I’ve made sous vide salmon with frozen wild Sockeye fillets before with pretty good results but tonight was my first attempt with fresh Wild King salmon. I like the taste of Wild King salmon much better than Sockeye but I’ve always been a little leery about vacuum sealing fresh fillets with olive oil because:
- I thought my sealer would smush the fillets.
- My sealer would suck up all the olive oil.
- It takes too much time to vacuum seal my own fillets.
Luckily, I found a post on Tiny Urban Kitchen (love her!) that addressed all my concerns and I ended up with restaurant-quality sous vide salmon fillets without too much effort.
Here’s what I assembled:
- 2 lb center cut Wild King salmon fillet, cut into 5 fillets
- 5 sprigs of fresh thyme
- 6 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil or butter
- Kosher salt
- Freshly ground pepper
Here’s what I did:
Before I came home from work, I asked Fitbomb to freeze the olive oil in small containers so they would be solid when I vacuum sealed the salmon a couple hours later. I asked for an extra container (I only had 5 fillets) just in case I spilled one.
When I returned home, I cut the fillet into five portions and seasoned them with Kosher salt and pepper.
I individually vacuum-sealed them with a frozen cube of olive oil and a sprig of thyme. The olive oil melted pretty quickly so next time, I’ll freeze the oil for longer than 2 hours. Also, I used the gentle mode on my vacuum sealer so it wouldn’t smash the fillets.
Then, I placed my packets in a bowl of ice and popped it in the fridge. I filled up my SousVide Supreme and set the temperature to 125 F and went to bed. (If I’m tossing the salmon in cold salads, I set the temp at 140 F for 40 min.)
When I woke up, I dumped the salmon packets into my preheated SousVide Supreme and let them bathe for 20 minutes.
My in-laws don’t like medium-rare salmon so I seared two of the fillets on both sides (~ 2 minutes each) in some lard over high heat. The flesh side stuck to the pan and makes for an ugly piece of fish. I guess I need to invest in a kitchen torch…
Fitbomb and I like our salmon cooked medium-rare so I just seared the skin side of our fillets.
I’m happy with the results I got cooking the salmon at 125 F. The fillet was super moist and almost custardy. Plus, my picky in-laws ate it up with no complaints. yay! Brownie points for me!
No sous vide machine? Hack one yourself and start making some sous vide goodness at home.