dill sauce over the fish and serve with lemon quarters on the side.
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