A different kind of low and slow.

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mdboatbum

Master of the Pit
Original poster
OTBS Member
Apr 22, 2011
4,076
371
Washington, DC
No, this isn't smoked but it's one of my favorite meals of all time.
For years I ate overcooked, ruined salmon and thinking that was as good as it gets, washed it down and told myself I'd enjoyed it. Then one day I discovered poached salmon. At first I was just boiling it and the results weren't great. But eventually I figured it out.
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It starts out with one cup of wine, 2 cups of water, lemon (zest, juice and slices), dill salt and pepper. Over the lowest heat your cooktop can muster, bring this mixture to 165f. The slower the better so as to steep the dill and lemon and extract as much flavor as possible.

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Next comes the guest of honor. This is sadly farm raised Chilean salmon, but it was affordable and isn't from some Chinese sewer farm. Seasoned it with Hawaiian Black Sea salt.

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In for a swim in the 165 degree poaching liquid. It took a total of 25 minutes for the fish to reach 145f, for a total of just over an hour including the time for the poaching liquid to temp. I did cover it for the last 12 minutes.

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The result was perfectly done all the way through. No dry outside and raw inside, it was 145 from edge to edge. Sorry I forgot to get a cut shot, but we were hungry.

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And plated with a simple salad of greens, tomatoes and hearts of palm dressed with my new favorite honey Dijon vinaigrette.

Thanks for looking!
 
Very nice. I need to give salmon another try. 1st time wasnt so good.
 
Try poaching it and I think you'll be surprised. The texture is velvety, buttery, moist and tender. It's just really, really good.
 
One of these days I'll have to try my idea of a cold smoke/poach hybrid cooking method.
 
And I just realized I could have reduced some of the poaching liquid and made a Bearnaise (ish) sauce. DOH!! Another thing to try later.
 
Very nice presentation!   I've been considering poaching some of our Salmon but kind of forgot about it until I stumbled across this thread.  With so much Salmon still in our freezers, I'm dying to find other ways to consume it.   How long would you cold smoke it?  I assume this would be done prior to poaching.  Hmmmmmm.

Again, good job.
 
Thanks Cmayna! I was thinking of cold smoking only for an hour or two, depending on the ambient temps. Wasn't thinking about curing it so it would have to be a short one. Not sure how the flavors would play together or if the poaching would eradicate the smoke flavor, but I figured it couldn't hurt to try. Unfortunately last night I didn't remember the idea until after dinner. Such is life.
 
And I've posted this before, but here's the recipe for the honey Dijon vinaigrette:

7T oil. I use olive oil but any light oil will do.
3T Balsamic vinegar
2T honey
2T Dijon mustard
Salt and pepper to taste.
I just dump everything in a half pint Mason jar and shake it. It emulsifies beautifully and never separates. As long as you keep roughly the same proportion of oil, vinegar and mustard you can add any flavors you want.
This recipe might be different from the one I posted before but these are the amounts I used last night and it worked perfectly. I really need to write everything down and standardize, but salad dressing is usually an afterthought and I usually just toss it together on the fly.
 
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Nice..poached is one of my 'go to' ways to enjoy salmon, even though not near my favorite fish to eat at all. We used to poach quite a lot at a restaurant I was at with about the same ingredients as you used. I'm ok with smoked salmon but usually shoot for the 'salmon candy', almost jerky finished product. Poached is great and any leftover can be whizzed up in the FP with some cream cheese and used as a spread or popped in the oven for a hot dip....endless variations......Later, Willie
 
Great stuff. I have one of those fish kettles made to take a whole fish.Got the lift out metal tray( perforated) that sits inside so the fish doesn't sit or stick on the bottom.
All our salmon is farmed in Tasmania but some of our reef fish poach / steam very well.
 
Do I really need a fish poacher or can I simply use a pan deep enough to hold the bath?   I see poachers have the internal shelf to keep the fish off the bottom.  Hate to invest in a poacher for my first poaching experiment.
 
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Case,

Why, why, why did you feel obligated to submit that link?   Now I might need to do two different poached Salmon dishes.....Stay focused Craig
 
Just trying to help you empty that freezer before next season! We do the tinfoil poach camping all the time. Ever have poached Halibut at Elk Camp, yeah that's how we roll!
 
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Funny,  I was thinking how it would be to poach some of our Alaskan halibut.  It's also taking up way too much real estate in our freezers.
 
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